A couple of days ago, when I tried to start my 2005 S80, I received a message “Start prevented, Try again.” Not a good thing to happen at 5:30 in the morning, especially when I needed to get to work.  I had no clue what this message meant, so I quickly found the owners manual in the glove compartment. The only thing I could find was related to the battery in the key fob.  I ran into the house and grab my other key fob and valet key.  The message persisted with all keys so after 30 minutes of trying, I gave up and took my old un-inspected F150 to work.

Around 9am I contacted the Dealer regarding the issue.  Dealer stated that it was related to the immobilizer. Immobilizer??? Do I own a Transformer and is Megan Fox going to appear at any moment?  Then, he went on to state that I should have it towed in to be looked at.  OK, this wasn’t sounding good.  I would have to pay for towing, the diagnostics and parts and labor..I was not happy at this moment.  I stated to him, “Can I buy the part?”  That put the Volvo service manager into a state of panic.  He said, “I can or you can contact the parts department, but I was just making an assumption it may be something else we need to look at.”  I told the dealer I would call him back.

Enter the Internet, a beautiful thing created for times like this. Without the Internet I would have had my S80 towed,  diagnosed and paid for parts and service.   After extensive research in which some items did talk about faulty  immobilizer antenna rings,  I found a great post at VolvoXC.com: “Start prevented, Try again” episode.   I took this information home with me and  I used the method identified in the post by “brick”  which stated:  “The dealer locked/unlocked 5 times in a row with the remote, which resets the immobilizer, and he was on the way.“  Guess what, my S80 started right up!

Things to try before getting the dealer involved!

• Lock and unlock your Volvo using the key fob.
• Try your other fob.
• Change the battery in your key fob
• If you have more than one key fob on your key chain, remove it and try again. The other fob could be causing interference with the immobilizer.  NOTE: This includes non-Volvo key fobs.
• If nothing else works, replace the immobilizer antenna.
• If you replaced the antenna and still have issues.  Well, it’s dealer time!