04/07/2025
Happy Friday people.
Any another stunning luxury gt cruiser in for the awesome Autowatch ghost immobiliser.
Slight story on this one.
We were called out by the uk distributor of the Autowatch ghost immobiliser to have a look at this shocking catalogue of let downs on the installation of the Ghost system.
Firstly the customer had a problem starting. They were using the ghost tags to authorise starting but it became intermittent. At this the customer wanted to use the PIN code input instead. Well not ever having the pin she was left stranded as the tag had failed.
So she obtained the ghost security card from the glovebox and tried using the override feature. This didn’t work. The car then was recovered and went to Aston Martin for diagnosis.
They informed the customer it was the ghost blocking the car from starting and just needed either removing or a code taught to it to disable it as per the correct operation.
The customer had the car delivered back to them. At that time the tag was working.
I advised customer to replace battery to resolve the poor starting issue which it did fix.
However the customer still wants a code taught to the ghost system for override purposes.
I attended the vehicle to find the ghost and force the ghost into learning mode and teach it a code.
When I found the ghost system it wasn’t installed correctly at all.
In fact one of the wires broke when I touched it. The tape they’d used to insulate wasn’t the correct type and had started to rot the solder and as a result when I touched it it broke.
This then caused an absolute catalogue of events.
The car wouldn’t start for the next 3 hours as it had locked the computers up.
Then the car had a flat battery.
So I used my jump pack. That lasted another hour. Then that was flat.
Now I’m stranded with a flat customer car that has a list of electrical faults on.
See how crazy this all can spiral out of control.
However.
A kind neighbour leant me her jump leads and a correct method of waking the car’s electrical circuit up with good voltage managed to sort the car and it finally started up.
Phew.
Things were a little tense in my head but keeping cool!
So I then went to refit the customers ghost correctly.
Oh I wish I’d never. The car really didn’t like the unit being installed.
After many head scratching hours I decided to remove it completely.
Whilst I was checking over the ghost I realised the serial number was different on the card than the ghost. This is why the customer couldn’t do emergency pin override! 😝
I rebuilt the car with the engine running to charge the battery and had a discussion with the customer about the whole days events!! Bearing in mind this was a pop out 20 minute job initially.
With the unit not even registered with Autowatch nor it having the correct card I felt a phone call to the main uk distributors was in order. After a pleasant and factual conversation with the director he agreed to replace the ghost for me.
I attended today and installed a brand new ghost 2 system complete with registration on Tassa.pro for this lovely customer.
She’s had videos sent to her for a reminder on how the system works fully too.
She’s had a rough time over the last few months. I so hope this has regained her faith in the product.
So choose your installer wisely please people. These Canbus based immobilisers can really mess your car up if not installed and set up correctly.
A huge thanks goes to Dave at ecotrak. Fountain of knowledge on Mercedes engined vehicles like this.
Suns shining and I’m home early!
