The immobilizer is part of a vehicle’s anti-theft system. Although the system ensures that the vehicle cannot be stolen, the immobilizer components can deteriorate over time and cause problems for the car owner – the vehicle not starting.
In older vehicles, repairing the immobilizer can be difficult, as the car manufacturer may have stopped producing its parts. Removing the immobilizer can be a cheaper and easier solution than repairing the system.
If the engine control unit of a vehicle is replaced with a used spare part for any reason, in most cases the immobilizer data must be transferred from the old control unit to the new control unit. If the old control unit is completely broken and unreadable, the only option is to program the immobilizer from the new control unit.
In motor and technical sports, cars are often rebuilt and the original engines are replaced with more powerful ones – a problem with the immobilizer and the engine not starting can arise. In addition, no one wants the car to suddenly not start on race day if the car worked without problems before. That is why most racing vehicles have their immobilizers programmed out.
NB! If you are requesting a quote for programming your vehicle’s immobilizer, please include a picture of the sticker on the engine control unit with the various product codes and numbers, if possible.
Immobilizer field programming
On most vehicles, the immobilizer can be programmed from the control unit software - after programming, the vehicle will start.
Solution with emulator
On some control units, disabling the immobilizer from the software is not possible. In such cases, we install and program a suitable "emulator" into the control unit, which constantly sends a signal to the control unit: IMMO-OK. The end result for the car owner is the same - the immobilizer is disabled.
We use only very high-quality emulators in our work!