pacificwynd

Hello everyone have a pontiac grand am 2002 this is my first experiance with one. I fueled up the other day and then the car would not start.There I am at the gas pumps one man suggested the fuel pump. I have 105000. kilmometers on it. So I towed it to an older mechanics house he looked at it tried everything with the pump make a long story short I came on here and saw the ten minute try. I called him he did it and it worked. Does anyone know is this a repeat performance why is it doing this. Sounds a might dangerous to me if it stops for nothing. I would appreciate anyone having knowledge it is kind of scary if it stalled in the middle of a turn or perhaps many tows later. If you put a remote automatic start will it override this problem. Thanks from a lady in distress.

GTP Dad

Welcome to AF!

The passlock system is a real pain on these vehicles. It is possible for it to reoccur while you are driving and a remote starter will often prevent the issue. It most often happens when the car is shut off and you attempt to restart it. Sometimes changing the key to another OEM key will prevent the problem.

A woman I worked with had this issue and the car would never start with the key. She always used her remote starter and the car never failed to start nor did it stall. Of course there are no guarantees that this will cure the issue. The only real way to eliminate the problem is to take it to the dealer and have the system disabled.

tommy00gt1

Just wondering here....is there any way for us owners to disable it ourselves, instead of a dealer? i don't have any troubles with it yet; just looking ahead.....

Happy New Year, everyone!

Tommy

pacificwynd

Thank you for your replyI will look into both and see what and where to go with this issue. Here a remote is good as I live in northern Canada. I still think this is dangerous can we complain to pontiac? Could you tell me what an OEM key is? I would be grateful THANKS.

GTP Dad

Unfortunately, Pontiac continues to ignore the problem so I don't think that will help. There is a member on this board who is trying to get enough folks together to get the NTSB to issue a recall.

As for the remote that is probably a good idea given your location.

An OEM key is an original key from Pontiac. They have a resistor located in them that the ignition must recognize in order to disable the passlock so that it will not shut down. If the passlock does not recognize the key the car will not start or run.

Finally, there are a couple of posts on the forum concerning disabling this system and how to do it. You may want to conduct a search.