Hi,

My Monty has been working perfectly, but last Thursday I started the vehicle and it started immediately, I put it in DRIVE and moved a couple of inches and shutdown by itself. Turned the key again, it started and immediately went dead. After that the engine will crank (turn), but it will not start.

Thinking the worst, broken timing belt (Goodyear with 40,000 miles on it), I checked it, but it was in perfect condition. Tried to start many times, but it would crank, but not start. Thought it might be the fuel pump, but there was no warning signs. So, decided to have it towed to a certified Mits mechanic. It was 3 days, and they hadn't been able to find the problem, there was no power to the ignition coils, to none of them (6). The ECU, alarm module, and other electronics were checked, still no solution.

Yesterday I remembered that Thursday morning my son had used the key I always use to ge something from the car, he gave it back to me and I misplaced it. I was in a hurry, so took the other key/alarm remote and used it, when it all happened. I had found the key, and it was hanging on my house wall (key rack). I took it to the mechanic, and the vehicle started immediately; problem solved! The mechanic didn't want to charge me a cent, but gave him $25.00 for his troubles.

Here is what happened...A few months ago the 5-speed auto tranny had to be rebuilt. After rebuilding it was still changing gear erratically and it will not go into 5th gear. The problem was that the old ECU codes had to be erased and the tranny ECU reprogrammed. This service was performed by a certified Mits technician, but he only had one key, the other key was at my house. When the ECU was reflashed the key he had was recoded with the ECU. So, when I used the spare key, which had not been recoded the ECU didn't recognize it and went into safe mode by shutting down the vehicles ignition system. The spare key will be recoded accordingly, so I can use any of the two keys.

Just writing about this, so others don't have to go through all this trouble.

 

gotta love 'security' and technology eh. Makes life so convinient.

 

hey man. so when you rebuilt your transmission you had to flash the edu?
im doing a rebuild soon too, would you mind telling me what you had to go through when you did that?