Hi guys,
Grovelling apologies are due. I've not been on here for ages, and contributed nothing, yet here I am asking for help.... On the plus side, the reason why I've not been on is that the car has been amazingly, consistently reliable for many months, and as I've been really busy at work I was happy just to keep on truckin'.

Today though... early morning appointment at local hospital. Jump in car at 6.45am, turn key, engine starts, drive to hospital car park. All good. I was a little early, so I sat in the car (turned off, but ignition key in switch) to look at my phone. After about 10 minutes or so, I got out, hit the lock button on the fob and... nothing. "Ignition key in" message was displaying even with the key in my hand. I didn't have time to muck about so I locked it with the key and got the big 'beeep'. My fault was clearly leaving the key in the ignition for that extra 10 minutes.... another lesson learned.

Came back to the car, and nothing had changed. "Ignition key in" message displaying, and if I tried to turn the engine on "engine disabled". I called the cavalry and got my wife to bring down some lock lubricant and the 2nd key. Gave the ignition barrel a squirt of lube, and jiggled the key a bit, and I 'think' that part of the problem is gone. However, the central locking still won't respond to either fob, and the engine won't start.

Fortunately our hospital car park no longer has a 'pay and display' so I'm not racking up parking charges, but I can't leave it there, so I'm looking for a solution.

There was a guy on here a while ago selling modified Engine ECUs to bypass the immobiliser. I bought one, and fitted it, but never got to the point of disconnecting the starter relay wires from the BECM. So at the moment, my plan A is to wait for it to get a little brighter and to stop raining and return to the car with a length of wire and some crimp terminals in the hope that once I take the BECM out of the circuit, the engine will start. That would - hopefully, fingers crossed - allow me to get the car home.

I do have a Nanocom, but I'm a very inexperience user. Would this help me at all - and would it even fire up with the engine disabled?

Then 'worst case scenario' - how do I get the vehicle transported home in this condition? I do have 'AA membership' - not sure if that will help, but failing that I can get a local recovery firm to come down once the car park empties. The gearbox is in 'park'. Would I need to get underneath and disconnect both prop shafts from the diffs?

Any advice is always gratefully received - but particularly grateful in this instance!

(year2000 4.0L Thor)

Ta

Donald

The reason for the Ignition Key In message is due to the microswitch in the bottom of the key barrel getting gummed up, so a squirt of brake cleaner to flush it out followed by either nothing or lock lubricant and working the key in and out a few times should sort that. You'll know if it is working as you will hear a clunk from the steering lock when you pull the key out and the centre of the barrel will pop out a couple of millimetres.

What has happened is that it won't let you lock it with the key in the ignition so you don't lock the keys in the car, hence having to use the key to manually lock it. When you unlocked it, for some reason it hasn't turned the immobiliser off so you have the situation you are in now.

Assuming you know the EKA, you can enter that with the Nanocom. Plug it in and with the ignition OFF, go into BeCM - Utilities (the last menu) - Disarm and type in your EKA, hit the Disarm button and all the doors will unlock and the immobiliser will be turned off. Start the engine to confirm.

You may need to sync the fobs again but shouldn't need to, they should start to work again.

If the worst case happens and you need to get it towed, there's no need to disconnect propshafts. Go to the fusebox on the BeCM under the drivers seat and put a 10A fuse into position 11 (far right on the top row) which will put the transfer case into neutral so will disconnect the propshafts for you electrically. This is only needed if it is going to be towed with some or all wheels on the road, if it is just going to be towed onto a flatbed recovery truck, there's no need to do this, just put it in Neutral.

Brilliant! Thanks very much for replying so quickly. I'll be heading down again shortly, and this is really useful.

Once I'd lubed the ignition switch and jiggled the key around a bit I did hear the 'clunk' on key removal, but I didn't know about the barrel centre popping out. I'll watch for that.

I am fairly sure I have the EKA 'somewhere safe'..... Because the car has been so good I've let my P38 guard down a little and I'll need to dig that out.

And popping a fuse into position is a whole lot easier than pulling propshafts! I'm going to store a screen-dump of this on my phone for future reference.

Thanks again!

(Meant to ask though - on your last bit about just sticking the box in neutral if it's to be pulled onto a truck. Will the gearbox go into neutral if the engine isn't running? Is that solenoid powered then?)

Gearchange is mechanical by a cable, so it will still go into Neutral without the engine running. The problem with towing an auto is that the oil pump for the gearbox is behind the torque converter and driven by the engine. So by towing it without the engine running for any distance, there's no lubrication to the gearbox so it will destroy it.

If it does need to be towed, put the fuse in position 11, then turn the ignition on to make it do something. You should get a message on the dash saying Transfer Neutral and you can then turn the ignition off again.

Hmm. So back at the car, with nanocom ad EKA.

The ignition switch is OK; nanocom says it's asked the BECM to reset the alarm state, but I'm still getting engine disabled.

I'm about to do the rewiring thing now, see if that will get me out of jail.... or at least the hospital car park...

Edit - wiring isn't so easy with the cars adjacent closely parked, and the rain, and the need to get the driver's seat out of the way.

It has to be something simple, but complicated....

.... and finally, I'm getting absolutely nothing from the keys. Pressing lock or unlock buttons does nothing with either. Door latches? So two faults coincidentally at the same time?

It was all so good at 6.45 this morning.

Keys may need to be synced. To do that all doors (and tailgate) must be closed and ignition key not shown as being in. Put a key in the driver's door lock and turn to lock, hold it there and while holding it, press and hold the lock button on the fob until the LED starts to flash faster, release the button on the fob and turn the key back to centre. Then do the same only turning to unlock, hold, press and hold the unlock button on the fob, release, and turn the key back to centre. Fob should then be synced.

Hospitals can be a problem as they often have lots of RF floating about from other stuff. In that case, use one key to turn in the lock and use the other fob but held as close as you can get it to the receiver aerial etched into the right hand rear window, so doing it at arms length. Then swap the keys over and do the same. That way you should be able to sync both fobs.

Mistyped a bit in that post, so have just edited it. Make sure you follow the current version.

Another thought, you can only sync the fobs when the immobiliser is off, so if you are still getting engine immobilised, you won't be able to do it.

Hey ho. Thanks very much for keeping an eye on this and adding suggestions.

I've done the key sync thing, both ways, and it's not making a difference. I do get a "press remote" message on dash, but pressing that makes no difference.

Going to get down to it and do the wiring now.

Yes, the press remote works but assumes the fob is synced so if it isn't, it does nothing.

Well, that was all very entertaining. The headlines:
1) I'm home, with the car, and it got here under its own power!
2) thanks very much GilbertD. I hope you have a sense of how much your support was appreciated.

Once I'd got the BECM bypassed, the car started as sweet as anything. No issues whatsoever.

In the hospital car park, after I'd synched the keys (or not, if the immobiliser was on) I was getting nothing from the fobs. No lock/unlock; no engine.

Once I'd got the engine going and got to the office (where the car often sits) lo, and behold, both keys lock/unlock the car without any further attention. The only thing I can think of is that the particular corner of the hospital car park I'd parked in is swamped in radio traffic. The previous owner made a point of telling me that he'd cut back the aerial in the fob receiver, but even then I think there must be too much. There's the hospital itself, and on the far side of the car park, the biggest ambulance control centre/depot in the north of Scotland. Police HQ about 1/2 mile away.

I reckon if I reconnected all the wiring back to standard, and tried again, that she'd fire up.... but it's one less thing to worry about at a busy time of year. I'd always intended to implement this wiring 'hack', but to make it switchable. In normal circumstances the BECM and the immobiliser would be connected. If I came up against anything like today, I could flick a hidden switch and get going again. This episode has convinced me this is the way forward, but its a job for a warmer season.

Thanks again GD.

There's a couple of places near me where there's a lot of RF and I normally just hold the fob next to the rear window where the receiver lives and it works. By cutting the aerial wire, it makes the receiver 'deaf' so it is less susceptible to lots of other RF but it needs a stronger signal from the fob for it to be able to pick up the signal. Moving it closer is usually enough to make it work.

Odd that entering the EKA with the Nanocom didn't work but I've no idea what has been done to the ECU to make it free run. Ordinarily, when you unlock the car, it turns off the immobiliser and the BeCM sends a code to the ECU to enable it. If you lock with the fob and unlock with the key, it lets you into the car but doesn't turn the immobiliser off hence the need to enter the EKA either by turning the key in the lock or with the Nanocom. That tells the BeCM you are the owner and aren't trying to steal the car so it sends the code to the ECU.

If you need to go and park in the same place in future, make sure it isn't telling you the ignition key is in and lock with the key. Then you can unlock with the key and it will all work.