57497FE000 – If anyone else would like it :)

I’ve had it for a while now. It all started looking like this:

It’s a nice thing, but feels a bit rough and ready. Even the brand-new key, had the blue plastic cover sticking out. I was a little disappointed, but quickly forgot about it, especially after I’d read online that it was a common issue.

The key is intended for cars without an immobilizer, which created a bit of a problem. My Impreza obviously has an immobilizer, so I bought a replacement key and saw the blade off, resulting in something like this:

To start the car, I had to insert the key into the ignition and hold the fob in such a way that the immobilizer chip would be correctly scanned. It worked fairly well, meaning I could get the cart to start easily, but the ergonomics of the solution wasn’t great. That’s where Charlie came in, the same one who wrote up how to install an automatic water spraying system for the intercooler. He designed a custom resin key cover:

The replacement piece that slides onto the blade, has a built-in pocket for the immobilizer chip. It fits perfectly, which, as shown above, even the smart folks at FHI couldn’t quite manage.

The chip and the housing:

Now everything needs to be slid onto the blade:

From now on, the fob only functions as the remote for the central locking system:

The resin cover is pretty impressive. It matches the shape of the key perfectly, the colour is exactly like the original one, and the chip housing holds onto the chip very snugly. It attaches to the blade securely, while still allowing you to slide the cover back out of the key (should you ever need to).

The last thing I wanted to do was to replace the cut key with a USDM fob, NHVWB1U711:

Although both transmit at the same frequency (443 MHz), the standard fob coding procedure cannot add the USDM fob. I’ve been to several places here in Kraków, but none had the capability to read the packets sent by both fobs and compare the data. If anyone knows how to code the NHVWB1U711 with the EUDM 57497AE140, please let me know.

• Impreza
• Gd
• Sti