My old 1999 Octavia 1.6GLXI, has some real problems with the imobiliser, every so often, it won't start due to the imobiliser not dis-engaging. I sold the car due to this, as I had enough of it, but my mate wanted to buy it off of me even though he was in full knolwedge of the problem. By all accounts it is getting worse, the dealer had it in when I still owned it, couldn't find anything wrong, but said the key was only sending a weak signal to it. It does this on both keys, but they say it probably just need a new key. I thought it was water ingress, through the rear o/s door, but it's playing up all the more now, & we haven't had any rain lately!!

The car does have history of imobiliser trouble, both discs in the ignition barrel were changed under warranty when it was less than 3 years old, it went in twice & a disc was at fault both times!

Anyone got any ideas? A new key is £40 + £40 to program it, but I am not sure if this will cure the problem. Thanks in advance for any information. DJD66

From a previous post of mine:

I'd start off replacing the loom from the read coil to the back of the dash panel. This involves removing the steering column shrouds and the dash panel insert. The loom part number is 1U0971809 and should be well under £10.

Thanks fordfan! I've passed that onto him, he has ordered a new key today, & says he is determined to get to resolve the problem!! He has joined Briskoda this week, but has yet to post he's just told me!

Weak signal is typically caused by the wiring from the keyswitch to the instrument cluster. I repalced this with a piece of "twisted pair" cat 5 phone cable with a foil shroud around the twisted pair of wires.

The tricky part is opening the connector from the back of the instruments to repalce the cables into the pins of the multi-pin connector.

Fixed the problem for good.

I had the same on my old GLXi, It was the cable from the barrel to the dash pod as others have stated. I seem to remember it being bright green?