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Key is stuck in Ignition

52K views 51 replies 36 participants last post by  jimmartin515 
#1 ·
I had trouble tonight trying to shift into Park. I kept trying and trying and finally it went into Park. Now my key will not come out of the ignition. It will turn from I to II but not all the way counterclockwise so that I can remove the key. Also, I can not start it in Park. The Engine & Steering Wheel Light stay on.

Anyone else having this trouble?

Hopefully nobody will steal the car, the key is in the ignition, until I can get it back to the dealer.
 
#2 ·
I had trouble tonight trying to shift into Park. I kept trying and trying and finally it went into Park. Now my key will not come out of the ignition. It will turn from I to II but not all the way counterclockwise so that I can remove the key. Also, I can not start it in Park. The Engine & Steering Wheel Light stay on.

Anyone else having this trouble?

Hopefully nobody will steal the car, the key is in the ignition, until I can get it back to the dealer.
Not sure how its designed but there may be a cable that runs from key lock to shifter that is out of joint. My big benz had that problem.
 
#3 ·
I had trouble tonight trying to shift into Park. I kept trying and trying and finally it went into Park. Now my key will not come out of the ignition. It will turn from I to II but not all the way counterclockwise so that I can remove the key. Also, I can not start it in Park. The Engine & Steering Wheel Light stay on.

Anyone else having this trouble?

Hopefully nobody will steal the car, the key is in the ignition, until I can get it back to the dealer.
Do a search on this site. A number of people have had this problem. Take it to your dealer ASAP.
 
#5 ·
Posted by WCOCHRAN on 6 Feb:

Here are the symptons. I cannot take the key out of the ignition. I can start it with the key, but it is stuck. When the lights are not on, the P will not light. When they are on, it is on. I can only start it in N, after I shift it from P first. When I open the doors, there is only one beep to remind me of the key in the ignition. I cannot shift into the manual mode either, the shifter will not move to the left to do this. I can put it in P, R and N after it starts. I can shift it from N to P after I get it started.So, I have to leave the key in the ignition after I shut it off and cover up the shifter and ignition with something so nobody see the key in the ignition. Then I use the second key to lock it up. I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else.
 
#7 ·
You know what I was just thinking.... they made a special transmission "selector" for us so that we were more "familiar with it." Is anyone else getting tired of the rest of the world dumbing things down for the US market? Is anyone else tired of stereo-typical Americans giving the rest of the world reason to think that? ANYWAY... I digress...

I'm under the impression that the rest of the world gets a different gear selector than we're getting here... The normal unit simply has a +, -, N, and R. Similar to what we test drove during the smart road show tour.

The reason I'm bringing this up...

Would we be having these problems if they had just left well-enough alone and made us adapt to the way they make the selector in all other markets? Wouldn't it have been much easier to just have a button near the ignition that you push in while turning the key like my manually motivated Maxima? Instead, they had to make a new linkage or cable or system to make the key inextractable (can we make this a word quick?) when the "gear selector" was in "American P". Guess what people are reporting issues with? Guess what's PROBABLY delaying us all from getting our smarts?

Besides, I've been hearing that the "P" isn't really a "Park" anyway... I've heard people say you're still supposed to use the parking break like a normal manual car. Ugh... it's so confusing. They try to make it easier on us by making it "familiar" to what we're used to. Shouldn't it work the same then, too?

"See... we made it look just like something you're all familiar with... but it doesn't work anything like that..." nice.


I'm so frustrated by this whole thing. C'mon Ford, GM, Toyota... bring us a car to buy... we're ready, willing, and able to hand over thousands of dollars for your smallest car idea. You could probably design, produce, and deliver by the time my smart gets 1500 miles inland from the dock at this rate (since I haven't even heard if it's being made yet, and I "reserved" 10 months ago, "ordered/configured" 3 months ago).

Time for bed... Sweet Dreams everyone!
 
#9 ·
I agree Minny, what is even more disturbing is the single disk dry clutch that has some type electric actuator to emulate a clutch pedal. They were to cheap to put in a fluid coupled torque converter like a normal automatic. I just found this clutch spec and for this reason I will probably cancel my order that was placed way back in early May
 
#11 ·
DOT shift sequence requirements

Here's a section of the DOT requirement for shift sequence:

S3. Requirements.

S3.1 Automatic transmissions.

S3.1.1 Location of transmission shift positions on passenger cars. A neutral position shall be located between forward drive and reverse drive positions.

S3.1.1.1 Transmission shift levers. If a steering-column-mounted transmission shift lever is used, movement from neutral position to forward drive position shall be clockwise. If the transmission shift lever sequence includes a park position, it shall be located at the end, adjacent to the reverse drive position.
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/fmcsr/fmcsrruletext.asp?rule_toc=777&section=571.102&section_toc=2069
 
#14 ·
My '64 Olds had a column shift automatic that went P-N-D-2-1-R. I believe these cars were the reason DOT came up with the rules. 'Mericans were too stupid to adapt to anything new. Too many people dropping it into "low" and punching it. Ooops. That was reverse.

It pains me to say it.
 
#17 · (Edited)
I took my smart into smart center bloomfield today, 02/20/08, and fixed my "key stuck in the ignition" problem.

Over the past week to week and a half, it has been sometimes difficult putting my shifter into park. I would have to go 'for' and 'aft' with the shifter a couple of times before it would slide into park. Yesterday afternoon was one of those days not going into park. I ran the shifter through the range R N D and back. About 4 or 5 times until it finally went in. But it went in easily. All of a sudden the shifter moved more freely through P R N D.

It turns out a plastic component shattered in the shifter. And one tiny piece of broken plastic, with grease lubricant, stuck to the cam barrel of the ignition switch. That little piece would not fall off which prevented the key from rotating to home position for removal.

Smart center bloomfield removed the shattered plastic, removed the little piece on the ignition cam barrel and replaced the broken plastic component.

After driving the car around town tonight the shifter works even better than before. It goes EASILY and FREELY to and from the park position.

Thank you smart center bloomfield for the quick repair of my smart.

Mark (Bob_Parr)
 
#22 ·
After driving the smart for a day since the fix. The shifter goes easily into park and feels much much better than before.

Why did it shatter... me trying to get it into the park position over and over. Before it broke, the shifter would not glide into park. Now that I look back at it, it felt like something wasn't aligned properly. And by me trying to get it "INTO" park a few times took its toll.

I haven't driven a manual transmission since 1983 and when I would put the gear shift into 1st gear for parking, sometimes it would be difficult to get it in. The smart felt the same way and I would play with it to get it into park.

So my advice would be if it feels difficult to get into park I would take it to the dealer to see if something needed adjustment or realignment.

Mark (aka Bob_Parr)
 
#24 ·
they are already in the process of recalling the cars to the dealerships for inspection. although, it's not an official "recall" and nobody is saying those words. when they called me back yesterday (for the second time) and asked me to schedule an appointment for a PDI inspection, i asked what this was all about. they are definitely talking in circles as we have seen on many other things with PAG and SmartUSA. he would only confirm that they want to look at the shifter...

i'm guessing that this also explains the delay in getting all of those cars that have been sitting in port for months to the dealers. i would guess that they are adjusting/repairing all of these things before they leave the US port now so they don't have to pay each dealer for an additional repair once they receive the car.
 
#26 ·
Cable clamp.

Had a chat with the service manager at Smart Bloomfield MI.

The problem was a few NA 451s did not have the shifter cable retainer tight. Our shifter is unlike the Euro model and this was a production learning curve glitch.

Yes, this was the hold up at docks. They re-inspected every car to be sure the problem was fixed. :)

A2Jack.
 
#28 ·
I've had mine for 3 days and today I can't get the key out of the ignition. I was fortunate that I had looked at the forum and took my extra key with me. I'm a little pissed-seems this is more than just an occasional problem. Smart should be a little more proactive about this issue
 
#31 ·
We had a similar problem. After about the first week on owning our smart I started to notice it becoming difficult to press in the button to shift. It didn't do this all the time though. I didn't mention it to my wife and she didn't notice. She is the primary driver. I read the thread about this problem and kept it in the back of my mind. Today (ironically while heading to out first ever smart rally) my wife had problems with it. I talked to another person at the rally that also had this sort of problem and decided I would take the car in to get looked at first thing in the morning. We did some shopping and the problem became worse. When we got home we couldn't get it into reverse or park. We called our dealer and smart road service to have the car towed. While on the phone my wife managed to get it into park. We waited well over an hour for the tow truck and finally decided to give it another shot on our own. Once again we played with the button. It looked like it wasn't going to budge, then suddenly, shifted smooooothly. WAH? Then we drove to the dealer hoping we wouldn't have to shift into reverse along the way.

In our case it's definitely something with the shifter button. They're going to check it out in the morning. I'll let you know then what they say.
 
#32 ·
We had a similar problem. Today (ironically while heading to out first ever smart rally) my wife had problems with it. I talked to another person at the rally that also had this sort of problem and decided I would take the car in to get looked at first thing in the morning. .
Wow. Interesting, but not surprising. Hope they get a new one in for you right away.

http://clubsmartcar.com/index.php?showtopic=14231
 
#33 ·
In general, I'm starting to wonder how torture-tested the smart 451 was. There are a *lot* of issues coming up. When MB brags that the new C-class was driven upteen trillion miles before the new one was released... is there any word if the fortwo benefitted from the same experimentation? I'll have been out of my car for at least 5 days before I get mine back for another issue. Lots of love, but beginning to worry.
 
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