I drove my 95 SE in today and she was like butter, smooth. I parked her in the garage near my job, handed the keys to the attendant and went off to work.

Workday end comes go to get me car at the garage and when the attendant is driving my car it's fine. When he puts it in PARK it starts making this grinding noise. WTF? I get in the car put it in DRIVE and no noise. I get outside, put it in park-noise, put it in nuetral-noise. R, D, 2, 1 no noise. Drive some more and it's hot outside, the AC won't blow at all, try the radio it's out. WTF? I'm trying to figure out what's up? Fuse, some major electrical component.

Long story short, I get home take the valet key out, and put it in again, car kicks over no noise in PARK or NUETRAL and the AC and radio are working. I just had to replace my starter switch which was dying recently.

Key switch is firm to turn, could this freaking attendent have done something when he put the key in to start the car?

Any advice would be helpful, before I start digging through my fuses.

 

if i remember right the igniton lock cylinder is not part of the ignition switch..if your getting a hard to turn symptom, you could have more than one issue.

 

it sounds to me like maybe something in the tranny wasnt fully disengaging(or engaging as the case may be)
when was last time the fluid was changed?

 

also dont forget that if you battery has been leaking that there is a chance soem acid could have gotten into your electrical connections near the tranny. its def. something to look at.

 

Thank you for all the suggestions but I recently had a tune-up and only some of the tranny fluid was exchanged as per recommendations.

I check the battery on a regular and there is no acid leaking as far as I can see.

Used the car after my incident today and no further problems. I have to replace a door lock at the dealer and will have them check out the ignition switch again to make sure it has not been damaged. I did get the key coded so I didn't have to get a new key so I don't know if the valet key and main key (trunk, glovebox) are different in a way that would cause the valet key to cause havoc with the ignition switch.