I know that this has been the subject of many threads but thought I'd post a workaround I found to one cause of the dreaded "Pull Key" and "Service Column Lock" errors.

My '98 C5 MN6 had the last ECL recall installed in January and this error popped up yesterday. It was quite hot and I "false started" the car by engaging the igition accidently for a fraction of a second, resulting in a "Pull Key and Wait 10 Secs" error. Afterwards the "Service Column Lock" message appeared while the column lock was engaged, making the car undriveable.

At that point I tried a number of the fixes posted here including turning the wheel against the stops and pulling fuse 25. No luck - had to bum a ride home and head back to the office to deal with this in the morning.

Last night I located a post discussing that a "false start" may lead to a "Pull Key" error, followed by the "Service Column Lock" error. The post was buried in a thread and I can't find it again to link here - sorry - but here's the gist of it. Apparently on a false start the ECL pin partially retracts, remaining neither engaged or open. After the key's pulled for 10 secs and you restart, the BCM attempts to resynch with the ECL but generates an error because it is in neither state. Then "Service Column Lock" appears.

Here's the fix that will resynchronize the BCM and ECL. From the off position quickly turn the ignition key on-off-on-off (without engaging the starter or booting the DIC display). When I did this my ECL pin retracted immediately and has not given me trouble since.

I'm relatively new to this board so hopefully I'm not being redundant, but these errors are a common problem and most of the posted workarounds I've found are more difficult or potentially damaging than this. Obviously this method is not the cure to every "Service Column Lock" error but it's an easy thing to try and who knows, it just might work for you. Like I said, my C5 has the latest ECL recall installed and still threw this error, but this method cleared it immediately, so I hope this helps.

 

nice to know,

Thanks

 

I've had it lock 2x on my car and a few times on friends cars. The latest time was on a buddies '98 on the way back from the cruise-in while in WV. The smacking against the stops while turning the key from off to the on position (Not starting it) has worked every time. When you go from off to on the PCM sends the unlock signal, so if your wrenching the wheel back and forth it's undo.

 

first time I heard of it.

 

Sounds resonable. Good info.

I've got some related info to share. I've got a '97 and used to get the error messages with my CLB on occasion; been documented for some '97s and '98s. Over the last couple of months I've been turning my key to the on position and letting the "chime" sound until it goes off....somewhere around 6-10 seconds, then crank the car. Since I've been doing this, in effect letting the computers juice up and the voltage to stabilize, I haven't gotten the "Pull Key...." message. Just thought I'd share.

 

That's interesting. When I got "Pull Key" a few days ago it was 90+ degrees here, the car was cooking and the AC was still engaged. I turned the key straight from off to start, so perhaps a quick voltage drop caused the BCM to generate the error - "Pull Key" popped up on the DIC almost immediately. If the BCM threw error before the ECL was fully retracted perhaps that's what put them out of sync.

I'll allow everything to boot before engaging the starter. Sounds like a good idea in any case.