What a week this has been lol, so im going to start the car up today key wont turn to acc or on, wheel isnt locked, starter just will refuse to turn, anyone else had this problem? ive tried wd40 for the keyhole, and a list of all the ususal suspects, when I push the button in on the shifter with the key in I can see it jiggle, if you know anything please post, its a 2002 3.4 ls...


Kz

 

Rock the car back and forth - forward and back. I'm not sure how it plays into it, but it has helped me start cars in the past.

 

Does anything work on the car? Sush as the headlights?

I can tell you from experience if the battery goes, so will everything else. You will not be able to turn the ignition to off, let alone remove the key.

Just a little added information.
Even though the headlights or taillights light up it is still possible to have a bad battery.

If you have a battery charger hook it up to the car for a few minutes. That should throw enough charge in to the battery to turn the ignition to off.

Providing this is your problem?

 

This is when the starter bendix (the gear on the end of the starter that engages the flywheel and turns the engine over) sticks in to the flywheel.

Rocking back and forth frees the bendix up so the starter can now be used.

 

just locked the wheel, rock that sucker! dont get jerk it, do it forcefully..like a push

 

this exact same thing happened to my 02. had to replace the ignition cylinder and passlock. for now try wiggling key up and down while trying to turn. the dealer will need to match new cyl. to your key and then the car will need to relearn the new passlock. had about $150.00 in it.

 

try turning the steering wheel to the left when putting the key in and turning


do you happen to have a lot of key's on your key chain??

 

Yea Jeff2425, I had to do the same, the hardest part was to drill into the ignition cylinder to get the tumbler to just pop on out. Went to O'Reilly and got the new one for 145.00 put it in and did the 30 min passlock code of the off to on, I guess im just glad that it happened to me in my driveway, I would have been in a big situation if it had been at my college. (I was supposed to drive that day but my buddy said he wanted to.. weird how stuff turns out like that)

 

nice job !! I had to get my car towed home from wallymart when mine went bad.

 

i know this is an old thread but it was the first one to pop up in my search. My 03 decided to give my husband some issues tonight. we had to hot wire my fans for a temp fix because my pcm is bad and wont allow my fans to turn on and im tired of it overheating or not going anywhere where i know it will overheat. he gets everything hooked up trys to start the car and the battery was dead from testing the fans to make sure wire wouldn't overheat. recharges battery starts the car and lets it run for a bit. shuts it down puts the dash back together, shuts the hood and when he went to start the car the key wouldn't turn. the steering wheel is not locked. i can turn the tires the whole way from side to side. the dome light wouldn't come on and it wouldn't have the continuous ding when the door was left open. we had to do something because it was halfway out of the garage and a storm was coming and the windows were down. if i pushed slightly in on the key the dinging would turn on notifying me my door was open. My head lights would work and so did my power mirrors. if you tried to turn the key at all it would not work. there has never been any sign at all that it was going bad. so i told my husband to tear my dash back apart to where he had it before. after we got my cover off i stuck the key in the ignition and it turned. i have not put the cover back on yet for fear it would do it again. i will do that tomorrow after i replace a part behind my heater controls. does anyone know why it would have done this?