On my 91 Bird The Security light wont shut off, the car starts and runs fine, from what i heard from the previous owner the VATS system was recently worked on because the car wouldnt start. What should I check out, or is there a simple fix for this? I AM NOT just pulling the bulb out!

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--Rogue Leader
AOLIM: TransAmWS6
NY Region SCCA #2 SM

1989 Pontiac 20th Anniversary Turbo Trans Am #861
1986 Chevrolet Camaro 2.8 V6 "Starts, Stops, Goes in all 4 directions!"
1991 Pontiac Firebird 3.1 V6 "Project: Daily Driver"

 

ttt Anyone?????????

 

Havent seen this , the only reason I've heard of this is if the wrong resistance is sensed in the key, but then it wouldn't start ...very strange...

 

well you could rip the whole system out... Other wise it is getting a bad signal somewhere...

 

if you do rip it out make sure to read up on how to override the injector pulse. VATS controls two things; the starter and injector pulse.

 

I am sure there are other possibilities but you could have a short or a bad decoder module.

m-t

 

Or when they worked on it they may have disabled the decoder module.

 

I have this exact same problem, VATS was disabled on my car, and my car starts and runs fine. It happened yesterday when it got really hot out and I was driving down the freeway. The security light stayed steady til I got home, fearing it wouldn't start, but it did. I came back a few hours later, and the security light stays off.

Any suggestions??? That Security Light is REALLY bright!

 

If you can try to find out what was done to the VATS from the old owner, that goes a long way to saving you time. If not try this. Look at the base of the steering column and see if it was bypassed, usually a resistor of some sort attached across a couple of yellow wires. If it's been bypassed(very common) a couple of things come to mind. I bypass a bird for a friend of ours, she did not want to put in a new ign sw. She experienced a similiar problem i.e., intermittent operation of the security lamp. It may be that a resistor across the VATS module all the time creates a sequence that the decoder does not like, or it may be the actual value of the resistor. PASS key pellets are non EIA resistor values. May people used off the shelf fixed value ones to try to get close to the pellet value. My friend had a problem(no start again) after I did the bypass on an extremely hot day. By the time I got there she had the door open for a while and it started right up. I surmised that the resistor was off enough and the heat changed the bandwidth of the decoder enough to cause the problem, simply letting the interior cool was enough to let the decoder recognize the resistor again. I used a 20 turn potentiometer and adjusted it to the exact pellet value and it seemed OK for the rest of the summer. She never mentioned as to whether the light still came on as the car was sold, so I never had the chance to pursue it further. Just a couple of ideas to try as the VATS decoder unit is very expensive and tough to get at. Try the simple stuff first, thats all it could be.