WTB - Immobilizer 2002 Boxster S
 

Hey guys. This is my first post here on 986 forums. Desperately need your help. I’ve owned my 986 for about 365 days. I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, it got flooded in hurricane IDA. Insurance deemed it a total loss, and I bought it back! I pulled and dried the carpet out. The immobilizer took some serious damage. I’m trying to find a replacement immobilizer. P/n 996.618.260.03. I am located in Northern New Jersey. Locally would be ideal, but I’m will to pay for shipping. Let me know what you guys have. I have mechanics that have access to programming and that have dealt with flood cars before. Any IMMOBILIZER advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Steve

Sciric27@gmail.com

1. Immobilizer's can only be programmed to a car's DME once, they cannot be reprogrammed.

2. The only way you can put a used immobilizer into a car is to also have the matching DME and keys from the car it came from, and install them as well.

3. Could well be cheaper, and a lot easier to just have a dealer program and install a new one, keeping all the original other stuff.

I have a couple that are P/n 996.618.260.07 and I'd sell one as a set with the DME, immobilizer, key and ignition for $500. I don't know the specific difference between the .03 and .07 and I recommend that you find one with the correct part number unless your mechanic says he can work with it.
I will post pictures and specifics if you are interested. The one I'd send is from a 2002 S with Tiptronic.

Digging a little deeper in the Pile-o-Parts, I found a 996.618.262.03 that is not a complete set. Again, I'm not sure if it will work for your car, but if your mechanic can work with it I'll sell it shipped for $220.

Check with Qmulus on this forum. He fixed my wet immobilizer a couple of years back. He did a great job at a very reasonable price. Been working great ever since. I wrapped the repaired immobilizer in 3mil plastic and duct tape to avoid a repeat.

1. This information is not correct. Immobilizers can be re programmed _with the right equipment_. The factory tools cannot reprogram immobilizers through the diagnostics, but you can directly program the electronics. Going this route you can also retrieve the data from damaged immobilizers in 90% of the cases. That last 10% may have had its data corrupted. That is important as it allows you to retain your original key remote programming. In general, if you have a damaged immobilizer and find another good used one of the same part number, the data can be read off of the damaged immobilizer and put into the good replacement and EVERYTHING will work. BTDT many times. Are you sure that it is 260.03 and not 260.5 or 263.03? I have noticed that ECU Doctors buy up all the good used immobilizers from the Porsche salvage yards. Why would that be if they couldn't reprogram them? Truth is, they get more money for those after reprogramming than the dealer gets for new ones. Buy for $50-$75, sell for $1195. Nice profit. Even if they have to buy a new replacement and program it, they make $500+ I don't get how they get people pay so much. Then again, I am not a good businessman...

2. This is the WRONG way to go about the issue. This gives the car receiving the immobilizer, DME and key fob(s) the "identity" of the car that those parts came from. Unless you keep track of the VIN from the donor car, you will not be able to add keys or do any programming of the car in the future. BAD idea. Porsche keeps track of the programming codes in their systems for these cars by VIN. If the electronics in the car don't match your VIN, and you need a key, a DME, or other programming, they will throw up their hands and tell you that you need to replace everything. Again...

3. The only real problem with going this route is that if the damaged immobilizer won't communicate (so you can retrieve the remote codes), and you don't have the original tag from the remotes with the programming codes (who does) you will need new remotes. IF the part number the new immobilizer is exactly the same as the damaged one, you can directly transfer the data from the damaged one to the new, with an exception or two of the very earliest immos which have new firmware.

Will I do a youtube video on what data you need from the old one, how to do it and what equipment you need? Sorry, but no, for many reasons. I am a bit surprised no one, especially some eastern European guys haven't already done that. Maybe they have, I have never looked. Compared to the other stuff out there that gets hacked, this is child's play.

2. Uh...No they dont and in fact will tell you they dont have the codes for fob, only the code for the physical key shank. Also the DME from the donor car, will stay in the DME and not take on the vin of the car it's going into. I know this cause I took a care with a donor DME, immobilizer & single key in and had them add another key fob...they had no issues doing it.

Read many of your posts about you being able to do what you say and I know it's possible cause others do the same such as ECU Dr in FL.

True that Porsche does not keep the programming codes for the fob, because that is specific to the fob. You have to enter the programming code for the car to get it into the mode to accept the code for the fob - if that makes sense... The programming codes that allow you to actually enter that code is tied to the VIN. In reality, the actual value in the immobilizer for the fob is like four bytes, not the 16 or whatever it is on the tag. Theoretically, you code get that code from the immobilizer and transfer it into another directly. That is exactly what the factory tool does when you swap immobilizers, assuming that it will still communicate with the diagnostics. BTW, it would also be possible to "re-virginize" a used immobilizer to the same state it was when it was new. I don't know that anyone does this, but it is possible.

It is great that the new tools just pull VIN out of the parts you put in. I guess they probably didn't even know that that VIN didn't match yours, as they probably didn't even enter it. They just connected up and it worked. The diagnostic tools automatically pulled it from Porsche's system. This is one big advantage of the new Porsche testers over the old PST-2s, etc. I still think it is a big waste to swap in the DME, immo/BCM and key fobs when all you need is the immo/BCM.

I do stand by my statement that your Boxster now has the electronic "identity" of the car those modules came from. Whether that is an issue or just semantics is something that might take more study. I guess for you right now, it doesn't matter, as yours got handled without issues.