Key Stuck in Ignition

I picked up my '00 A4 last week and was loving every minute of it until my key got stuck in the ignition tonight. I remembered reading about this on the forum, but didn't remember seeing any solution. After a few minutes of dicking around, I figured out what was wrong. Even though my Tip was in Park, it wasn't "really" in Park. The release button was out but not "all the way out". Anyway, I don't know how I got the Tip into this false Park position and I was unable to repeat it when trying. Luckily, I didn't resort to pulling the key out with brute force--was about too.

Just thought I'd share this so if it ever happens to you, you'll know what to do (take it out of Park and put it back in until it catches). Other than this incident the car kicks ass, love it.

That happened to me a few weeks after owning the car. We called Audi Assistance, and they told us to lightly tap the top of the shifter. The release button popped out, but it was nerve racking as it was a new car. It hasn't happened since.

Exact same thing happened to me approx. 1.5 weeks after taking delivery. Problem was
exactly as stated here, that the release button for the shifter wasn't fully disengaged. I managed
to disengage it by shifting into drive and then into the Tip shift gate...popped right out as soon
as I went to the right.
Does anyone else share my opinion that this problem is related to the Tip function specifically? I had been driving in Tip mode just before it happened.

I didn't put it all the way in park so the button didn't pop out. I almost tried to yank
the key out with full force! That wouyld've been a mess. Good thing I decided to
try putting the shifter in park again.

-AlexD

This happened to me over the X-Mass holidays. See my previous post at that time. I used an alternate key to lock the car while the first was stuck in the ingition switch. The problem ultimately resolved itself two days later, but has reoccurred twice since then. The problem is, in fact, with the shift lever and the park position. The button does not always pop all the way out. Just moving into and out of park is not always enough. On the last two occasions it took some rather violent pounding on the lever to finally get the button to come all the way out. I picked up my '00 2.8QTip on 7 Dec. '99, so it was only a few weeks old when it first happened.