2001 Lincoln Continental
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2001 Lincoln Continental Transponder Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

Got a call from a guy out in the Casa Conejo neighborhood of Thousand Oaks. His 2001 Lincoln Continental was sitting in his driveway, theft light blinking, engine cranking but refusing to fire. He had one key left, and it had been getting flaky for a week.

I asked him to describe the theft indicator on the dash. Rapid blink right after turning the key. Classic PATS rejection. The module in the steering column was not seeing the 4C transponder chip.

When I got there, I checked the key first. The plastic bow had a hairline crack running right through where the glass transponder sits. The chip was still inside, but it had shifted just enough to throw off the read distance from the transceiver ring around the ignition cylinder. Some days it would read, some days it wouldn't. That tracks with how he described the last week of intermittent starts.

I cut a fresh H72-PT blank on the van, then ran the PATS procedure through the OBD-II port using my IM608 to register the new transponder to his PCM. The 2001 Continental uses the GEM (Generic Electronic Module) to handle the PATS handshake, part number YF1Z-15604-AA on most of these cars. Programming took about ten minutes once security access cycled through.

He turned the key, theft light went solid for a second, then off. Fired right up. He just sat there and let it idle like he was afraid to jinx it.

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