Hey people, this happened to me about 2 months ago and im just curious as why it happened.

Left work, everything was fine, pulled into a parking lot and i turned the key to shut the engine off and it kept running. i was able to turn the key and take it out of the ignition and it still ran.

called up my mechanic on the spot, drove down there with no problems, pulled into the garage, turned the key and it shut off like it should. she did a charging system test (for free)
and suggested i cleanup my ground cable on the battery which had that greeny white corrosion on it and it hasent happened since.

so was this really just a grounding issue?

 

Year? Mileage? Your key/ign cyl may be worn enough that the key came out before the ignition was completely off. My '01 does it with one certain key. It also doesn't turn every time. Sometimes I had to jiggle the key to get the cyl to unlock so I could crank it.

 

98 gmc 284 km's never had any issues with the ignition before or after that day, same key.

 

bump.

 

try turning the key and pulling it out at the same time. if you can pull it out either a new key or ignition switch is needed.

 

Could be fused contacts in the ignition switch.

 

so pretty much a freak incident? wouldnt think this is a very common issue since ive never seen a post on here asking about it.

 

In the 5+ years I've been on this forum, I think this is the first I have read about it as well.

 

could it be some sort of "limp" feature? and if it was wouldnt it throw codes. just to rule that out.

 

You could test the ignition switch theory using the link all the way at the bottom of my signature. If you disconnect the main harness under the steering column and probe the main ignition wires as defined by the schematics in that thread, you should be able to tell if the contacts are opening properly or not.