Hello everyone! I own a 98 malibu and have had theft system troubles since about day three. I purchased the car in '03. I started having trouble with the no start condition and the flashing theft system light not long after I installed a crime stopper remote starting system. Eventually, the car refused to start with the key, and for about a year the remote was the only way the start the vehicle.
I am friends with a fellow who worked at a Gm dealership as a mechanic, and so I asked him about it. He took the car and had a new tumbler installed, and it worked great... for about 4 months.
Then one day it totally refused to start at all. So, in my fury, I completely removed the remote start system and finally got it to start somehow. After that it worked OK for a while.
Now in the last 2 months it has started the crappy no start stuff again. So after researching this forum, I decided to try the resistor fix that ponchonutty has described. I read all about cutting the yellow wire and faulting the system out, but I wanted to not have to mess with hoping that when I desconnect battery power, that the ignition switch would still function properly one more time. I am in to car audio competition, so unhooking battery power is somewhat a common practice.
Out to the car I went, with my multi-tester in hand. When testing for resistance, I came up with 3.7 k/ohms. Then it was off to Radioshack, where I purchased a package of five 3.9 k/ohm resistors for $.99. Wired up the resistor, and used the relearn method method to accomidate the new resistor. To the key I went and tried to start it and...
... Holy Crap It Lives. Restarted the car several times and each time it started!!! No theft light flashing and no steady theft light while running.
Thanks to Ponchonutty's information, a 20 cent resistor has made me not hate my car so much. I will only repost if I run into any more trouble, but I am confident this simple proccess has saved the day. The 45 minutes it took to do this install doesn't even to compare to the amount of time has been wasted watchin that stupid theft system light flash.
Thanks a million Poncho!!!!!!