lightangel

Last night, I turned on my 97 A6 quattro and started to drive as usual. When I wanted to give a turn signal, I found the green arrow was not blinking. Suddenly I realized that my headlights were not on either. After a mile or so, I stopped, tried to figure out the problem, but the car seemed to like "D" and "R" better than "N" and "P". When I tried to shift to P or N, the car just sounds wacky, like some metal parts rubbing against each other. Kept the Shifter in P, and turned of the engine, it would not let me take out my key. Finally, shifted back to "D" turned off the engine and shifted to P then took my key out. The headlight problem feels like the "famous" ignition switch failure. But I am not sure what goofy problem caused the car to act so weird at "P" or "N"...... Please give me some suggestions.

chiitown

Since the ignition swithch is right under the lock mech. The lack of turning (if it is bad probably contributed to it) Your grinding noise may have been due to the starter slightly engaging and bumping the flywheel. My advice is, start with the ignition switch. IMHO, it will cure all your problems. If not, post back and you can go from there.