Scott’s 2000 Bravada: The Fix That Cured More Than the No-Start

Scott La Fleur wrote to us in September 2020 about his 2000 Oldsmobile Bravada, after two years of a fault that only showed itself in extreme weather.

Hottest days, coldest days

“It all started about two years ago when my 2000 Oldsmobile Bravada would randomly not start. It happened most often in extreme weather conditions (extreme cold or hot). I had to have it towed several times because of this. One time I had just finished grocery shopping when it wouldn’t start (on a hot summer day). Another time I was going home from work in the winter when it was way below zero.”

The weather pattern is diagnostic in itself. A Passlock sensor at the edge of tolerance is pushed over that edge by temperature, because the electrical properties of the sensor and its ageing connections shift with heat and cold. Marginal in spring, failing in January and July.

His mechanic said the honest thing

“My mechanic thought it was a problem with the security system and showed me how to memorize the key to get it to start. He mentioned that GM should had had a way to turn off the security system for when they failed.“

“My mechanic said it would be very expensive to get a new security module for the car (not going to put that much money into a 2000 vehicle). So I was stuck doing this routine.”

When Scott found us, his mechanic had never heard of the module but agreed to install it. That combination, an open-minded professional and an owner who did the research, comes up in these stories again and again.

The part we did not promise

Here is where Scott’s story becomes unusual. The Bravada had a second set of symptoms nobody could explain: the engine would race to 2500-3000 rpm at idle, sometimes pull the truck along at 30 mph with no foot on the pedal, and sputter on cold mornings. His mechanic had chased it without success.

“Then when he installed your bypass device in the car not only have I not had starting problems but the issues of racing and sputtering have also stopped. He thought that maybe somehow the security device was causing the other problems because he did nothing except put in your device.”

We will be straight about this: the module is designed to fix starting, not idle quality, and we do not promise it will cure anything else. But the observation is his mechanic’s, made after changing exactly one thing, and it is not crazy. A degrading module sitting on the vehicle’s electrical system can misbehave in ways that leak beyond its own job. Take it as one mechanic’s data point, honestly reported.

If you have one of these

The 2000 Bravada shares its Passlock and BCM location with the 1998-2005 Chevrolet S10, Blazer, GMC Sonoma, Jimmy and their siblings, and the wiring is here: 1998-2005 installation guide. If your no-starts cluster on the hottest and coldest days of the year, you are almost certainly looking at the same failure Scott had, and the NEWROCKIES PRO Module ends it in any weather.

Related stories on the blog. Two more owners who were told to live with it: Wendell’s Colorado and Marty’s Lumina.

Read more customer stories →