[Colt Hero]

Just thought I'd chime in here once again with an update. I still have my '02 Impala (which I bought brand new in June 2002). It's 14 years old now and about to turn 193,000 miles. My son was driving it a couple days ago, stopped at a light, the car happened to stall out (a separate problem), the SECURITY message appeared, and he couldn't get the car re-started. I had to rescue him by pushing the car into a nearby parking lot. 10 minutes later, the car started (as it always has), I drove it away (we swapped vehicles), and it hasn't failed since.

So I never did anything to fix this SECURITY problem on my Impala. The reason is it happened so infrequently (maybe 10 times in 14 years now), and it always happened on startup. And then, whenever it DID happen, the car ALWAYS started after the 10-minute wait.

So now I'm finally going to try cleaning the contacts on the switch/cylinder - because, even after all these years, it still looks like as good a solution as any of them.

But can anyone answer this question: if the electrical contacts are, in fact, the problem, why does my car ALWAYS start after the 10-min wait time? I mean - with *my car*, in EVERY SINGLE CASE, whenever the SECURITY message has appeared while trying to start the car (and the car would not start), the car has NEVER failed to start after the 10-minute wait! How can that be the contacts?? If the contacts are oxidized, they are oxidized (and need to be cleaned). Is the resistance value changing slightly with oxidation and then the system (ie: BCM) adjusts to the slightly different value?? Or is the value just sporadically jumping out of range, but then suddenly behaving itself again?? I don't know. People claim that they've cleaned these contacts and haven't seen the problem again in over a year, but I've done *nothing* up to this point, and I can say the same thing!

Really - the best solution to fix this problem is to take the car to the dealer and have them patch the BCM program to ignore PassLock completely. Or, if they won't do it (because they want to charge hundreds of dollars to replace all the system's components), does anybody know which OBD-II software (if any) might be able to modify the BCM program?? I've never seen any that said they could. All I've ever seen are programs that READ the 90 or so possible parameters.

Also, I believe on the 2003 Impala (and beyond???), GM added an "ALARM" menu option on the radio which allows PassLock to be disabled (by the owner). They must've seen PassLock as a looming crisis and decided to proactively add this shutoff switch before some lawyers decided to file a class-action suit against them. My 2002, of course, doesn't have this option ... but it makes me wonder if a 2003 radio, connected into my 2002 wiring, would give access to the bit in the BCM program which disables this stupid PassLock feature! This would assume my 2002 BCM program is similar to the 2003 BCM program (at least from a data segment standpoint). Not sure what other changes were implemented between these two years, but this is a possibility.

Has anybody installed a 2003 Impala radio unit in a 2002 Impala (or know if it would work)?