"turn key" ignition problem

I co-worker of mine has a 2000 Saturn and is having issues with getting the key to turn when she trys to start the car. The key goes into the ignition but won’t turn. She has moving the steering wheel until it turns and sometimes that works, but now her key won’t turn at all unless she “sprays it with liquid graphite”. She mentioned that several people have told her that they had to have it towed because it wouldn’t work at all. It seems to be a defect in Saturns of all models and years. Anyone hear of this? Suggestions? Seems like a steeting column lock problem?

<3 GM

A little googling shows that this is a pretty common problem. Here’s one link:
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Saturn-797/Ignition-lock-cylinder-problem.htm

She probably has too many keys hanging from the ignition this tends to cock the cylinder in its bore and wears a bad pattern in the bore. She will need to replace the cylinder and tumblers, then stop keeping soo many keys on her key ring.

mine does that too sometimes i usually turn the wheel or just pull it out a few times and try again. saturns suck

Get a push button start :tup:

My mom’s used to do that but she took it to the dealership and they fixed it and she didn’t have any more problems. But moving the steering wheel usually helped before it was fixed.

Have a new key cut from the VIN (do not duplicate old key)

Some GM keys of that year are made of a shit material and they wear down to where they are not usable. I had the same issue with a 2000 Grand Am.
Had the dealer make a key… problem solved.

[quote=“Violator,post:7,topic:30450"”]

Have a new key cut from the VIN (do not duplicate old key)

Some GM keys of that year are made of a shit material and they wear down to where they are not usable. I had the same issue with a 2000 Grand Am.
Had the dealer make a key… problem solved.

[/quote]

This is what my sister did on her 2001 saturn like a week ago. It works fine now.

[quote=“Daddie,post:5,topic:30450"”]

Get a push button start :tup:

[/quote]

My fiance’s lost her keys so damn many times I thought about doing that just to make our mornings easier.

maybe the cylinder is fucked tooo…

I just had this same problem with my 2001 Jeep. It had a bad tumbler. Took about 15mins to replace the barrel…but cost $150 for it.

My situation sucked though…it was in the parking lot at Towne BMW…and my windows were down. With out turning the key into the aux. posistion, i was S.O.L to get my windows back up. And it was a saturday evening with nothing but ran in the forecast this past weekend… so no parts supplier either.

Windows needed to be covered with plastic until i could fix it 2 days later. shitty situation.