Steering wheel locked, key wont turn

[danieltrefethen]

On my 97 2.2l Ranger: Manual trans.

With the key off and out I turned the steering wheel to the right and it locked.

The steering wheel wont move and the key wont turn. The key just chimes.

Any help here?

 

[mjonesjr]

Sounds like you need to remove the switch on the linkage and unlock the steering wheel.

 

[BlackBII]

Put the key in and try to turn it while pulling firmly on the steering wheel from side to side, it's probably just jammed.

 

[danieltrefethen]

Put the key in and try to turn it while pulling firmly on the steering wheel from side to side, it's probably just jammed.

That did the trick. Thank you so much!

Dan

 

[Mark_88]

Happens to mine once in a while too...rocking the steering wheel side to side almost always gets it to work...

 

[BlackBII]

Happens to me probably once a month.

 

[KELLY88]

Seems to happen on a lot of vehicles. And it's always the same same trick used to free it up.

 

[Chris.S.]

Happened to my mother-in-law and she thought her brand new was completely ruined until I talked her through it..

 

[sebastian323]

I had the steering wheel lock up on me this morning. Shaking the wheel to the right very aggressively while applying pressure on the key freed it up. Took almost 10 minutes of messing with it.

happened again in Jan 23 - I had to insert the key in and out of the cylinder several times to get it to work - it wasnt streering wheel lock this time, it was some dirt or something in the ignition