'Mmobilisers

[wuvvum]

Anyone know owt about these irritating bastards? I've lost the fob to the one on the Justy and I suspect that it's going to cost me more than the value of the car to get a replacement. So I'm trying to bypass the friggin' thing, but I'm not quite sure what it's immobilising. Obviously it stops the starter motor from engaging, but that should be easy enough to bypass with a wire straight from the battery live to a push button switch to the starter solenoid. I thought that they immobilised the ignition circuits too, but there's still a live feed to the coil when the ignition is switched on. And I don't think it's immobilising the fuel pump either as there's a buzzing from the boot when switching on. It won't start on a bump start, but that's presumably because the cold start mechanism isn't kicking in and the engine's not spinning fast enough from a bump to start without it. Surely an immobiliser should cut out more than just the starter though? Otherwise any tea leaf could either tow start it or short out the starter with a jump lead and drive away? I'm thinking about asking a mate to help me try and tow start it, but I don't want to bugger about with tow ropes in the cold and dark if there's something obvious that I've missed that'll prevent it from starting. Any pointers would be gratefully received...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I took one off my old GF's Ibiza SXi. It was not difficult, just time-consuming. Basically ti was a case of tracing the wires from it back to where they joined into the loom, and then simply getting rid of em. To fit it, the lad had found an inaccessible spot where the ignition and fuel pump wiring went, chopped into those two wires then ran the plain black wires from there back to the immobiliser so that the juice passing along each circuit had to go via the immobiliser. I just found the joins and re-connected the original wires. The only difference I can see between a well-fitted immobiliser and a shit one is the amount of trouble taken to find an inaccessible spot to make the joins.

[mk2_craig]

Wuvvum, is it a factory-fit job? Some of them are integrated with the ECU and therefore practically impossible to rewire. I'm guessing though that a ten year old J-box is going to have a pretty simple system that the UK importer was able to wang in at the dockside.

[wuvvum]

Wuvvum, is it a factory-fit job? Some of them are integrated with the ECU and therefore practically impossible to rewire. I'm guessing though that a ten year old J-box is going to have a pretty simple system that the UK importer was able to wang in at the dockside.

Nope, it's a dealer-fit Cobra jobbie. I very much doubt it's wired into anything particularly vital. Thing is, if it's just the starter motor it's immobilising it'd be quicker just to bypass it than to go to the trouble of removing it (I haven't even found where the bastard thing is yet). But then I don't want to go to the hassle of fitting a separate starter switch if the car's still not going to go afterwards. I just don't see the point of fitting an immobiliser if it still allows the car to be tow-started - I'm hoping that's all it is because it'd make my life easier, but it wouldn't make sense.

[Volksy]

I had one on my old Passat GL5, which sometimes would work, sometimes wouldn't. It was one of those with a thingy on the keyring that you plugged into the dashboard for a few seconds and an LED turned off to tell you it was de-activated.I traced the wires from the plug on the dash and found they led to a little black box (hidden behind the glovebox), i opened the case and found an override button in there. May be worth a try on yours.