Cannot diengage tape heads . transport will not play or record but will rew and fast forward

l would have a look inside to see if when a tape is inserted it loads and will ff and rew, if the transport that moves the tape has failed it will account for what is happening.

There is a cam system in the transport and they need to be lubricated. It might cost more than $100 to fix. Sometimes the gears have rounded off teeth that you can not get anymore.

When's the last time it was cleaned? It surely needs it now.

Never touch the any part of the transport that directly contacts the tape with bear fingers.

This sounds like a failure of the take-up (left) reel to take up slack as it's fed in by the capstan.

You can probably trust the machine to fast forward or rewind a tape to test the ability of the reels to manage slack since either action only requires one reel to pull while the other just coasts. Failure would look like stationary tape that eventually would time out and reset the command.

If it won't do fast transport motions that eliminates the capstan/pinch roller.

If it CAN FF and REW then the capstan, pinch roller, heads or something is probably glommed up with sticky tape oxide, which brings us back to the first question.

There should be a rewind button on the front of the main unit (usually indicated by either REW or 2 arrows pointing to the left), this should be next to the fast forward (again indicated by either F-FWD or 2 arrows pointing to the right) as well as PLAY and STOP - for the VCR. The only thing you would need the remote for is to set the clock and/or perform setup for the DVD player as well as timer recording. Try a universal remote which will make fast forward, play, stop, record (to VHS) and rewind easier.

Your video head is dirty and so the pictures are seen with noise while it is fast forwarded or rewound.
You need to remove the tape door cover and carefully clean the head tips using a good spray on the tips head, DO NOT TOUCH OR USE ANY HARD MATERIAL. Using a head spray or a head cleaner you can use a paper softly along the head not to press hard but to wipe off the ferrite or fungus clogged on the head.
warning : the head is delicate and a wrong wipe can damage it. there are tiny slots on the head at the bottom where the tips are seen.

Clean Idler unit it is magnetism and clean sensor it will work

If you are recording the tapes in a slow speed, then I would suspect that the tracking pulse is not being recorded properly. Since this is a new VCR, return it for an exchange. One of the recording heads is bad.
Dan

Sometimes this is due to the tape not being pinched between the capstan and the rubber roller.

Make sure there is no slack in the tape when you put it in the deck. See if you can observe the tape going down over the capstan on the correct side.

If this isn't the problem, then the mechanism that engages the capstan roller may not to be working. In most cases, the rubber roller is mounted on the same mechanism that moves the record-play head against the tape. If this mechanism isn't moving, that would cause the problems you describe.

Better tape decks, like Pioneer, may use a different mechanism for record/play than FF & REW. So it sounds like a belt or mechanical link for the REC/PLAY has failed.

Though not familiar with this model, VCRs of all sorts have an idler mechanism which drives the supply and takeup spindles. Either the idler is somehow defective and slipping, and, assuming this idler is belt driven, the belt may be slipping just enough to cause a no Rew/FFW condition. If you had access to a test tape jig (a clear dummy tape, which allows a tech to view what is happening in the area normally obscured by the loaded tape), this might give a clue as to what is happening. On alot of machines, a problem with Rew/FFW would also mean a tape takeup problem in standard play, result in tape spilling out inside the machine. Sensors would catch this condition and go into a error mode, as yours is doing. One other thing which might be happening here, is the pinch roller not being disengaged from the capstan in the Rew/FFW modes. I think this is where I'd look first, and you can probably see if such is happening just by pulling the cover off the VCR. The pinch roller is just to the right of the rotating video head. In the play and forward/rev search modes it will press the tape up against the capstan (a rotating shaft). When in Rew/FFW, the pinch roller should be pulled back from the capstan, maybe 1/4 inch or so. Whatever the case, repair will likely take someone tech savvy. Costs might not be economically justified, with the low-cost, disposable rigs sold in the last 10+ years.