I lost my keys and purchased a replacement keyless remote for my 1999 Subaru Outback Legacy from our local Subaru dealer but I did not have them program it because they wanted a couple $100 bucks - reading the owners manual it appears to be easy to do but I cant get my car to enter into the programming mode. Any help would be wonderful.

 

Here are the directions as they appear in my manual:

 

Unlock all doors. Cycle key quickly but carefully on-off appr 10 times until the car honks one time.

Do not turn the key far enough to start the car, just to the 'on' position so the dashboard lights up.

When the horn honks, open and close the driver's door, press any remote button and that's it.

Program another remote? Quickly open and close the driver's door again and push a button on the 2nd remote. That's it.

When you're done, remove the key and the horn should honk 3 times. You're all set.

Sometime it takes more than 10 on-offs to set program mode. Open/close the door, lock/unlock etc, wait 10 minutes, then try again.

Welcome to the USMB.

 

You could try the procedure shown here:

http://www.cars101.com/subaru/keyless.html

 

Scroll down a ways to find info relevant to your model year.

 

Steve

Here are the directions as they appear in my manual:

 

Unlock all doors. Cycle key quickly but carefully on-off appr 10 times until the car honks one time.

Do not turn the key far enough to start the car, just to the 'on' position so the dashboard lights up.

When the horn honks, open and close the driver's door, press any remote button and that's it.

Program another remote? Quickly open and close the driver's door again and push a button on the 2nd remote. That's it.

When you're done, remove the key and the horn should honk 3 times. You're all set.

Sometime it takes more than 10 on-offs to set program mode. Open/close the door, lock/unlock etc, wait 10 minutes, then try again.

I assume you paraphrased what your manual says, because mine ('99 Legacy OB) is worded differently from the above. The two main differences are things accented by bold print in my manual. The first is that you have to complete the ten cycles within 15 seconds. A second is that you should stop at the LOCK position and leave the key in the ignition. It also states that the driver's door has to be opened (etc) within 45 seconds of first completing the key cycles. After you press a button on the transmitter, if the programming is successful there'll be two horn beeps.

 

Something else to consider: Even assuming that you succeed in programming for the new transmitter, the code for your old one(s) will still be stored. If you want to prevent the old transmitter(s) from being used, you need to store not one, but four new codes in order to overwrite the old one(s). If you just have one new transmitter, to accomplish that you have to go through the programming procedure four times; with two new transmitters, twice each, etc.

 

--OB99W

You could try the procedure shown here:

http://www.cars101.com/subaru/keyless.html

Now I know where humantag got what was quoted ; looks just like the info at cars101. Unfortunately, it seems to leave some details out that the owner's manual includes, which hopefully I clarified above.

 

--OB99W

Good call, OB99W. You should contact the creator of the cars101 website, he might want to add that detail, it seems pretty important. I wonder why it is missing in some versions of the procedure?

 

I have purchased the hardware to add keyless entry to our Impreza and the install looks much easier than programming the remotes, I'm hoping that it works out ok.

 

It seems like '99 was kind of an overlap year for remotes, with some Legacies having one system and others a different one. I was wondering if humantag might have had one of the older systems as described on that page.

 

Steve

It seems like '99 was kind of an overlap year for remotes, with some Legacies having one system and others a different one. I was wondering if humantag might have had one of the older systems as described on that page.

I guess that's a possibility, Steve. Since the transmitters look different from one system to the next, it seems humantag could tell whether the new one is correct just by verifying that it looks like the one that was lost. Mine appears to be the Alpine type, with gray buttons, and the info I gave is for that system.

 

--OB99W

Here's what I have (used it twice worked both times):

Disconnect & reconnect the Battery

sit in driver's seat & close the door

turn key on/off 10x within 15 seconds

horn should beep 2x

open driver's door & close

press the remote button

horn should beep 1x

remove key

if horn beeps 3x SUCCESS

later,

Peter