ClubCJ - The CJ Lancer Club

Hi guy's & girls,

I thought I'd pop in and say Hi .

Thanks to a mountain of info found on this great forum I was able to solve a problem with my friends 2010 Lancer today .

Her key had come apart and the little black chip thingy had fallen on the floor rendering the car immobilized, I knew the car was immobilized but wasn't sure why . Anyways, we found the chip and glued that sucker back into the key head and all was good again

The local Mitsubishi dealership had quoted $700 to cut and program a new key for it

Welcome to Club CJ!

Welcome to the club.

That little black thing inside the keyfob is the immobilizer transponder. the chip itself can be bought for around 20c from ebay but they need to be coded to your vehicle's ECU, however the tool to do that costs $$$.

Cutting the key is only about 30 bucks from a keycutter and really offers no security at all. without the transponder you will not be able to crank the engine as you have discovered.

The way it works is actually very similar to RFID systems like in electronic hotel room cards..
Wikipedia has a great article for those who want further reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immobiliser

Another good thing to see in there is a statistic that shows that the majority of cars that are stolen are as a result of the theif having the key or preying on a car without any security measures.