Weird electrical issue with Rav4 - power when no key in ignition

I posted this in General Automotive section last weekend, lots of views but no responses. I'll add a little more detail in the hopes someone may have an idea.

My wife's 1998 Rav4 is having a bizarre electrical issue the last week or so, and I'm not sure what to think.

You park, shut the engine off, put key/ignition into the Lock position, remove key.

The dash lights (Park, Seatbelt) stay on. OEM car stereo stays on. The radiator fan cycles on/off/on/off/on/off..........

The best I can think of so far is that there is some sort of bad connection/short in either the wiring harness that goes to the key ignition, or maybe something in the actual key ignition device itself, because the car acts like the key is still in the ignition, in the ACC or ON position.

I don't want to start spending $$$ to swap out part after part in the hopes I will eventually get the issue fixed, unless I could narrow it down to one, maybe two parts with an extremely high likelihood of being the source of my trouble.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

pull the kick panels and look at the wiring connectors and look
For discoloration and the dreaded “green fuzz”...
Have you had the windshield replaced?
Do you have a trailer hitch and wiring?
In a overview look under the dash and look for evidence of
Abnormal rust...

Right now I would not think it is a component issue.

 

Windshield is still factory original. It does have the factory trailer hitch and wiring, yes.

I'll poke around this weekend and see if I can find anything that you have described, thank you.

 

I have had two early rav’s with similar things happening and in both cases I traced it to
Moisture and corrosion to both kick panels.
Had radio staying on
Oil pressure light on
As well as various other weird shit.

 

22yr old wiring harness. Start looking at all the ground points, look for exposed wires, corrosion like mentioned above. Personally I’d start with all the ground points, a bad ground can cause all kinds of goofy stuff to happen.

 

Thanks all, very much appreciated.