How to disengage the PATS anti-theft?

BROOKE HEINRICHS

MEMBER
2000 FORD MUSTANG
3.8L
6 CYL
2WD
MANUAL
140,000 MILES

Someone tried to steal my car (listed above) and they took a sledge hammer and screws to my ignition and engaged anti-theft. So I'm wondering how to disengage the PATS anti-theft and/or how do I fix my car the easiest and cheapest way. I'm a single mom and I've been without a car now for 3 months and I live in the middle of nowhere.

Sunday, June 6th, 2021 AT 6:28 PM

2 Replies

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Unfortunately, the only way to repair this would be to replace the components that were damaged and get new keys for it or have the new cylinder keyed to the same key you have.

However, you can get a PCM that has this system removed from it but then that means it will be easier to steal the vehicle. Since this was already attempted, I would just replace the damaged parts so that you can get the vehicle running again.

I attached the info on how to replace the ignition switch for your info.

Please let us know if you have other questions and we can go from there. Thanks

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Sunday, June 6th, 2021 AT 7:58 PM

STEVE W.

MECHANIC
15,233 POSTS

Depending on the damage done to the ignition you might want to just find a used steering column and swap that into your car and then re-key the cylinder to match your original keys if you still have them. The PATS system in that car uses a transponder ring around the key cylinder to read the key and sends that data to the PCM. If the mounting for that ring and cylinder were damaged the used column would work okay. Plus if you have the original keys there would be no programming involved, just changing the key cylinder out would be about all that would be needed.

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