Alright so I’m looking at buying a ‘93 Toyota Corolla automatic, I’ve already given them a deposit and going there tomorrow to pay the rest. There’s a few things wrong with it, but it comes with 6 months rego. I thought it was a steal for $1500 aud. I’ve only just moved up to where I’m living now and I had no idea that it’s not only illegal to sell a registered car without a safety certificate but that I can’t even transfer it into my name without one, and the seller of the car has to either provide it or deregister it before selling it.

The simple things like the high beam bulb blown and rear wipers not working are easy enough but I’m almost certain it’s not going to pass the roadworthy check with the transmission problem it has so I’m leaning towards having to explain the situation to the sellers and apologise and request the deposit back. But I wanted to get some advice from you lot in case it’s something simple that I can fix for them to be able to pass the roadworthy/safety certificate.

So, for some reason when trying to chuck it into drive, it doesn’t go anywhere. If you chuck it into 2 or L, it takes off fine and then you can shift back into drive and every other gear works fine. So it’s like it doesn’t have 1st gear in drive?? The people selling it are in their 80’s and were not very helpful or knowledgeable at all and the only thing she could tell me was that it started happening when she had the shifter replaced. I’ve checked all the fluids and everything has been well taken care of and serviced/documented so it’s not that the tranny fluid is low. Also when the car is in parked sometimes it won’t start and you have to put it into neutral to start it.

Ive spoken to my dad who’s usually pretty good with this stuff and he said it sounds like whoever replaced the shifter did the linkage slightly off (??). Then he started saying it sounds like even though the selector says it’s in drive it might actually be in neutral. I get what he’s trying to say but then I asked him if it’s actually in neutral, how come once you hit first gear in 2 or L can you then go into drive and it drives and not be in neutral and he was like, huh, good point, dunno. Thanks dad. He said once I go back tomorrow to try and pull it down out of drive ever so slightly (not go all the way into 2) and see if it drives? I’m so confused.

Is it any possibility that the linkage or whatever is out? I know it’d just be a simple lug nut and adjust ion process if it is, but it just doesn’t make sense to me that “drive is neutral” when you can still shift back to drive after initiating first with either 2 or L.

Man I really like this little car and I want to make this work and I’m really hoping it’s nothing serious.

Any ideas what the hell could be going on?