My 86 Mustang Auto had one of these, my 96 Escort manual does not.
Maybe its just the older ones mine is an 87
For what it’s worth, it seems to be called the ignition key release. Searching that in Google and GoogleGroups will mostly get you speculation similar to that above. And it’s not just a Ford thing; my wife’s 94 Chevy truck (manual) has the button. My 98 Saturn (also manual) has the push-key mechanism.
If I’m remembering correctly, by '87 Plymouth Horizon (automatic) had one, but pushing it in became so habitual I hardly remember doing it, which is why I’m not positive that’s the car I’m remembering.
Considering it must have been a conscious decision on the carmakers’ part to put these things in, I’m surprised at how hard it is to find a definitive explanation.
Weird. My Mustangs are the other way around. My 94 manual has the button whereas my 97 automatic does not.
My '98 Nissan pickup truck has one. Its manual. My dad actually gave me this truck and I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to remove my keys from the ignition.
… I did check and my VW steering will not lock until the ignition key is fully removed. Hense no need for a button on the VW Cabrio.
It’s not a legal requirement, that’s for sure.
Some car makers have choosen to put a button, or small lever on the steering column which needed to be pushed in in order to remove the key. Why? Beats the shit out of me. But
:::Sigh::: if this happens, take your foot off the gas, and step on the brake. Uncontrolled acceleration = wrong pedal pressed.
Turning the key to off cannot do any damage to the engine or transmission under any conditions. Truning the key to start when it is already running can do some damage. American cars do not have any prevention from this happening.
The reason for the must be in park to remove the key (called Key lock at my company) is to prevent some brain dead individual from shutting off his car, removing the key, walking away without ever putting the car in park. An automatic left in gear with the engine off will roll away if parked on a slope. :eek: (Yes people are that dumb) AFAIK this is not a legal requirement here in the US, but I am not sure on this matter.
Or a sticky pedal. I had an old van whose gas pedal took a few seconds to lift up in the winter.
My fathers Mitsubishi has one of those little buttons.
I could belive that the reason was to prevent locking of the steering wheel while the car is in motion, I remember reading about a fatality in the newspaper some years back where a key was removed by a man while his wife was driving, the steering locked up and they crashed into a truck resulting in the womans death.
I can’t imagine that the button would prevent a key from being removed while in motion, even if for some reason some jackass wanted to*. Once you get into the habit of something, you’d tend to do it automatically. So, if you wanted to take the key out, you could.
*I was in a car with such a jackass once. I cowered in the front passenger seat as we cross lanes toward an oncoming car. I think the cowering was out of embarrassment rather than any mortal fear.
Here are a couple of things that are driven by regulation:
Sorry I can’t provide a direct cite, since these are from a non-confidential, internal network. I only quoted items that were regulatory in the USA; there are also non-regulatory requirements, as well as different regulatory requirements outside of the USA.
Oops… forgot to add that I couldn’t find anything about a requirement (regulatory or not) about needing a button to remove the key.