The car failed to start this morning and I suspect it’s a problem with the immobiliser, I’d be interested to hear if anyone has experienced this sort of fault or has any ideas about things to try. The fault has come up out of the blue, with no hint of intermittent issues or gradual onset. The alarm works ok and the telltale light responds to the remote, but when I twist the key to start there is no response at all, not even a relay click. The fuel pump is priming as normal when I turn the key to first position, as it normally does even when the immobiliser has cut in. It’s basically as if I’ve forgotten to disarm the immobiliser, even though I have pressed the button on the remote and the telltale light has done its confirmatory long flash and gone out.
I got the AA man out and he ran some juice directly to the starter, which turned the engine over fine (battery is strong) but no hint of it firing. No raw fuel smell either (unfortunately we didn’t test for spark, will have to go back and do that later) so it’s making me think that the Meta T36 immobiliser unit has had some sort of strange brainfart. The car has a battery isolator directly on the +ve battery terminal, which I’ve used regularly for ages with no problems, but I slightly wondered whether it might be related so I’ve tried removing and restoring the power a few times, and in one case I left it disconnected for a good 5 minutes in the hope it would reset things, but to no avail.
Any suggestions gratefully received, right now I’m not even sure where to take the car to get this sorted, I don’t have much faith in alarm specialists!
There can also be problems with the Relays that sit on the bulkhead between the two front seats and the engine - they can get sticky - the immobiliser sends a signal to that PCB to activate fuel pump, ignition, etc etc, and if any one of those relays sticks then the car just ain’t starting
[quote=tlracer]You’ve probably got this sorted by mow, but it’s a well-documented issue with the T36.
It gets out of sync with the alarm and so fails to disarm when the keyfob button is pressed.
Resync isn’t possible, but you can fit a new immobiliser alone quite easily, thus avoiding having the cost/hassle of removing the alarm as well.
This will operate on its own keytag rather than with the alarm, but that’s not a hassle really [/quote]
Thanks, I gathered from the PMs that I’m not alone in having this problem, but I didn’t know the details of the sync problem with the alarm, I just assumed the immob could be replaced like-for-like.
[quote=Mark Barrett]There can also be problems with the Relays that sit on the bulkhead between the two front seats and the engine - they can get sticky - the immobiliser sends a signal to that PCB to activate fuel pump, ignition, etc etc, and if any one of those relays sticks then the car just ain’t starting
Cheers
Mark [/quote]
Hey Mark, fancy seeing you here after all these years, hope you’re well. Did you get that Mustang over from the US in the end?
Cheers for the tip regarding the relays. I’ve tried swapping the starter relay for the ECU relay (the latter definitely works as the laptop can see the ECU) but no dice. The fuel pump relay is fine, so no issue there. Guess it’s just the immob, should be able to get it sorted easily enough hopefully.
