Unable to start engine problem...
 

My 2001 box has intermittent starting problems...

It happened a couple of months ago and again appeared afew days ago...

I can unlock/lock car with the key remote but once I slot in the key and turn the ignition, all the warning lights up as normal, but the engine does not turn over...

The first time it happened, my mechanic plugged in to diagnostic port and the error was "wrong key inserted..." something like that. My mechanic claims that he cleaned the transponder on the key and everything works again.

But a couple of days ago, it happened again and worst still, it starts only once in about 10+ tries... No choice I had to drive straight to the Porsche dealership and they programmed another key.... All this was done when I drove in 30mins before their closing time.... error message was again "wrong key..."

Anybody experienced such problems ? I have no confidence that it won't happen again, besides the key, are there any other components that might fail ? Is there a sensor on the car that "checks" the key's transponder ?

I travel on long trips away from home, so am very afraid of failures when out of town... guess I better start carrying spare key, although unfortunately, during the last failures, I never had a chance to check if the spare key works as the spare key was at home during the failures.