Pass Key Fault

I had this light up and stay on today. The car is a '95 caprice. Any idea what could cause this? There wasn't much of a pass key fault, as the car started right up and drove, just thought it was strange...

Try cleaning your key.

I'll give that a whirl.....

Our Pass Key light has been on since we bought the car last February.

Ok, today I went from Pass Key Fault to Pass Key FAIL! Car wouldn't crank at all, had full electrical working. Pass Key Fault was flashing the whole time...After trying like 20 times, finally cranked and I drove it home. Anyone with some good tips on bypassing this system. My key is a #7 and measures at 1.86k ohms. Is it possible to splice that amount of resistors in the plug loop to trick the car into thinking it's working?

phastlt1 wrote:

Ok, today I went from Pass Key Fault to Pass Key FAIL! Car wouldn't crank at all, had full electrical working. Pass Key Fault was flashing the whole time...After trying like 20 times, finally cranked and I drove it home. Anyone with some good tips on bypassing this system. My key is a #7 and measures at 1.86k ohms. Is it possible to splice that amount of resistors in the plug loop to trick the car into thinking it's working?

Yup, did that with my SS. Unplugged at the base of the column and setup some resistors to match the key. Never had another problem.

That's what I needed to hear.....definitely the route I'm going

I did the same thing, the first thing you have to do is get a resistor the same value. should be able to do that at Radio Shack.

This may be of some help: http://www.thirdgen.org/vats_passkey_system

Tom C.

I've seen that chart, and it confrims what I've seen. I went to the stealership earlier to check and make sure my key wasn't bad....he told me it was a 7, tested it, and confirmed it was good. I checked the resistor with an ohmmeter and it came up 1.86. According to the chart, that is within tolerance. I just got back from radioshack, and I couldn't find one with that value, but I did find 4 that addded up to that, so I'll solder them in series and splice them in...should be all good, least I hope.

Mine was giving me fits last summer. Swapped in a new Key Cylinder and the problem was solved

Few months later and it returned though, lol. Always starts just has that damn light on all the time. When I get the PCM tuned the system will be disabled for good.

Ok, just messed with this a bit, and now I'm stumpped. I'm pretty sure I unplugged the ignition wire from the vats wire (white & orange, purple & white). I wanted to test with these disconnected to make sure the car wouldn't start. It did start, and ran fine. I gave it gas several time and it never missed or anything. Are these the correct wires? I've seen pics and they appear to be correct, but???? The pass key fault light stayed on the whole time it was disconnected, before it was just intermittent.

Not sure about the wires, but just an FYI, steady lights are when something is out of spec; a caution light, if you will while a flashing light means something is broke.... WARNING!

Yesterday when the car wouldn't start, the light was flashing. When I said intermittent earlier, I meant sometimes it would come on and stay on, other times it wouldn't come on at all.

phastlt1 wrote:

Yesterday when the car wouldn't start, the light was flashing. When I said intermittent earlier, I meant sometimes it would come on and stay on, other times it wouldn't come on at all.

aah,. so thats what intermittent means,..kinda like working intermittently so to speak,.

there was a great write up on the ISSF forum. dunno if it was lost in the crash or not.

I spliced in the proper resistor and haven't had an issue for over two years and the resistor cost my 20 cents. at Radio Shack (5 for a buck).

It was a one wire snip and I wire nutted the resistor in and tucked it all back up.

mine is like sprocket's. it was that way when i got car, it has auto start i guess that is why it was done. mine the 2 wires are white 1 is tied to resister and 1 is just cut