Car's Security Immobilized Vehicle

[Talent312]

My DW's vehicle (Nissan Altima) has a security feature which will immobilize her vehicle. It becomes a large paperweight, but with the dash lights all lit up. Somehow she managed to trigger it. The manual said something about the keys. I didn't want the dash lights draining the battery, so I disconnected the battery.

Then it hit me... If I reconnected the battery, perhaps the system would reboot itself, and the car would work. Voila! The car works. But now I wonder, what triggered it and what else may need to be reset.

 

[dioxide45]

And if you were a real theif you found away to get around the system, at least to a degree.

 

[MILOIOWA]

On Fords, if you try to start the car with the wrong key, it will act that way. You have to wait awhile for it to reset itself and then will start. That could be what happened. Also, I have seen keys "lose" their memory of the program, but never "find" the program again without being reprogrammed. I wouldn't worry about it unless it happens again. Could be the transceiver going bad that receives the signal from the key or a number of things.

 

[dougp26364]

My DW's vehicle (Nissan Altima) has a security feature which will immobilize her vehicle. It becomes a large paperweight, but with the dash lights all lit up. Somehow she managed to trigger it. The manual said something about the keys. I didn't want the dash lights draining the battery, so I disconnected the battery.

Then it hit me... If I reconnected the battery, perhaps the system would reboot itself, and the car would work. Voila! The car works. But now I wonder, what triggered it and what else may need to be reset.

Some anti-theft device that is if all you have to do is reboot it by disconnecting the battery. I wonder who thought that system up.