Car not recognising keys. Oh figs!

[Martin Hocking]

Evening all,

I wonder if anyone has any advice they can give.

I jumped in my car this morning (06 Suzuki sx4 in a fiat dress)

And it wouldn’t start as it won’t immobilise the immobiliser, so no fuel, and yellow padlock light still on.


I thought I’d mucked up the key as I’ve done that before on another car, but it’s the same with my spare key too.

Hmmm… I’ve had a bit of play tonight and the fuses seem fine, I’ve disconnected and charged the battery.

Not sure what to do next, I can plug in my code reader thing but I don’t know if that will show anything.

Any hints on the witchcraft that happens to make the key thingamajig work would be helpful, so I have a clue as to what to start testing. The handbook calls it the CODE immobiliser system, not sure what everyone else calls it…

I’m sure I’m being a bit lazy so I promise I will dig out the copy of the service manual I have on my computer later…honest.

 

[voipio]

There are some incantations that need to be recited, whilst standing on your head, here. They might just work on the 06 model:

SX4 smartkey programming

Does anyone know how to program 2009 SX4 smartkey? It's same as 2008 Grand Vitara. i stopped by locksmith at local DMV here, these guys program just about anything, and they don't yet have 2009. tried to use 2008 steps from programming book and it didn't work. appreciate any suggestions. thank you

www.suzuki-forums.com

 

[Martin Hocking]

Your not kidding voipio

It might be because I’m trying to put my kids to bed but those instructions read like a game of Simon says!

I’ll have to give it a go later. Thanks.

The key fob thing confuses me a bit because a lot of what I’ve seen from Google today seems to mention changing the battery but one of my keys is just a key, and I thought there was chip thing inside of it.

 

[qwakers]

the remote unlock is the only thing you need a battery for. the immobiliser is passive.

 

[jmp49]

There's usually a passive chip coded to the car embedded in the epoxy even in the just a key ones. The immobilizer should not be confused with the remote lock/unlock system which is usually a different device/system.
I dont know about suzuki's, but on the stuff I've dealt with, it would be that somehow the car has forgot the immobilizers its paired to (immobilizer ecu issue) or its reader to see the immobilizer chip has itself broken and its never even reading the chips, although in this case if it could by fixing the reader issue, it should still know the immobilizers coded in and then work happily.
You need to get into the diagnostics and see whats happening to understand it better.

 

[jmp49]

Think this is more useful to you, from here : https://www.suzuki-forums.com/threads/anti-theft-immobilizer.287054/

Which has a post linking to https://www.suzuki-forums.com/attachments/imm-pdf.120764/
That pdf has a overview of how it all works & the test proceedure and what DTC's will be thrown when various bits are not working correctly.

And to labor a point, the keyfob battery going flat is nothing to do with the immobilizer system stopping working for all the keys. I've never seen a car "forget" all the coded immobilizers stored unless something went wrong with its immobilizer computer, or someone plugged a scan tool in and wiped them. Its possible to break 1 passive, but I've never seen 2+ break at the same time.
Follow the dtc troubleshooting with the scan tool you have, and you should get good insight.

 

[Nomad]

Hi. Not a lot of help but..

I've had similar problems with both a 2000+ BMW & a 90s Alfa, in both cases they lit up the key fob warning on the dash but the car still started

My latest project (90s Renault Espace) had a flat battery for 3 months and the immobiliser is now 100% immobilised - so I bypassed it

Apologies for the thread hijack but if anyone has the magic sequence to resynch the fob with my Renault immobiliser can you pm me. Virtual beers and public thanks are waiting Physical beers may also be included if you're lucky

 

[Martin Hocking]

Heroes the lot of you.

I must admit these threads (whether mine or not) really make me wonder if I really know how to use a search engine!

Stand out effort from @jmp49 i had a copy of the whole manual but I’ve remembered I lost it when the hard drive went wrong on my lap top. I must remember to go and find it online again.

I was going to ring an auto locksmith tomorrow but I think I will hold off until I’ve had a chance to check the codes at the very least.

Thanks again forum.

Will this be the end for Desmond the Fiat Sedici? Find out in the next episode…

 

[eddie49]

I've never seen a car "forget" all the coded immobilizers stored

I have. The 12v battery on my 2006 Honda Civic went flat, and the immobiliser "lost" the keyfob code. Apparently a known issue...
As an alternative to recovery to a main dealer, or calling out a mobile car locksmith, I bought a VDIAGTOOL VD900 tablet OBD2 code scanner and reprogrammed the immobiliser and the key.

 

[gaz1]

Will this be the end for Desmond the Fiat Sedici? Find out in the next episode…

it does make wonder

more so when they state this

I jumped in my car this morning (06 Suzuki sx4 in a fiat dress)

 

[Farside]

My latest project (90s Renault Espace) had a flat battery for 3 months and the immobiliser is now 100% immobilised - so I bypassed it

Thinking I might need to do that with mine, as I have just the one key that works.
I have two other keys without chips that actually work fine and start the engine, but the immobiliser stops the engine from running on, as you would expect.

 

[Nomad]

Thinking I might need to do that with mine, as I have just the one key that works.
I have two other keys without chips that actually work fine and start the engine, but the immobiliser stops the engine from running on, as you would expect.

The late 90s seems to be when immobilisers changed from being easy to bypass to being fully integrated. Be lucky

I have heard of people taping the chipped key inside the steering column cover so that key always deactivates the immobiliser. An unchipped key can then be used to start the car. More tricky if your chipped key also does central locking etc.

A basic spare key with no chip is always handy to have, I use one to lock the car doors and carry with me when I go swimming.

 

[Farside]

The late 90s seems to be when immobilisers changed from being easy to bypass to being fully integrated. Be lucky

I had the car up to a local key whiz - he was defeated. Said it was one of the real b'tards that would require the dash out and he'd have to charge me the going rate for workshop time, win or lose. He didn't charge me for the two hours he'd spent on it already, so fair play to him.

I have heard of people taping the chipped key inside the steering column cover so that key always deactivates the immobiliser. An unchipped key can then be used to start the car. More tricky if your chipped key also does central locking etc.

I superficially tried that, but the good key needs to be very close to its using position, and can't see there's room. If I remove the one good chip, and it gets lost or damaged, I'm sfuffed.

A basic spare key with no chip is always handy to have, I use one to lock the car doors and carry with me when I go swimming.

I stash the good one inside, well hidden, and keep the basic ones for entry and exit.

VW's bloody wiring diagrams are a pain in the arris. I can't make out whether I can isolate the ignition module and hotwire it. In doing so I might scramble the damned thing, depending on how smart the designers were.

 

[jmp49]

Ive done immobilizer keys from scratch, I get a blank and cut the blades myself, and obtain a blank passive to go inside the key, and then go into the manufacturers diagnostics on a clone of the dealer software and code the passive into the car's immobilizer. Anything newer than about 2000ish rather than trying to cut the immobilizer out which is going to be pretty integrated into all the systems, its easier to program a replacement immobilizer chip in a key to the car imho because if you could just pull a wire or put a jumper in to defeat the immobilizer then there'd be no point and it'd fail any security tests and reviews. If it was possible like this, johnny toerag would be using it every weekend to get a car to swap for some smack.
Taping a key with a working passive (or just the passive itself!) to the reader housing works of course, although anyone can start the car with a screwdriver then

You can de-immobilize a car (immo delete) but usually that involves editing the actual contents of the ecu to delete the bit where it waits for a ok signal from the immobilizer and writing the modified firmware back to the ecu which is quite involved and specialist. As I understand it if you dont do this, the main ecu will be sat waiting for the "everythings ok" signal to arrive from the immobilizer even with wiring changes on newer stuff. You cant even hotswap the immobilizer on the ones I've done, because you have to tell the ecu to talk to that specific immobilizer before it will accept it as trusted, so unless you swap both immobilizer ecu and main car ecu and they know about each other already, its not a quick task.

Eddie, thanks for posting that, every days a schoolday. I just looked up the 2006 honda civic curious about the details, there was a manufacturer's service recall on it for this exact fault, loosing immobilizer codes when the battery goes flat. The recall fitted a new fusebox that had a updated MICU modified not do this, apparently they didnt save the immobilizer codes in the non voilatile memory in the original software, just kept them in the ecu's voilatile memory, madness!

 

[Martin Hocking]

Well…I didn’t get round to replying yesterday.

I had chance to read through the section of manual jmp posted.

And I’ve plugged in my code reader widget. Which is a cheap Bluetooth one and the car scanner app which I’ve always found to be pretty good.

Which revealed no codes at all. Which is a little curious because the engine management light drifts on and off every 100 miles or so to remind me that the cat definitely hasn’t failed…

The the immo indicator light doesn’t flash when I put the ignition on which would seem to suggest that it’s not reading any codes either. Hmmm…


That would seem to me to suggest that my car has either forgotten the keys, has an ecu fault or there’s a problem with the antenna bit on the ignition.

Reprogramming the keys is a no go right now as is dealing with a naff ecu but I’m sure I’ll have to invest in a better obd thing at some point.

But I can have a go at checking the reader coil, so I’ll have a bash at that this weekend.

If nothing found then an sos to an auto locksmith.

If I put my fiat dress on I might get a discount!

 

[qwakers]

Generic obd is very limited. You need a bidirectional scanner a budget option is the topdon artidiag600, but that won't program keys. You'd need a much more expensive one for that.

 

[voipio]

One thing worth trying is checking the transponder coil around the ignition lock. The one that excites and then reads the chip in the key. I had one that was loose in the contacts that it was plugged into, so kept getting intermittent immobiliser messages, and losing engine power. Putting a bit of a bend in the connecting pins sorted that problem for good.

 

[Martin Hocking]

Aye yaye yaye yaye…

This is turning into a right pain in the crack…

So I had a bit of a poke and a prod with the ignition bits.

I unbolted ignition coil off of the ignition (still connected) to try and test it with a multimeter. Which wasn’t overly successful, to be honest. However what was interesting was that while trying to get a voltage reading off of anything I noticed that taking the coil off the ignition threw a fault code, when I turned the ignition on. Which in my head meant that the coil must be doing something, and sure enough the code goes away when you put one of my keys near it.


The fault code is mentioned in the manual referring to a problem with the icm coil not picking up any chip signal.

So I put it back together and left it that. I can get a replacement coil for twenty quid from eBay but it doesn’t seem like much point as the coil seems to be reading something…


This is where things become a bit of a drag. I gave up at this point and needed outside assistance. So two auto locksmiths and an ecu tuning place later and I still haven’t found anybody who thinks they can help…argh!

First locksmith said that if there was something at the ecu end he wouldn’t be able to help, second one said he would go and see if his stuff would talk to it, not sure if he’ll ever get back to me (nobody ever does these days!) and the tuning place (was a long shot but they are at the other end of the village where I live), were a bust as the chap there said he’d never had much to do with Suzukis.

Not slighting any of the above, they were all perfectly nice people to talk to, and wanted to try and help just couldn’t it seemed.

Which leaves me with a few options I suppose.

Ring the dreaded dealership and see if they can plug it in.

Keep ringing auto locksmiths and the like and pray someone knows something about Suzukis.

Bite the bullet and buy a diagnostic tool
The vdiagtool vd70 looks like it will do immobiliser stuff and seems like it can be had for less than 300 quid on eBay and probably sold on again afterwards but after looking at diagnostic tools until my brain dribbled out of my ears it’s not very clear whether it will talk to my car in that regard.
I appreciate the vote for topdon too they look like they do great stuff too.

Or

Set fire to it and dance around it in my pants (my preferred option at the moment!)

 

[Blobber]

Fire and pants does seem the best option but before then it wouldn't hurt to ring the dealership, try and talk to some sensible not the receptionist

 

[Gareth_16V]

It looks like the coil is built into the immobiliser control unit, and that's what's plugged into the wiring harness?
As the top looks to be clipped on, any merit or mileage taking a quick look inside, looking for dry solder joints or water/corrosion ingress, before loading the parts cannon or getting expensive with diagnostics and locksmiths?
It seems like the car is able to tell you it can't read the chip in either key, which probably means the transponders are Ok.