i drove the car perfectly fine earlier this week, and now both the keys and steering wheel won't budge. tried wiggling both individually/at the same time and nothing changed. if it makes a difference, last night my driver's side front fender/wheel got backed into by my father while it was parked. *my max is a 97

it seems like everyone else with the same issue either broke their keys or got their cars broken in to...does anyone have an idea of what's wrong in my case?


alright something weird...just took the ignition switch out of the steering column so that i could try and start with a screw driver. if i turn the ignition switch to "start", the starter revs for 1 second and does nothing after that. if i turn halfway between "on" and "start", it starts perfectly normal. steering wheel/keys still won't budge. not sure if that's related, but like i said earlier i was driving the car perfectly fine this week

 

Well as for me, I had remote start on my '99. So i was messing around one day and started my car and turned my steering wheel to the left before inserting the key. Little did i know the steering wheel locked up and i couldn't even put my key in. But to unlock it, I found out that if i turn the wheel a bit more to the left, i would be able to put in my key and it unlocks.

The only problem i guess is that you might not have remote start so it would be alot harder to turn the wheel to the left.

Anyways, this is just my 2sense. Let the experts chime in.

 

the typical fix for that is to jiggle around your steering wheel until your key can get a turn in. i've experienced that before and the steering wheel still has some play to it - i believe what i'm experiencing right now is something different as the steering wheel doesn't feel the same

 

It sure sounds like your ignition switch is bad, but it's hard to see how that would affect your ability to turn the key. Are you sure no one tried to steal your car? Someone tried to steal mine, and the only way I knew was because they took a couple of things out of the glove compartment. They must have used either a slim jim or some sort of universal remote to get the door open. I couldn't get my key or steering wheel to turn either, so they must have jammed something in the ignition and trashed it. I ended up replacing the lock cylinder.

 

Happened to me once in my trusty 95 Max i tried the steering wheel trick didn't work. Try going from Nuetral to Park on the shifter a few times thats what worked for me