Taco??? Truck kept running with the key removed

No Tundra question, but I’m not on any taco forums. I know lots of y’all are and many own or have owned Tacos.

Okay, we stopped for lunch, my wife is driving her 2005 2wd, 4cyl Tacoma (230,000m).
She threw it into park, turned off the ignition and removed the key, we got out, locked the doors and realized that the engine was still running. This has never happened before. Any idea what happened?

 

Well, since the truck has never had a remote starter or an alarm nor any after market modifications done, that thread is of no help.

I guess there may be a short in the ignition switch.

Has anyone encountered anything similar?

 

My first thought is ignition switch. I’ve had a few different vehicles with strange problems all related to the ignition switch. My POS Chevy would go into limp mode for no apparent reason. Sometimes it wouldn’t even crank. Jiggle the switch and it would work again. Stupid dodge would keep power to the accessories if you didn’t make sure it wasn’t clicked a 16th of an inch clockwise as you pulled your key out.

My money is on the ignition switch. What other symptoms did it have? Were you able to get the truck to shut off by trying the key again? Or did you have to pull the battery?

 

My guess would be in the switch....you might try replicating by slightly pulling on the key while you are turning it off....might just be worn enough that the key came out early and the truck still thought it was inserted.

 

No other symptoms and it hasn’t happened again, yet. We just reinserted the key, turned it to on, then back to off. That second time it shut down normally.
I guess if it’s not going to happen again or even very often, I will likely just live with it.

 

Y’all know the saying,
“If it ain’t fixed, don’t break it!”