So...i had a brain fart and left my headlights on last night. This morning, i put the keys into the ignition, turned the key, and low and behold...nothing. noticed the lights were left on. OK...dead battery. Tried to turn the ignition back to the off position and take the keys out, but it would not turn all the way off. Tried pulling the steering wheel both ways while trying to turn it off, and also made sure the transmission was in park. Wife took me to work, called dear ol' dad to see if he could jump it for me. He hooked it up to his battery charger instead, immediately, the radio came on, and he was able to move the keys to the off position. Anyone have any explanations?

 

Normal. Key will lock in place with a dead battery. What is not normal is that the headlights shoud have turned off automatically after 20 minutes. Either that feature is not working or you have a battery or terminal problem.

 

X2, Sounds like you may have an issue here.

There is a fail safe built into the BCM so this won't happen.

 

I can see having an issue with the lights not turning off after 20 mins...but the keys locking in the ignition makes no sense to me. Say i'm at the mall for example...for whatever reason, my battery dies while i'm there....now the key is locked in the ignition...my option is...lock the doors with the key in the ignition and not be able to get back in, or leave the doors unlocked for some "outstanding citizen" to steal a stereo or amp. Who's genius idea was it to add this feature that locks the keys into the ignition with a dead battery?

 

Hook up a battery charger or a bump box. As soon as your battery starts to get a little juice, you will be able to turn the key back to off and remove the key.

My wife has done something to run her battery down several times on her '08 SRX and this problem always happens.

The first time I decided that even tho I couldn't shut it off, I would go ahead with the charger anyway. The key was ready to come out right away. I have no idea why this works this way, but it does.

 

I had this problem today and I would like to ask what sense this makes. It's my fault because I did not start it lately but, if it takes 1/2 hour to reset the system and the battery was dead wouldn't you think the battery will be dead again in 30 minutes? I used a jump pack the first time and it drained it....now on stage two with cables running from my jeep, yea I said jeep, can you imagine what an *** I feel like trying to start my hummer with a jeep.....