Sheesh, where do I start with this? Sit back, maybe get a drink, this is going to go on for a bit.
In 2017 I bought this 1999 base Boxster. It's been really great and has made for some superfun trips and provided some great memories, and overall has been a high-performance, low-maintenance fun machine, excelling at keeping my mid-life crisis at bay and helping me overlook the fact that we're all specks of meaninglessness, destined to die in a boundless, indifferent universe.
I bought this Boxster from a low-rent D-bag who was kinda nice in a general way, but had done nothing to rectify the history of benign neglect this car had suffered all down the line. I had fun for a few weeks with super-easy high-payoff no-brainer projects like replacing burnt out bulbs, windshield wiper blades, and trunk lift supports. The car is low-mileage and basically mechanically perfect, and the only remaining problem is that the seller told me he thought the keyless remote was just out of batteries while in fact the remote didn't have any guts at all. I haven't worried much about it as I never lock the car, even if I'm leaving it at the airport for a week. There's nothing in there to steal, and I guess I don't want anybody cutting the roof open to find that out. Seems like the biggest danger in that scenario is that a thief might not take care to close the door all the way and the battery would die while I'm away, but that hasn't happened.
But someday, I may want to sell it, maybe, and I'll want to be able to sell it with two working keyless remotes so that I don't come off like a low-rent D-bag with a cheesy story about dead batteries while hoping a buyer overlooks that one-out-of-a-hundred things to remember to check on while trying not to wet his pants all excited about buying his first Boxster. All this time, I've been living on the edge with only one working key: this is part of the mid-life crisis program, to remind me of when I used to take actual chances that my current lifestyle doesn't otherwise allow.
Other oddities in the history of this car and its keys: When I got the car, I couldn't lock it by any means- the key did nothing in the doors. I had a locksmith reverse-pick the door lock to make keys that work in the doors manually, but don't have anything to do with the ignition. These keys also work in the armrest glove compartment. I once had a shop cut a key blade that was prescribed to the VIN of the car, and it came out looking nothing like the key that worked in the ignition, and it didn't turn the ignition and so had no prayer of starting the car. I ordered two remote fobs and blank key blades from
www.keylessremotewarehouse.com and the blades were too fat to fit in the ignition. I filed one blade down to the right thickness so it would fit in the tumbler and had the pattern copied from the working blade, and it would turn the ignition, but no dealer would get near these keys to program them.
So I went to the Porsche dealer and told them this story, and they ordered two keyless entry fobs and blades ($500+) and when they came in a few weeks ago, I went and sat around the shop for half a day in the end they told me they couldn't make it happen: nobody there could figure it out and their key savant wasn't there that day. So today I went back when their key savant was there and they still couldn't make it happen. The objective was that I would come away with at least two keys that would work to unlock the car remotely (even though the lock cylinders do not match the ignition) AND start the car: this didn't seem like too big of an ask for $500-$600 dollars (plus programming fees). At the very least I had hoped to come away with two keys that would start the car, even if they wouldn't work as keyless entry remotes.
The service guy (perfectly nice guy) ends up tellng me today, after another few hours of working on it, "Nope, can't happen." They are only able to program ONE key at a time to run the car. He told me that they probably wouldn't be able to make more than one key work at a time and they think there is some unknown problem with the immobilizer- that it won't allow there to be more than one key at a time that can be programmed to start the car. I don't get why that would be, but that's what he said. And he said that they won't be able to make ANY key fob work to lock or unlock the car remotely. He said they checked the VIN and saw that this car was not configured to support keyless entry- AT ALL. He said it had never been able to be locked or unlocked remotely with a fob.
Number One, is that really so? Did they really sell these cars, even in 1999, without keyless entry? Could be they did, but that was surprising to me. And if they did, and this is a known thing, it seems like, Number Two, the first thing the dealer should do- before ordering $500+ of keys and fobs- is run the VIN to see if the fobs will in fact work before putting 5+ hours into trying to make them work. In fact, I think that in the end, the dealer will make good on this and not ask me to eat $500+ of keys/fobs that can't possibly be made to work for this car, but it seems like they should have made sure the car had remote entry capability before investing all this time in it.
He didn't go into more detail on the particulars of that point, but told me it would be $1,500 + $1,000 to get a new immobilizer and install it in order to get two keys to work. On a $9,000 car, I'm looking at $3,000 to go from having one working key to having two working keys (but no remote access) so maybe that doesn't make sense.
The Carfax history tells me this poor car had a troubled youth at first: it had the transmission out twice in its first year to allow for some ancillary repair, and had the ignition replaced twice in the first two years for some reason- screwdrivered? But it also tells me: "Anti-theft/keyless remotes replaced." How could that be if it didn't have the capability for keyless entry? I showed that part of the Carfax history to the service guy (perfectly nice guy) and he told me that was probably a general category that gets chosen by whoever is doing the service report that Carfax later picks up on, but is not necessarily accurate. Really? Maybe.
So, my questions for the hive mind: Does anybody know if in fact Porsche sold Boxsters in 1999 that did not allow for the possibility of remote entry? The car was made in Finland, purchased on the east coast somewhere.
And, does the mystery immobilizer issue sound familiar to anybody here? I have had no other quirks/mysteries/issues with the car, like any of the many weird immobilizer issues I have read about here.
I don't think the service guy (perfectly nice guy) is making stuff up or bluffing, but it could be that he's a little lost or grasping at straws kind of the way I am, and just wants to get to the end of the day without getting in trouble. I, however, hope to someday end up with two working keys and remotes for this car, but am not sure if there's a way to get there from here. Does anybody see a way to get there?
Thanks for hanging in there with a too-long story, but- what the hell- should it be *this* hard to get keys made for a car? I'm glad for the anti-theft system, but I'm approaching the point where it would be easier if the car got stolen and I had to start fresh.
Everybody likes pictures, so I will include a shot of the car, and of the Carfax report.
Boxster
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Parts Car, car parts
Honda Del Sol(s)
"Hers"
My Original '99
The 78 F350
This
That
The S 2.5
Other
Linear Mode
