So, today I was driving along the highway, had an itch on my foot, went to scratch it and in the process of doing that, I accidentally bumped my knee on the keys. At first, I didn't really notice anything different due to the fact the radio was playing, the tires were singing and the wind was howling but then I noticed my tachometer and speedometer were sitting at zero and that I no longer had power steering. Realizing my engine was most likely off, I quickly turned down the radio to verify that it was in fact no longer running, turned on the hazards and then carefully worked my way over to the shoulder. Safely out of traffic, I put the transmission back into park, tried turning the engine back on and, just like that, I was up and running again. Just to confirm my suspicions, I decided to bump the bottom of the keys again just to see if it would kill the motor and, it did.
Now, as most of you know, this is a problem that is very similar in nature to what the Chevy Cobalts were seeing to cause GM to issue one of their biggest recalls to date. And, the reason I am sharing this with you is to let you know what I just experienced with my ignition on my 2012 Jeep JK Wrangler today. Above is a pic of my keys in the ignition and admittedly, it's a heavy set of keys. What I might recommend is that you lighten the load on your Jeep key and to be aware that this is something that can happen and so that you don't panic if it ever does. To be clear, I've never seen this happen with my 2007 JK that I still have or on my 2009 JK that I used to have and, to the best of my knowledge, it's not something I have ever seen or heard happening on any JK in the past. If this is all just a fluke or just bad luck, that would be great but, just in case, I thought I would share what happened to me today.
