HELP ! I wen't in the store today, came back out and put the key in the ignition and key won't turn at all. rocked it back and forth and nothing. turned key over and nothing. will not turn in cylinder but will work in door locks on outside.lubed it with wd and nothing. had to give up after an hour and AAA came and towed it home. I have never had a car do this in my 33 years of driving. anybody know what is wrong. thanks.

 

were your wheels "locked" in a turning position? Do you have a spare key for the ignition? That should have a "chipped" key, perhaps it's a malfunction with the part of the key or part of the ignition system that "reads" the key electronically.

 

 

Yeah sounds like a cylinder to me too. They're pretty easy to install if you can get the cylinder. You may as well change the passlock sensor too because you can't buy the key cylinder without the passlock sensor at the dealer. I just replaced this on my '05 Malibu Classic which is the same on '00-'05 Montes. The dealer can key the tumblers to your key too.

 

thanks for the info everybody. I had to have my baby towed and now it looks like gm will be a little closer to not going bankrupt. I can not believe there are so many problems with this. I have three old cars {19-41-42 yrs.old} and they all have original keys and cylinder. if I replace the cyl. myself I still have to go to gm and have something reset I think. any lawyers here that wantto fight gm for me?

 

Sorry to hear that. I just did mine last year.

 

No you don't. Your security system will do a relearn on itself when you plug the passlock sensor back in. All the dealership needs to do is key the cylinder to your current ignition key. After that when you plug the passlock sensor back in you need to turn the key to "on" (it won't start because of the passlock system) and wait 10 minutes until the security light either stops flashing or turns off. At that point, cycle the key off and your car should start right up. Like I said though, you can't buy just an ignition cylinder, it comes with the passlock sensor too I believe. Check on that. So if it does come with a new passlock sensor, you may as well replace your current one. If I lived closer I'd help you out with it because I just got done doing it on my '05 Malibu Classic.

 

thanks. I just talked to a bud that is a gm mechanic and he said if we get the key to turn then it is alot easier to replace the cylinder he said then the passlock will have to be reset I sure appreciate the heads up on how to do that. so today i'm back at it tapping with a hammer to try to get it to turn

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Also try brake clean. That will sometimes work it out too. WD-40 collects a lot of dirt so that may not work as well. Not sure if dirt would be a big factor, but you never know.