hiya im a new member to this site and have a few questions about my car so any help would be really appreciated and thanks in advance for any help.

my first question is, what is the difference between a shift lock soleniod and a lift solenoid.

in recent weeks my car has had alot of difficulty going into gear, its been clunking quite badly goin in and sometimes it takes a long time to go in at all.

i took the car to a garage who scanned it diagnostically an the guy told me that the car was in emergency mode and as such the car was clunkin into gear because of a problem with the shift lock solenoid. the garage said they would fix the problem for me if i suplied the part however after calling the audi dealers and trying to order the part it turns out that the have no idea what the part is and the only thing they can think it may be is a lift solenoid.
i dont want to order the wrong part but i need to know if there the same part or completely different!

the car is a 1998 audi a4 2.4 auto tiptronic thing

 

nobody???? im realy desperate to sort this problem out, also forgot to mention that all the prnd234 display on the dash is illuminated all the time