Patent ID: 8322245

Claim:
A shift lever apparatus comprising: a housing within a vehicle body in a three dimensional space constituted by an X-axis, a Y-axis and a Z-axis, the Y-axis being leftward and rightward directions of the vehicle body; a shift lever including: a shift lever base member extending in a Z-axis direction within the housing, and including a shift shaft extending substantially parallel to the Y-axis, the shift lever base member arranged to pivot about the shift shaft in an X-axis direction, and a shift lever movable member with a knob, and arranged to move between a first axial side and a second axial side in the Z-axis direction of the shift lever relative to the shift lever base member, the shift lever arranged to move from a reference position that the shift lever movable member is on the first axial side at a middle position of the X-axis direction, through an N-position that the shift lever movable member is on the second axial side at the middle position of the X-axis direction, to one of a pair of positions on both sides of the N-position in the X-axis direction; an urging member arranged to urge the shift lever movable member to the first axial side toward or away from the shift lever base member; and a detent pin provided to the shift lever movable member, the detent pin extending substantially parallel to the shift shaft of the shift lever base member, the housing including a guide groove arranged to guide the detent pin along the Z-axis direction so as to guide the shift lever movable member only from the N-position to the reference position when the shift lever movable member is on the second axial side.