What could happen if you just turn off the ignition while the car is in Drive with your foot on the brake?

A few things happen:
1)If she had a car built after about 1985 she has a steering column lock that would prevent her from turning the wheel.
2)The power steering pump stopped working and it took higher pressure to hold the brake in place.
3)She would need to put the transmission in Park to restart. That wastes time in the intersection
4)She put a little extra wear on the starter. The starter motors on today’s vehicles are not built for that kind of duty cycle.
There are several newer systems that do stop the engine when you stop moving. Hybrids, ISGs,(Integrated starter generators), etc. are designed to shut off and restart many more times than conventional starters. Also many have electric power steering and power brake pumps so there is no loss of control.

I guess the worst case scenario is that when the engine is turned off you loose the power to the pump that supplies the power brakes. Combine that with the steering wheel lock on most newer cars and you have a recipe for rolling without being able to steer.

It shouldn’t hurt anything if you’re stopped. If the car is moving and the engine is off the automatic transmission could get damaged. Plus what the guys above said.

All of the above answers are correct, BUT what if you are going 40 mph and attempt to put the car in Park? I know the answer and have experienced this in the past in a police car.

@john65pennington Done that at about 10 mph. It makes a horrible racket until it catches. I don’t know about 40 mph.

But you can’t switch the gear back to park unless your foot is on the brakes correct? I’m simply asking what would happen provided that your foot is on the brake and u just shut the car off without switching to park.

@john65pennington – Doesn’t that result in some weird variation of the “J-turn”?

I’m not sure that I’ve ever shut off the ignition while the car was in Drive (other than a time or two that I may have done it inadvertently in my own driveway, just before I was going to put it in Park for the night anyway).

However, I have frequently turned off the ignition while the gearshift was in Neutral and I have been stopped in traffic jams. I like that because I can shift from D to N and back to D again without using the brake pedal, and all I have to do if I’m going to be stopped for any time at all is set the parking brake so I don’t roll. I can also start the car in Neutral, so I don’t have to shift through Reverse into Park (and confuse drivers behind me) to start the car again.

I do that pretty frequently… my car doesn’t allow me to take the keys out until i put it in park. Nothing bad ever happened to my car lol