| Cherokee immoboliser |
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Our Cherokee stood unused for four days over the Christmas period while we whooped it up with turkey and rum to keep out the cold; unfortunately the cold got to the Jeep and when we tried to take it for a run on New Year’s Day it wouldn’t start – dead battery. No problem, we thought, as we hooked up the charger, she’ll be fine in a few hours’ time… No chance. Not even the offer of a jump start by a friendly neighbour had any effect. It was only then that we noticed that the little red light on the PANIC VALET immobiliser button was flashing. No problem, you might say, just jab the button on the remote and the immobiliser will reset itself. Fine, except that we don’t have the necessary remote; we bought the Cherokee at auction and it came with a single key and no remote plip, seemingly leaving us with no way of turning off the immobiliser. And when we Googled “Cherokee immobiliser” in the hope of finding a quick fix, up came a whole mass of pleas by others who appeared to have suffered a similar fate. Our nearby battery replacement specialist said he’d heard of the problem but knew of no way of disabling the immobiliser other than by using the remote sender; he did, however, suggest that we call at a car security specialist at a nearby industrial estate. They couldn’t help: “Can’t get replacement remotes,” they said, and “Yes, we did bypass the immobiliser on a Cherokee once, but it wasn’t an easy job…” Our local garage did at least come up with one possible answer; they knew of a Cherokee owner with two remotes who might be prepared to part with one of them, which they might be able to reprogram to work our Cherokee’s system. None of which gave us a quick answer. What we’d learned so far is that the PANIC VALET immobiliser was an aftermarket fitment by the Jeep importer because the original Jeep system didn’t warrant Thatcham approval for insurance purposes – hence the inability to source replacement remotes. It also seemed that the immobiliser worked through the engine management computer and cut at least three systems – the starter circuit, fuel pump and ignition, hence the difficulty in bypassing it. However, a few minutes of poking about under the bonnet revealed that shorting the starter directly to the battery (with the ignition on, of course) fired the engine up immediately, suggesting that on our car at least (a ’95 model) the immobiliser interferes only with the starter circuit. Every time we took the car out required us to pop the bonnet and short out the starter, hardly a long-term solution. What we needed was a remote switch inside the cab, so we proceeded to feed a couple of two-metre lengths of 17-amp wire through the bulkhead. Under the bonnet we hooked one end up to the cable feeding the starter solenoid and fixed the other the battery positive – the picture shows the connector we separated to feed power to the solenoid via a simple spade connector crimped to the end of the wire.  Inside the cab we coupled the wires to a rubber-covered10-amp push-button from Halfords. Ignition on, press the button, and hey presto, the old truck fired up beautifully. It also drove – we’d heard suggestions that the immobiliser might allow the engine to fire up, but would either cut it out after a few seconds or wouldn’t allow enough fuel through to make it driveable; this didn’t happen on our car, it drove well. We were happy that we’d found a workable solution, but didn’t fancy driving around with our add-on switch and its cables dangling about in the footwell. So where to mount the switch? As we poked about under the dash looking for a suitable mounting point, what do you think we found? High up at the front of the gearshift-surrounding centre console was a tiny push-button switch. We pressed it, but nothing happened – and then inspiration struck! We turned on the ignition before pressing it again – and hey presto, the immobiliser reset itself. How we laughed… At this stage we don’t know if all Cherokees had the same system fitted – the ‘97MY update might have included a more sophisticated system – or even if all models of our car’s generation had the same partially hidden reset switch; we’d appreciate any feedback that might clarify the situation and possibly help other Cherokee owners who might find themselves with an annoying immobiliser problem. 
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