The Acura RDX is a small luxury SUV made by Acura, which is Honda's fancy car brand. The 2018 version has a turbocharged engine and lots of modern features.
This is a computer inside the car that talks to the special key you carry. It makes sure the key is yours so you can unlock and start the car without using a regular key.
Instead of using a key to start the car, push button start lets you just press a button to turn the engine on, as long as you have the special key fob nearby.
and a ton more. And once you purchase one of these training seminars, you can access this
at any time that you want through your account at automotive seminars.com. You can rewatch
the training a year, two years later, which makes this training even more valuable. So I highly
recommend you check this out. The link is in the show notes. And especially if you're doing an
immobilizer module is you can actually get the car key up using the scan tool and auto or top
down was able to do this. Once you try to connect to the vehicle, and it can't because the key is
off, it's going to say is this a push button start vehicle, you hit yes, and then it has you hold
the start button. And then it will actually key up the vehicle. Now, the immobilizer light will be
flashing in a case like this. And you won't be able to start it, but at least everything is powered up
and you can do a full system scan. And that's obviously helpful to identify if you have any
other issues. But it is also part of the process of getting things rolling within the keyless entry
module for the registration process. So just keep that in mind. If you need to key up one of these
Honda Acura vehicles, and after a module has been replaced, use one of these aftermarket scan
tools and it can key it up. Now, the Honda tool can do that as well. But you can just hook up a top
down and get it to key up, I think even quicker. So at this point, I'm out of options for the
aftermarket tooling that I have. I've tested the key. And, you know, the original one says it's
locked. The new one says it's unlocked. I've tried both of them. It doesn't seem to be working. I
was questioning, did we get the right key, but matched everything up FCC ID and all that was
exactly what it needed to be. Still not working. So at this point, I'm like, okay, I'm going to try
the Honda tool, right? So there's the Honda HDS, which you can just purchase a subscription through
a Honda tech info or Honda service express, you make an account, you buy a subscription. Now,
there's various subscriptions for both lengths and what you're trying to do. And if you're going to
do immobilizer functions, there's a security professional one, you do have to be registered
with NASDAF, it is going to ask for your credentials. But if you do that, then you can actually access
the security functions of this. So you do that, get set up with a short term sub, open up HDS,
and then you can open up the immobilizer tool for Honda. Now, there's a second step in order to make
this happen, that you need to buy a Honda key code, which is an additional purchase.
And then you're going to enter your VIN number, and it's going to give you a PCM code. And then
you can enter that PCM code in order to get the immobilizer tool to connect to the vehicle. And
I know that's a lot of steps. And I'll be honest, the website is tricky to use, but credit to PJ
for helping me out through that. He's done a few more of those than I have, and he was able to give
me some tips on it. So again, if you go to Honda service express, and you're registered with NASDAF,
you have to buy the short term sub for HDS under security professional, and you have to buy a key
code, which then giving it the VIN number will then give you a PCM code, which you use to get in
with the immobilizer tool. So if you need to go back and write those steps down, it's probably not
a bad idea. But anyways, that's the path that I took in order just to get in with the immobilizer
tool and run the functions that I wanted to run. So go in there and do this. And I get to the process
where I'm registering the keyless entry module, just like I would be with the aftermarket tools,
and it fails in the exact same place that the aftermarket tools did in the same way.
And that was very disheartening because I was like, well, this is like something else is going on
here, you know, I've got the factory tool, essentially, I'm using a cardiac as far as the
pass through, but you know, I'm using the factory interface, and it is failing at the exact same
place that the aftermarket tools are failing. And so at this point, we were looking closer at
part numbers, and we they actually did contact the dealer, and they said that it may be the wrong
part number because there are various trim levels for these accuracy. And so they were going to look
into getting making sure that this was the correct part number. And at that point, I was kind of out
of ideas, I spent time on it there, reached out to some friends, kind of out of ideas on what to do
there. And so I would call it for that day, said, Hey, we'll be back. That was actually a Friday,
came back this previous Monday. And they did get a different part, they said the hot accurate said
that there was a different part number for the trim level. And so that was actually, I was hopeful,
I was like, Well, maybe that was all this was a wrong part number. And I'm just, you know,
beating my head against the wall, because this part's never going to register correctly.
Well, we go back through the whole same thing. And it is the exact same result with this different
part number, keyless entry module. So same failure at the same point. And I'm really determined to
figure out what's going on here at this point, because there's got to be something blocking me
that I just don't understand. I just don't know what exactly it is. And I'm thinking about the key
specifically. The reason being is the process, the point in the process when it fails,
is when I'm going to register keys. So at this point, I'm turning this more into a diagnostic
to try to figure out, okay, well, why can I not register this key? And again, I looked at the
key, is this the wrong one? Is it the wrong FCC? No. As far as I could tell, the locked part of the
original key didn't have anything to do with it. Even though it says that I've just never had that
be an issue with Honda, I couldn't find anything any documented anywhere that said these keys lock
and you have to get new ones after replacing one of these units. So what I decided to do was turn
this again into a diagnostic of like, okay, why isn't this key registering? And the reason I'm
going that direction is if you remember a case study a while back on a Malbu that we were doing
a BCM on, we couldn't train the key in because the circuit to the backup key slot was disabled due
to some pop that had been spilled on a connector. And that wasn't a problem until you went to register
a key and you needed that backup transponder in order to do that, right? And maybe it's the same
thing with this car. Now, the only thing on this car is the keys are registered by the proximity
system, meaning that the low frequency antenna reaches out to the key, and then the key sends
out the high frequency signal back to the keyless entry module in order in order to register. So
we're not using a backup slot, but I'm still I'm going to go this way to see like, is something in
the system broken that wasn't obvious under normal vehicle operation, but is broken when we're trying
to register a key. So I'm going to use the diagnostic box tool for this. They have a proximity key
tester, which there's some other tools out there, but that's my favorite just because it's simple,
easy to use. And just, you know, it's battery powered, you can grab it, it's super noisy,
make some weird noises. But it gives you a real good feedback if the system is working both on
the low frequency antenna side of things, the 125 kilohertz, and on the output of the key, which
you can use other tools for the high frequency, like 315, 433. I want to say these, these keys were
higher frequency than that because they were remote star, but either way, I can measure that
output with the key to a max or something, but you can do that all with this diagnostic box
proximity key tester. Okay. So what I'm doing is I'm just hitting the button on the start system,
you know, for the ignition start button to see, you know, am I getting a response in the car?
And what does it look like? How do these low frequency antennas look on the tool? And you're
able to see that, okay, hey, it's reaching out for a key, it's reaching out for a key. And when I go
through the process of actually trying to register a key, and I have this tool there, I can see the
car is pinging, trying to find a key in, in the car. And I can see that there is an output from
the key as this is happening. And so I'm like, okay, you know, this like almost has to be
a key issue. And so what I thought that I was going to try and do was make sure that my key
was correct for the vehicle. And so I put the original module back in to the car plugged it in.
And also I hadn't done this personally myself up until this point. But I wanted us to see like,
okay, it's for sure everything working with the original module. And then can I register this
new key that I have to it, even if it disables this key and locks it, at least I can prove it's
right for the car. And I'll get another one if I need to. But I got to try something here because
it looks like it's looking for a key, but it's not taking the keys information. So I put the key
or I put the original keyless access module back in. And I'm able to key this thing up started
with its original key that I have that the customer gave me here's the key for the car.
Okay, now, what I was doing was I was taking the keys out of the car. I'm trying to actually walk
through my exact my exact thought process here. Oh, I was going to see first, okay, is the original
key programmed to this car? Okay. And then I wanted to take that out, have my new untrained key,
and then just see how the car would respond, just to make sure like, okay, it's not going to key up.
It's definitely programmed, you know, to that original key. When I did that, I could still
key this thing up, right? So original key that belongs to the car, I have it set like 10 feet
away from the vehicle. And then I had my new key, which shouldn't be programmed to the original
keyless access module, I could cycle the ignition, turn this thing off on and off. I took my new key
and I put that 10 feet away, I come back to the vehicle, and I hit the button, and I can key this
thing up, and I can start it. And I was like, well, maybe it's just a time delay, you know,
sometimes if you cycle the key fast enough, even if it's not there, it'll still let you start it.
I let it sit for like five minutes, I key it up, and I'm able to turn the thing on and I'm able to
start it with the keys sitting 10 feet away from the vehicle. So at this point, I knew exactly what
was wrong. And going back to the instructions and service information of, hey, follow the
information or follow the instructions on the tool, the tool tells you during the process,
you can only have one key in the vehicle while you're trying to train in keys. And that's true
of Honda proximity keys. Okay, and I was as far as I thought, right, because I had two keys,
I had the original, I had mine, I was only doing one at a time, and I set the other one about 10
feet away from the vehicle. But there was another key in the vehicle, and I had no idea. And now
I know because I can key this thing up with the keys 10 feet away, I'm like, there's another one in
here. And I look through the car and there is a key that was wedged between the passenger seat
in the center console, it had fallen between the seats. And there is a Honda smart key laying there.
So I take that key, and I put the original keyless entry module back in, I go through the process.
And now really, I'm only doing one key at a time, I'm able to program it in no problem. It takes the
keys, it takes all of the keys, the two originals and the new one programs them in no problem. So
those keys don't necessarily lock, you know, to a specific immobilizer module, maybe they're locked
to the VIN number that I don't know, I didn't try them on a different car, but there can only be
one key in there. And it was reaching out for a key problem was it saw two keys respond. Because
the learning process on this and other Hondas, it's not the short range transponder like some
smart key systems, it's using the RF output of the key, and it's getting two of them. And again,
it says in the process of the tool, you can only have one key in at a time or it's not going to
work. And that's why it was failing for us. And I was not aware that there was a second key in this
car. But there was. And how long it was there for, I have no idea the customer was not sure.
They said, Hey, this is the key that we were given, you know, the one key that I was trying the whole
time. And maybe the driver of the vehicle didn't know that there was a key in there, maybe they
did. I don't know. But I wasted a lot of time before I figured that there was a second key in
the car that was preventing me from doing this. So something to keep in mind, even if you're just
trying to add a key to a car, right, this would have been an issue if I was just trying to do a
regular key add is, Hey, is there a second key in the car? And, you know, if you're not trying to
register in a mobilizer module, you could just take all your known keys out and see, Hey, does
this thing still start up or not? And that would tell you whether there's a key. But in a situation
like this, where the module is not initialized, you'd have to have the original one back in there
to even, you know, determine that this is going on. You know, either that or, you know, try to,
you could use like the diagnostic box to figure out, Hey, there's a key responding to this thing
when I hit the button or when I go to initialize it. But it was pretty goofy. I wasted a lot of
time on it. Definitely learned something about the system and, you know, something to consider
when you're having issues with one of these. But I thought I'd share it on the podcast just because
that something you definitely could run into. It's easy enough to have a secondary key in a car
one way or another. Maybe it's with a remote start system. Sometimes they'll have an extra key
stash somewhere under the dash or something like that. But that's where I'm going to wrap this one
up. Hopefully you found that interesting. And I appreciate everybody listening. But that out of
the way, let's get out there. So fix in the world one card at a time.
About this episode
A deep dive into the challenges of registering a keyless access control module on a 2018 Acura RDX, highlighting the complexities of immobilizer systems and module programming. The discussion covers the interplay between various vehicle control modules, the nuances of Honda and Acura immobilizer systems, and the difficulties faced when aftermarket tools fail to register new modules. The episode also explores diagnostic strategies, the importance of understanding the vehicle's history, and the impact of incorrect diagnoses on programming success. Practical tips on key status checking and tool selection are shared, making it a valuable resource for technicians dealing with similar programming hurdles.
This week on the show I share my struggles trying to register a keyless access control unit in a 2018 Acura RDX. We've done many of these modules on other Honda's and Acura's before with no issues. This car however throws us a curve ball. Listen to here the solution.
