2000 Ford Windstar
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2000 Ford Windstar Transponder Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from a woman parked near the border crossing in San Ysidro, right in that stretch where the traffic stacks up and the heat sits on everything. She had a 2000 Ford Windstar and a key that went into the ignition just fine, turned over, and then the engine quit within two seconds. Every time.

She had already tried it a handful of times. The van would catch, run for a moment, then shut down like something pulled the plug. She thought it was a fuel problem, maybe a pump. She was ready to call a tow.

I asked her one question before she did anything else: did the key feel normal going in, or had she been using a copy lately. She paused. She said she had been using a spare that a hardware store cut for her a few weeks ago.

That told me most of what I needed to know.

The hardware store key was cut correctly, blade fit fine, but the chip inside was not enrolled to her van's immobilizer. The system was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. Engine fires, immobilizer catches the unrecognized chip, shuts it down. Classic symptom.

I had the right blank on the truck. Cut it to her vehicle on site, ran the programming sequence through the OBD port, enrolled the new key. She turned it over and it idled like nothing happened.

She had been one tow and one misdiagnosed fuel pump away from a much longer day. The dealer comparison came up for about ten seconds before she stopped caring because she was already pulling out of the lot.

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