this is a repiar on the brant module when it causes the engine to die
it was a factory recall and is free
if its not been done, get it done
look for service sticker at the front of drivers door jam (near hinges)

You may also want to do the fuel pump relay resolder job as well

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okay, rewire was indeed done back in '06 @ 8,000km's

will need to look into the transponder side of things next...any suggestions where to take it to get this checked out???

id still be thinking keypad module more than a transponder issue
book it in at a dealer and get them to check it out

New Development

have been contacted by Brant after sending off an email to them last night, he will call me 7am tomorrow, when i am where the car is, and talk me through a few tests over the phone, and possibly remove a chip to send to him for assessment

fingers crossed

Im interested in the results of this - please post back what your findings with the Brant man are

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Okay, first of all apologies for the delayed post back, was waiting til all affairs had been settled.

After sending the unit to a certain company for checking, the 'gentleman' explained that the cost for bench-testing was $x, and that for an additional $y he would be able to reprogram the units mastercode so as it would not require the Subaru mastercode anymore....i said i would wait to see the results of the bench-testing first...was then contacted again where it was confirmed the module was faulty, and the cost of a new module was $z, so i decided that this was quite unreasonable for an alarm system that has proven it is indeed quite useless in my opinion (it has only lasted 4-5 years & less than 50,000kms), so i told him i would prefer just to pay him $x for the bench-testing and have him return the unit and leave it at that. He then argued that i had to still pay him the extra $y for the reprogramming of the mastercode, which i didn't even want (as i had decided that for the cost of a replacement module i would install a more reliable alarm system) and which had been offered as an extra cost NOT a required cost to perform the bench testing...long story short he charged me the whole $x + y, the transaction receipt and invoice arrived promptly in the post 2 days later...but no module....it took a rather heated email explaining that seeing as he has charged me this extra money i would like my reprogrammed module back so as to at least be able to drive the car to have the faulty system removed...it took nearly a week for the module to arrive...the car is now having a much better more reliable alarm system fitted

So recap, the engine light was related to the immobiliser system, even though it shows up as an error related to the fuel control unit, if you encounter the same problem, replace immobiliser with better product and forget all the messing around with Subaru and factory alarm company

the code is probably correct, in picking up the fuel control unit since the immobiliser is shutting your fuel system
but your explanation provides a much clearer reason for the code popping up

Yeah, that was wherein the problem lay...the immobiliser is not meant to trigger CEL codes from what i understand (from the explanations given by the mechanics), so when they were tracing the origins of the code it was showing to be a fault with the fuel control unit, only solution: monitor and replace fuel control unit in event of recurrence...which is quite an unnecessary & moderately expensive exercise to continue experiencing the same problem

I may be wrong here, but the brant or any immobiliser unit isn't something that was programmed into the ECU coming out of the factory, ie the CEL codes aren't included

Irrespective, glad to hear that you've got it sorted. I know its frustrating trying to figure out what the cause of a CEL is expecially when there are potentially so many things that can cause or trigger the error.

so wouldn't the anti-hijacking cause a CEL everytime it intervened with the car and shut it down??? ie everytime you get out to open a gate etc...

honestly i'm not an auto electrician, and i'm just going by the fact that even Subaru specialist mechanics were thrown by the events, and just don't want others who experience the same thing to fork out unnecessary money and headaches trying to source the problem