A bad neutral safety switch can cause your vehicle to become a useless brick. On today’s modern automobiles, there are three primary locations that you’ll find it. This writeup should will help you find where a neutral safety switch is located in no time.
The neutral safety switch will often have the reverse light circuit wired into it as well. Keeps that in mind.
Neutral Safety Switch Locations
Automatic Transmission with Column Shifter– On a column shifted vehicle with an automatic transmission, the neutral safety switch is typically located directly under the shifter in the column. It’ll plug right into the vehicle wiring harness.
Automatic Transmission with Floor Shifter– If your shifter is mounted to the floor, the neutral safety switch will either be attached to the transmission itself (usually attached to the input arm) or it’ll be directly under the shifter. In GM applications, it’s usually on the transmission.
Manual Transmission– A manual transmission neutral safety switch is really a clutch safety switch. It is located on the clutch pedal. It’ll look a lot like a break light switch.
It allows the vehicle to start in any gear, but only when the clutch is pressed in.
What does a neutral safety switch look like?
Here are a few examples of what a neutral safety switch looks like. We recommend heading over to Amazon and looking up the neutral safety switch for your vehicle. They’ll have a super clear picture of the exact item you are looking for.
How do I know if it’s time to replace a neutral safety switch?
Neutral safety switches do go bad. If you are wondering if yours is, there’s a pretty decent writeup on this site that can help you diagnose symptoms of a bad neutral safety switch.
Basically, if the vehicle starts in any gear, you know that the neutral safety switch is bad. It gets tougher to figure it out when the vehicle won’t start at all. It can feel exactly the same as a bad starter. Good luck with your vehicle!