The other day, my exaust pipe came loose, right behind the cats. When this happened, the car will not shift when it is in drive. It will shift into reverse, and park, but when in drive, it will not shift up or down when i accelorate. I fixed the exhaust today, and it is still doing the same thing.

Another thing, the transmission gear indicator in the dash has all gears highlighted now, instead of the gear you are in.
please help.

1995 a6 wagon with 2.8L

 

Very interesting, as yesterday, my 1995 2.8 A6 Avant refused to shift out of 1st gear. However, I don't have all the dash lights lit up.

Any help out there?

 

there is no relate between exaust pipe and transmission. i suspect this is the clutch problem

 

Did it damage any of the cables/wires then the exhaust fell off? It is very odd that it happened exactly after the exhaust falling off. You should check to see if it damaged any wires when fell off.

 

If you have an automatic transmission, the broken exhaust may have damaged the neutral safety switch and or wiring. The transmission position indicator in the instrument panel is wired to this nuetral saftey switch on the transmission.
You may want the BentleyPublishers.com Audi shop manual CD, if you want to do the repair yourself.
For your year A6, the ATF must be change every 45,000 miles.
There also may be other wiring, which got damaged by the exhaust leak.
However, it could be just coincidence that the transmission won't shift.
Is your wagon FWD or AWD?