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Cadillac Pass Key Error

Passkey Error

QUESTION:

My STS is giving an Passkey error. Message center says "STARTER DISABLED" , WAIT 3 MINUTES, WAIT 2 MINUTES, WAIT 1 MINUTE, START CAR, Then it starts over again. I had a tow driver say that this is not uncommon, he disconnected the Positive cable and waited 10 minutes, reconnected cable and car started. This situation is happening again now the "Positive Cable Trick/Quick fix" is not working. I've been told by the Dealership that the Ignition Switch is the failure point and that the steering wheel/airbag has to be removed and switch replaced for 600.00 Does anyone know if there is a way to bypass the Passkey to start it or a doit yourselfer fix? Any other suggestions?

ANSWER:

I would try the WD40 in the lock cylinder first- also try your second 'spare' key- We have had good results on Corvettes just using the spare key-just these 2 steps fix about 85% of the problems. Before taking the airbag off you need to disconnect the air bag wire- this is the yellow wire/plug under the drivers kick panel- just disconnect it before removing the bag- the bag itself is just held on by a few screws If you do need to replace the lock cylinder- there are only 14 different keys (resistance of the key pelet)- when you buy a new lock cylinder it should come with a key- the trick is to get a new cylinder that has the same ohms resistance as the old one- you can find out how many ohms your key is by measuring resistance across the pelet- here is a list of the keys/resistance:

392
523
681
887
1.13k
1.47k
1.87k
3.01k
3.74k
4.75k
6.04k
7.5k
9.93k
11.8k
(k= 1000 ohms. so 3.74k =3740 ohms)
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