Shuts off when placing in park!

[dj1111]

I thought of naming this thread "Now what". I love my Venture but it seems it's getting to the age of non stop problems. No other vehicle I've ever owned gave me this much trouble. It's a 1998. The latest problem is, when you bring it to a stop and put the shifter into park the engine abruptly turns off. Then all the door locks are screwed up and you have to restart it, shift it out of park so the doors lock then put it back into park to unlock them. You can't unlock them from the drivers switch until you go through the aforementioned sequence. The other day it happened to my wife every time she put it in park. About a half dozen times. It's certainly getting worse. Any ideas out there?

[lesterl]

Check grounds and battery connections.....

[merc81]

I was going to tell you to check the neutral safety switch on top the tranny, but I think you have a worn/bad key switch on the steering column. Try jiggling the key and see if any other things go weird while its running in park. It does start in park later right?

[dj1111]

It was happening constantly but only when my wife or I was driving it. Never happened when our son was using it. And he took it to school and back every day. Makes sense that it's the key switch in that my son uses a different key, maybe with more or less wear. He has his own car now so it's back to my wife and I driving it. And it hasn't done it in weeks now. I will mess around with the key as you suggest. And yes it starts right back up after stalling.