Steve’s 2004 Impala: The $200 Part That Wasn’t It, and the Shop That Was

Most of our stories are told by people comfortable under a dash. Steve Johnson is not, and said so, which is exactly why his May 2016 story about his 2004 Chevy Impala matters: it shows the path for owners who will never pick up a soldering iron.

Two years of random

“Over the past two years my 2004 Chevy Impala would randomly not start. The ‘Security’ light would turn on when I was trying to start it. Then after a few minutes, hours, or even a couple days, the light would go off, it would start up again, and run just fine for several months.”

The $200 camshaft sensor

“In January it happened again, so I decided to get it checked out at my auto body shop in town. They decided to replace the Camshaft sensor ($200) and the car started up again and I drove it home. THE NEXT DAY the car wouldn’t start.”

Then the fault did what this fault always does to honest shops: it refused to perform.

“Well the car started for them every time over a couple days, so they didn’t do anything about it. But I knew there was still a problem.”

What the dealer said out loud

“I called up a Chevy dealer for a quote and to just get it assessed was $100 and parts/labor after that could be $500+. The dealer said GM wouldn’t allow them to just bypass the security system, so I’d be stuck changing out parts. There had to be a cheap and permanent fix.”

That sentence deserves a frame. The dealer knew a bypass was the sensible engineering answer, and also knew they were not permitted to offer it. So the official menu is parts, forever.

Not mechanical, and it did not matter

“I’m not mechanical so I looked at the list of body shops in my area on this site that install the New Rockies system and found one. They installed it and now I’ve been driving this whole month without any Passlock problems! The Security light has come on, but it hasn’t kept me from starting the car! Thanks a ton New Rockies!”

Before ordering he wrote to ask whether it would really work on his car and how hard the install was, decided the no-questions-asked return policy meant he had nothing to lose, and let a professional do the wiring. A month of trouble-free starts later, he sent us three photos of the finished job.

If you have one of these cars

Steve’s Impala uses the same wiring as Kristina’s, Christopher’s and James’s: the 2000-2005 Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo installation guide. If you are not the DIY type, do what Steve did: have any competent shop install the NEWROCKIES PRO Module from that guide, and ask us if you want help finding one near you.

Related stories on the blog. Two more owners of the same generation: Kristina’s 2002 Impala, whose dealer called it hit or miss, and William’s 2004, which turned out to have two faults at once.

Read more customer stories →