HI,

Our Ford S-max has recently had some work done to it and new battery fitted. Engine fired when start button was pressed but car didn’t start.

The car doesn’t even crank or fire up now and there is a message on the display.

Anti-Theft protection

Vehicle identification number (vin)

Enter your device pin

Can anyone help?

Sounds like the imobiliser has lost the key.

Have you tried reprogramming the key against the spare?

car was purchased from salvage as damanged with one key only. New parts fitted but nothing done to the imoboliser system.

how do you reprogramme the key?

If its the same as the Focus, you put the key in and turn from 0 - to position two - then back to 0 - four times in three seconds, this puts the car into learning mode. then put the key back to position two then zero again...

If you only have one key, it could be an auto locksmith job though!

You say "new parts fitted" - what parts would these be? As certain parts need to be coded together by a Ford dealer or they will fall foul of the car's theft system. If used parts have been used for things like instrument cluster, ECU, fusebox, GEM, BCM etc then the car will only run a certain number of times before the car shuts down.

You need to get the car recovered to a dealer who can plug in the diagnostics and find out which components are not coded correctly.

Be warned, you may end up with a very expensive repair here as certain components can only be coded when new - so some components fitted to your car may not be able to be re-coded.