This is really backwards, isn’t it? The ice warning is designed to alert the driver to road conditions cold enough for ice to form and cause a skidding risk. But in your case, the opposite is happening and the car thinks it’s freezing outside whenever the temperature creeps up to 28. This would make most mechanics think that the temperature sensor that reads the ambient temperature has gone haywire and is telling the onboard computer lies.

Either that, or the vehicle is selecting the ice and snow driving mode on its own behalf, and that’s what’s limiting your engine speed. That wouldn’t be dependent on the ambient temperature reaching 28 degrees, however. But if the ice and snow driving mode is part of the problem, you could have a faulty switch or even a problem with the car’s body computer. An auto electrician is your best bet.

When you look at how the Park setting works in an automatic transmission, you can see how this could happen. Basically, Park is engaged by a small pin that (typically) slides into the transmission’s output shaft and locks it, preventing the shaft from turning and effectively locking the drive wheels.

The problem is that the Park pin (also called a pawl) is almost comically small for the job it has to do. The point being that Park pawls have been known to fail, at which point, the car will be free to move if the park brake isn’t applied.

Best practice when parking an automatic car is to stop where you want to park, but leave the transmission in Drive and apply the foot brake. Then apply the park-brake, take your foot off the brake and let the park brake take the weight of the car. Then select Park. You’ll still have the security of being in Park, but you won’t have the car’s weight resting on that little park pawl.

For a start, it’s never a good idea to drag a car anywhere with the wheels, hand-brake and steering locked. You can damage anything from the transmission, steering column, driveline and even ruin (flat-spot) the tyres.

If the clicking noise when you drive it wasn’t there before, then a mechanic would suspect that there’s been damage done to the front driveshafts. This would be consistent with the car being forcibly dragged along the ground. If you’re worried, have a mechanic check the car over and send the repair bill to your (now possibly ex-) housemate.