My parents have a 2000 Nissan Pathfinder. For over a year, we’ve had intermittent problems with the ignition: sometimes, if the steering wheel isn’t left exactly dead-center when the car is turned off, it will be impossible to turn the key in the ignition when we want to start the car again. It will slide in smoothly, but it just hits some hidden resistance when we try to move it past the “LOCK” position. Pulling the wheel from side to side or pushing on the brake doesn’t help: the only solution we’ve found it to keep pulling the key in and out, trying to turn it with each insertion. Eventually, as if by magic, it will turn.
This has only happened about once every few months, and has never taken more than about five minutes to overcome, so aside from making transient mental notes to call the dealer we’ve never done anything about it.
Until now. The car has been sitting in our driveway for a little over 24 hours, in Park, with the steering wheel stuck at about 1.2 turns, completely immobile. I sat in the car for 15 minutes, futilely pulling the key in and out (while yanking on the wheel for good measure), to no avail. It simply will not budge. I’ve tried switching keys (we have a backup set), I’ve tried WD-40, I’ve tried obscenities and threats. Nothing works.
So, is there anything I can do to try to fix this (that I haven’t already)? If we can’t get it started, I guess we’ll have to get it towed. I don’t even know how that will be possible…we can’t get it out of Park if the key doesn’t work, nor can we straighten the front wheels. Even if we call a flatbed, how will they get the car onto it?
Ivylad, a former mechanic, suggest calling the dealership and requesting a key.
If the master key was off, then all copies of the key will be off as well.
The tumbler in the ignition could be slightly off as well, but that cannot be ascertained until they take apart the ignition.
It could also be a quirk of the make of car itself, that it won’t start unless the wheels are dead center. Check with the dealer on that too.
Good luck. Ivylad’s expertise is more engines and suspension, so I hope what he has passed on can be of some help.
Did you try moving the front tires with your hands just a little bit. Just enough to get the tension off of the steering column? I had an old Cutlass that would do this from time to time. It sounds kinda corny but I had to get out of the car and kick the shit out of the front tire. It never did lock up like this when I would take the time to straighten out the wheel before I turned the key off.
The car usually starts fine, regardless of where the steering wheel was when we turned it off. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the key itself, especially since this happens so rarely.
I’ve tried kicking the shit out of the tires. No luck.
M/V According to Nissan you’re problems are probably caused by the linkage in your transmission being off a little bit. After reading their reply I remembered that’s what I finally had to do to fix my Olds. I don’t know about your Pathfinder but in my Cutlass I just pulled the top panel off my console and adjusted the cable running to the shifter. It appears to be a fairlt common occurence.
Just google (2000 nissan pathfinder key stuck ignition) it’ll direct you to several forums. One of which is a Nissan website w/ tech advise. Sorry I didn’t save the link. 
Good luck and if worse comes to worse…it’s not that damned hard to change the ignition switch.
You might also try jiggling the transmission lever (I’m assuming its an automatic) while turning the key. Sometimes the sensor in the “P” position may be slightly off center and not making contact.
I didn’t want to get into any copyright violations. So, this is just a bit of advise that I ran across pertaining to the key release in a Nissan Pathfinder.
http://forums.vmag.com/suvpathfinder0200/messages/1473.html
Sounds like a quick fix if it’s accurate.
It’s Greek to me since I’m not familiar with that vehicle but it may mean something to you.
Hope any of this helps. 