F1 gearbox failure or am I missing something obvious?

Got into my new (for me) '06 430, turned to position 2, and lo and behold, though CHECK OK flashed, the car wouldn't start, and I noticed a "dead feel" in the brake. It was then I noticed the car was in first gear. "Hmmm" me thinks, did I accidentally hit the upshift lever in my starting process? No problem, I thought, I'll just take the key out and start over. A few minutes with the owners manual later, I'd learned about shifting gears while the cars parked, etc. I read the part about getting the car into neutral by pulling back both the upshift and downshift levers at the same time, but alas, after doing that for ten seconds, the red "F1 gearbox failure" light went on and buzzed at me. I tried it once or twice more (parking brake on, parking brake off), but still nothing (though no other warning lights are on)....Am I missing something obvious, or did my car at rest suddenly experience gearbox failure at 2500 miles? Apologies if I've missed this thread elsewhere, thanks for any insight, it's finally gotten below 90 degrees here and I was SO looking forward to drive the car I've only had a few weeks and driven a couple hundred miles.

 

I ~did~ hear a click-click (akin to popping your tongue) noise when I turned the key to -0- position, which tells me the shifter was trying to do something.

 

i tend to not think it's the battery, as every other indicator is fine...shortly after the car arrived, the "check engine" (yellow symbol) came on, and i took it into the dealership, expecting to have them replace the battery (hey, this is mid-'09, it's an '06)...but they charged the battery overnight, said it still had plenty of juice but must've sat too long at the dealership, it was transported, etc...it started a week ago just fine...but the inability to get it out of 1st gear into N is an oddity...i've owned the car a month, and now i guess this will be its second trip to the local service dealership, which is never a convenient thing...sigh...i got used to this with the mondial-t, but was hoping to avoid this type of hassle with an effectively new 430...please God, don't make me wind up with a mercedes SL ;-D

 

the red button got nothing, but i don't think it's the battery...is the "immobiliser" the emergency brake? i've tried starting the car from an emergency brake engaged/brake NOT engaged status, and still the foot brake feels "dead" as if the entire car does not want to respond...yet, the dashboard indicates a healthy car, and the "check" light says OK...i even tried switching from sport to race and the car 'recognized' that switch...problem was when i press "start" it doesn't do anything, as if to say "Hey moron, you can't start this car in first gear, you need to be in neutral or you'll fly into the front of your garage!"

 

no, the car's in first gear-- that's the problem, i am trying to get it into neutral so that the car will start....today i am going to cut the master switch and hope that this is a case of a frozen up personal computer that defies all logic till you unplug the darn thing and then plug it back in....

 

OK...I did the battery disengage trick, waited a few minutes, re-engaged battery, entered in security/radio code, put in key, turned to position II, waited 10+++ seconds, and....it didn't change a darn thing...Now, I'm on to the last chance, which is putting on the battery tender...The "good" sign is that the little "meter reader" light on the tender shows the signal for a less than fully charged battery...Once it gets up to full charge, I'll try the process again...I hope that does the trick, though if it does, so help me, I will call the Ferrari service tech and ask him why he didn't change out the battery for a new one the first time like I asked him-- a car sitting only 5 days should NOT be long enough to take a battery out for the count...But, we shall see...an undercharged battery fixed with a tender is a helluva lot better notion than having this thing towed out of my garage with an incline driveway. =:-0

 

After removing the other suspects, the problem was addressed-- apparently the brakes didn't have enough "oomph" or whatever in them, so I was advised to not only put my foot on the brake, but put it on HARD....then when pressing the start button, the ABS issue or whatever was recognized, the car went into Neutral, and voila'! she started up!

Thanks for the tips from everyone, one more mystery solved!

 

I had pressed my foot on the brake (amongst other things like tugging my earlobe and whistling a happy tune) but it had not taken the first time...It was only after a ~hard~ pump that the car recognized it. I am beginning to wonder if something else might be at work, because when I got the car out last night for a drive, the 'failure to go to neutral' situation presented itself again just after stopping to get gas. Heretofore, the car has just registered neutral when the key went to position II. Anyway, I suppose I'll get the car in sooner or later, as for some reason the stereo just cut-out at one point, so I'll have that looked at soon enough (though it was fine this morning).

 

appreciate the thoughts, i will schedule a visit...i need to get the directional thingy-dingy adjusted anyway, it is sometimes failing to go off when a something less than a 360-turn is completed...