Transmission falling out of Drive on downshift, blinking, displaying "shift to P" and back

[Vulpes]

It is safer to remove the negative terminal. The reason is that if you accidently touch the positive battery terminal with a metal tool while you are working, the tool is grounded to the negative terminal through the chassis and a big spark and boom is going to result. If the ground is disconnected and you do the same thing, nothing happens. With the ground disconnected the only way to get a spark and boom is to bridge between the positive terminal and the negative terminal.

I am a curious guy, and only have access to my own experiences. Have you run across many automotive consumer lead-acid batteries that blew up? Or recently?

 

[theblet]

Is there a resolution to this? It’s a 6+ year old problem

 

[Snekpete]

Is there a resolution to this? It’s a 6+ year old problem

No, there is currently no known fix.

 

[theblet]

That unbelievable.

 

[Wicked1]

2019 Ram Laramie 1500 4x4 93k miles

Had the issue happen to me Saturday while rolling to a stop sign and thought nothing of it, was thinking maybe just a fluke. Same thing happened Tuesday morning, you guessed it, going to a stop sign. Have to stop, shift to park, then back to drive and it runs fine after that. Very discouraging reading the comments and realizing there isn't a fix for this. Making me want to trade it in before it gets worse.

 

[wardfly]

Did you ever find out what is causing this? We recently changed the can-bus that corrected the park assist and service shifter codes, but it recently had this same issue with "shift to park." I was also rolling to a stop sign, then began to accelerate to turn onto a highway when it happened. The first time happened at the same spot, also rolling stop then entering highway.

 

[MucktheGhost]

I was experiencing this issue. Rolling to a stop, applying the brakes, the truck would 'ding' and the display would indicate 'brake...park...drive...". This happened about once a day lately, sometimes more than once. Because it was cheap and easy, I tried cleaning the throttle body first. Removed it, sprayed it, cleaned all black residue with Q-tips. Put it back all nice and shiny. It's been three weeks and no recurrence. My theory is that the built up gunk around the valve disc restricted enough to cause momentary rough idle while stopping. In the zero position, there isn't much opening for airflow. I'm no mechanic, but that seems reasonable to me. What doesn't seem reasonable, pardon my ignorance, is why Ram would program the transmission to drop out of gear when the engine has rough idling.

 

[Angel City]

I was experiencing this issue. Rolling to a stop, applying the brakes, the truck would 'ding' and the display would indicate 'brake...park...drive...". This happened about once a day lately, sometimes more than once. Because it was cheap and easy, I tried cleaning the throttle body first. Removed it, sprayed it, cleaned all black residue with Q-tips. Put it back all nice and shiny. It's been three weeks and no recurrence. My theory is that the built up gunk around the valve disc restricted enough to cause momentary rough idle while stopping. In the zero position, there isn't much opening for airflow. I'm no mechanic, but that seems reasonable to me. What doesn't seem reasonable, pardon my ignorance, is why Ram would program the transmission to drop out of gear when the engine has rough idling.

I can confirm the same happy results! After cleaning the butterfly valve I have zero issues anymore. Easy fix! Just bought a used 2019 Ram 65k miles. Was ready to lemon law until I read this whole thread. Thanks for all the smart work from everyone on this post. Saved me a big mess of trouble.