Originally Posted by Johnny2R
I bought my Rover 75 CDT in July 2006 and, after some initial problems with injectors, it has been a delight. Three times in that period, though, it has completely failed to start, and the worst and most serious instance was a couple of days ago. When I say failed to start, I mean it turned over OK, but nothing more, not so much as a cough. Normally it starts straight away without a problem.
Now, each time this complete non-starting has occurred, I believe I have, immediately prior to the non-start, done something slightly different from normal as regards unlocking the car - maybe accidentally re-locking it and then immediately unlocking it again, or something like that. Each time, the car has eventually just sprung back into life as if nothing had happened.
The other day, I had been for a short walk, then got back into my car and felt sleepy, so, deciding a short snooze might be in order, I pressed the button to lock all the doors. I then realised I probably wouldn't be able to sleep so decided to head off anyway and attempted to start the car, but no joy. I immediately thought "Ah, it's that old immobiliser mischief again", so did every permutation of locking, unlocking, getting in and out, etc, I could think of, but it still wouldn't start. I thought it must be something different this time, so called out the recovery people. Anyway, the guy couldn't work out what the problem was and could only determine that no power was getting to the under bonnet fuel pump (certainly I wasn't hearing the normal burring noise before starting). I took a look to see if the ECU was wet but the plenum was dry as a bone. Anyway, just after I'd put the ECU back into place, the recovery guy tried the ignition on and off three times in rapid succession, and bingo, it sprang back into life as if nothing had happened.
Now, it strikes me that this is likely some kind of immobiliser quirk, some bug to do with some sequence of actions which causes it to misbehave (unless there is some other explanation which someone can think of). Has anyone else come across such an immobilisation problem? And is there some way of effectively resetting the immobiliser, some sequence of key fob presses perhaps, that tells it to pull itself together and stop being silly?
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