My 95 6 cyl Runner was stolen from the driveway on 4/4.
Car was locked, windows shut, in park, with the e-brake actuated.
Car was found by Oakland police, all doors unlocked, license plates gone, steering wheel lock either broken of defeated, (I don't know the bits about how it works), and full of trash. A $200.00 pair of Ray-Bans gone, and a $600 charge for tow and storage.
All of the Toyota reg. papers,insurance papers, and the owners manual were gone, and in their place was a soft covered teaching Bible from some African church in E. Oakland. That went into the trash immediately.
Otherwise the car was cosmetically unharmed.
Now the weird part. This is what they left me with.
I had both keys in my posession, so stolen key is ruled out. The ignition switch was not punched out, and is in working order.
However even though I leave the ignition key out of the switch, the chime sounds constantly as if the key is in the lock when the drivers door is open.
The ignition key works correctly. It locks and unlock the switch, and will start the engine correctly. It just doesn't lock or unlock the steering wheel.
The steering wheel lock remains defeated even though the key is out and the gear lever is in the Park position.
The auto door locks will all lock when I depress the buttons on either the driver or pass. door, but as soon as I let the button go they all will unlock. simultaneously.
The only way to lock the car is to get in,close all doors, and electrically, or manually lock them, then crawl out the tail door and close that up.
Fun eh?
Anybody wanna take a crack at it?

Art.

 

Sorry to hear about that.. I had almost the same experience. Stolen from east bay, found in Oakland. I don't have any electronic locks in my truck, they used a filed down key to steal mine.

Sounds like your ignition lock cylinder is damaged in some way, even if its still functioning to start. I'm not familiar with them either. Does your clock/radio turn off when you turn the ignition all the way off?

Best of luck getting it all back on the road again. I would look into some kill switches if I were you!

 

unfortunately these trucks are entirely too easy to steal. Not gonna get into the how to do it.
When they tried to steal my 81 my transfer case locked into double low range kept them from being able to shift the truck (you can look in my Trekker build thread if curious)
I addition to replacing the lock cylinder I did end up swapping my steering column because the steering wheel lock got fubarred.