markzb

Greetings and thanks for looking here. Much appreciated.

I would like to remove the immobilizer system from my 993 and am hoping someone may be able to assist me. The reason I would like to remove it is that I have trouble unlocking the car and ocassionally "disarming" the immobilizer.

Attached to the ignition lock - door lock key is an original Porsche key fob. It has a single round button on it and a small red LED beside it. You press the button once to unlock the car. Press it again and it locks the car.

The car has two alarm immobilizer related control units. One resides under each front seat. There is the alarm unit which is connected to the door actuators, alarm horn etc....and the immobilzer unit which the key fob switches to lock unlock the car and it then disables various relays etc to prevent the car being started.

The problem is that this key fob is very unreliable. You sometimes have to tap it or even bang it against something to get it working. I have tried putting in a fresh battery but that doesnt really help. As I am not the original owner, I only got one key fob.

In addition to this hassle of getting the key fob to unlock the car, this immobilzer system attached to the car, also original Porsche, part number 993.618.159.01. starts to become a bother. What this thing does is it disables the starting of the car. The starter motor becomes "locked out" via a relay. It also acts in two other ways as far as I can tell. It locks out Relay R11 and I suspect it sends a "coded" signal to the ECU.

The trouble is that if you dont start the car within say 2 minutes of unlocking the doors, then it disables the car. So I then have to deal with this key fob again trying to lock and unlock the doors to start it again.

So...I would like to remove this immobilizer. I understand the risk that the car may then be stolen, but honestly, that I can deal with. I am more concerned that in an emergency, I may not be able to start or restart the car. I cant begin to say how frustrating it is dealing with this bloody key fob!

I have the problem that I suspect that this immobilizer sends a sort of coded signal to the ECU. I say this because I hooked up a scope to it and there is for a very short while a sort of brief pulsing going on, in this case, the orange/ green wire attached to the immobilizer.

I would be so grateful if any members could tell me either here or offline how they have managed to combat this coding problem.

Thanks again guys

Regards

mark

sojglenn

Hi Mark,

Why not buy another remote? I did this recently and used the instructions in the manual to program it. I think it was like $100 from sunset.

-Steve

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Hi Mark:

Steve offered some great advice,...get a new fob from the Dealer.

The only way to disable the Immobilizer is to reprogram the DME and thats a $ 995 kind of project.

Getting a new & reliable control fob seems like a better deal to me, unless you want some additional performance.

markzb

Hi Guys

Thanks for the great suggestion. Thats what I wanted to do originally. So I sent it to the Porsche dealer and they kept the car for two days. No problems with that. But they told me that they could not code any new fobs to the car and I needed to buy a new immobilizer control unit and some new fobs and the price was astronomical !!

I just want to remove the system. I suspect that to remove it, one needs to get a device that can "generate" the "signature" that the immobilizer sends to the motronic ECU (Pin 88?) and thus you can rid yourself of the immobiliser.

I sure would appreciate some help from any who may have done this before.

Regards

Phil

Mr Steve weiner told you how to do it. You need to reprogram the ecu and he can delete the imbolizer.
Oh if I were you I would find another dealer to work with.
FWIW I have never had a problem with mine. I replace the battery in the remote every 6 months

ceboyd

we looked into trying to do this too but unfortunately my reprogrammed ECU (done by Steve) never seemed to program out the immobilizer I wish it did so that I didn't have to fork out the big $$$ for a new control unit my fobs worked fine but my electronic box under the passenger seat pooped out.. NOT FUN!

I don't have $995 to have steve try again to get rid of the immobilizer so for whatever reason, I'm stuck with this thing

David in LA

Do as Steve and others suggested and flash the ECU; the side benefit is that you can enhance the performance of your car as part of the flashing. Speak to Steve as many here have had good results w/his work.

ceboyd

yes, but you'll have to hope that the ECU keeps the reprgramming.. in my case, the immobilizer started working again after 3 days for reasons unknown... as if it relearned the code that was supposedly overwritten.. wierd stuff

jnx

Did you contact Steve about this? I would be interested in getting rid of this too, but not at $995 for 3 days. That is expensive even for Porsche.

ceboyd

I had asked Steve about it and he told me that some of them stay programmed out and some do not.. he couldn't explain it but said that it did happen.

So I am stuck with the Immobilizer and had to fork out $350 for a new control box last year when that box under the passenger seat failed

hutch

Just had my ECU programmed with Steve. The immobilizer light blinks but I still have to press the button on the remote to start ? What is really the story on this ? I certainly would like to do away with the remote button pushing!

ceboyd

yup.. sounds like what happened to me...

cabrio993

Add me to the list of immobilizer haters...I HATE IT!!!

It will most likely leave you stranded someday. If someone wants to steal the car, they would just tow the darn thing.

If someone finds a way to disable this thing for good please let me know.

hutch

I would like to know if Steve has any input?

ceboyd

some people carry an extra DME relay but I carry an extra control module too! (lol)