The first time this happened, I thought it was something with the automatic transmission, I started my car and after a moment, I tried to put it in Reverse to back out of my parking space. It wouldn't depress the lever thing in front to let me take it out of Park. So, I messed around a little bit, noticed that my AC also wasn't working. This was odd, and very not good, since I live in the Phoenix Metro Area and it's spring. I turned the ignition off, and then back on. It started fine, the AC kicked on and I was able to go on my merry way.

Last Friday night, at work, where I'm ALWAYS one of the last to leave, I experienced the same thing, only this time I saw a flash on the instrument panel "Theft Deterrent". I turned the engine off like before, no problem. I then tried to turn it on again, it started up fine, but the same "Theft Deterrent" light flashed on, and now I couldn't turn the key back off. So, 93F outside (only because the sun went down an hour before, it was 100F), and I don't have AC, the car won't turn off, and I can't leave the car to go inside to wait for the tow truck. Called hubby to tell him that our evening plans are shot, and the tow truck was on it's way. (1 hr wait time)

Thankfully, I had an awesome tow truck driver that knew her stuff and was able to stop the engine, disconnect the drive train from the gear shift to put it in neutral, and got me home. I still have to fix the bloody thing, thankfully I am on a 1 wk "stay-cation" so I wasn't planning much of anything, but the thought of working on my car in triple digit temps this week is NOT what I had planned for my vacation hours. I don't relish the thought of taking it to a garage, but I might have to. It looks like I will because of the stupid computer in the car that thinks that my key wasn't the right key, and locked it all up.

The key had been loose, and giving a little problems with starting, but I thought that was just because the car does have 132K miles on it. I got a ar with manual door locks, manual windows, etc because I hate dealing with electrical issues, and here's one I never expected. I want my 76 Chevy again, bad mpg and ugly as sin, at least it was a runner and never gave me any problems. Computerized cars are all well and good until the computer goes nuts.

My research shows it is the Passlock Vehicle Theft Deterrent, and I was able to print out 35 pages of instructions on how to deal with it, so even if it goes to a mechanic, I'll be handing over those instructions with the car.. No sense having someone scratch their head over it if they've never heard of this problem before.