Hello there all. I just found this group while looking for the cause of my latest problem ah..opportunity regarding my SSE. A little background on the car: It'* 1996 SSE I bought about 1 1/2 years ago that now has 117,000 miles. I've put 23,000 problem free miles on it since I bought it.

I've got a little problem with the ignition key not making contact sometimes so I get to listen to tunes waiting for the security light to go off so I can start the car.

The reason I write tonight though is more serious. Today when I left a stop at a traffic light my car shut down. It was as if I'd turned the key off. Put the car back in park and it started up. Then died again when I tried to start off. Needless to say the foilks behind me were not too happy. Car started up ok in park again and has run fine ever since.

This happened twice before, several months ago though.

Any ideas?

This is probably a common problem. The ignition switches were faulty on several GM models until a certain year, I don't knwo when they changed it, but it sounds like a bad ignition switch. try that first.

Your battery terminals may be dirty.... Periodically the terminals and the cable ends have to be scrubbed with a wire brush to ensure good continuous contact.

I would also suspect problems with the ignition switch because of your earlier problems with the resistor pellet contacts.

I was thinking about this last night after I posted and remembered that the clock on my radio reset itself, during one of the shutdowns yesterday, but didn't clear the pre programed stations. So it seems to me that there was a power interuption to some parts of the system like a circuit breaker might have tripped and reset itself. Course I don't know if this car has circuit breakers.

I had a new key cut and didn't have any problems starting until this week. It'* been hot here in SC, high 80s low 90s during the day, and I'm wondering if the heat is contributing to the problem.

I cleaned the battery terminals several weeks ago even though they showed no signs of corrosion. Battery is only a year old also.

Thanks for all the ideas so far and hopefully someone will have had the same problems and will liet us all learn something new about this car.

The radios actually don't lose the preset'* when disconnected (or if all power is lost). Try doing cleaning/tightening your battery connections. If not that, then I too would have to agree with the ignition switch.

Stylez

The radio clue is a good one. The presets on mine never go away when the battery is disconnected. When you scrub the battery terminals, don't forget to scrub the cables, including in-between both of the + red cables. You have to scrub all metal surfaces, battery + cables.