I have an 06 Shinka with the smart card/key and recently had an aftermarket stereo installed. Everything was great until for some reason my car stopped recognizing that the card was in the car, so I can't start it without the key. While this is not the end of the world obviously, I like the feature. I went to a Mazda dealership and they said the card system goes through the stereo, while this would make sense, why was it working fine for a week with the new stereo? Does anyone have any idea? I used a Metra Dash Kit if that helps.

 

bullshit, went thru the radio my ***

it's more like ur card key has a dead/weak battery, or the card just dies. it has happened quite often, and this is why people hate it and Mazda swapped (like everyone else) to the bigger bar type key

 

Thing is, the battery seems fine, I haven't changed it, but the Card is really responsive when I lock/unlock my car, so I don't think that's it

 

I mean the fact that it worked for a good week after the aftermarket stereo was installed makes me think that it's not the stock stereo, I would like to think it was one of the wires in the wiring harness getting loose but I really don't know.

 

try to change it to a new battery, it's cheap anyway.

another thing I noticed about the key card type of RKE is that, it's easily effected by some sort of radio waves, cuz it happened to me a few times that, in some parts of NYC, I can't use it to start the car at all, the module in car can't get any signal from the card, I can unlock/lock doors just fine, but can't start it. once I drive out of the area, talking about 3-4 blocks, RKE works again, so u might wanna check into that.

 

That might have been another solution, but I don't live in a big city, I'll try it anyway and report back though, thanks for the tip.

 

Anyone I just tried changing the battery and leaving town for a bit, neither worked,Anyone else have an idea? Could it be the wire harness?

 

do u have another card to try? or u just have 1 ?

it sounds stupid but if only 1 work, the other one is probably bad.

if nothing works, dealers can use IDS to check and see if both card key is registered properly, but u gonna get rape for sure not everyone has IDS like me

 

Allthough it sounds crazy the dealership is correct. The radio does have a sensor in it the detects the key. We also have a 06 with smart key, fully upgraded sound system besides the deck. When we went to redo the wiring we noticed that the factory amp was still in there, so we bypassed it. after doing that the sound system worked great but realized that the car was having problems detecting the key. couldnt figure it out until we read a lil bit on it and found out you need some factory parts for this key to work, so we reinstalled the factory amp and no problems since with smart key. May not actually be your problem but I would look into it more at least. And never rule out a dead battery. haha we replace ours almost every year.

 

Where could I look into this? Because I really want to keep my stereo, but also I love that feature.

 

Just a note : his system worked for a week.

 

Just an update, I went to a stealership and they checked it, confirmed that my key does work, but the stereo is the problem, I'm going to go back to the guys that installed it for me to see if it's a wire harness problem, if not, the only solution would be to re-install the factory head unit.