Fortin EVO-FORT1 Stand-Alone Add-On Remote Start Car Starter System For Ford IKT Round Metal Key Vehicles

Though I’d take the time to explain after installing on my 2014 Ford Focus . . . to summarize - I’m giving 5 out of 5 because the product really is great and does what it says BUT there are numerous factors you need to take into account BEFORE you make the decision to purchase it with the intent of installing in yourself. I thought I had done adequate research before purchasing and only find out I had over looked some key points . . . First – This is probably not going to be a 100% plug and play installation. Go to the manufacturers website, select your exact car make model and year, and look at the specific set of instructions for the type of installation you are intending to perform (standalone, with harness, without harness etc. – there were 8 sets on instructions for my specific car’s year, all depending on the type of installation I wanted, so choose carefully). If after looking at the wiring schematic instructions CAREFULLY AND THROUGHLY you feel confident about your ability to perform all the necessary steps, then continue reading – otherwise consider professional installation. Second – DO NOT rely on the YOUTUBE videos out there. They ARE a good resource BUT like I referenced earlier, there are so many different types of installations and differences in cars (even within the same make, model and year) that the video can be deceiving. Yes, watch the video, but small differences can change your installation from only needing to manually splice 2 wires, to splicing several dozen throughout the car’s interior, trunk and under the hood. Third – Even if the seller of the starter unit states the unit has been FLASHED to your specific make, model and year of car, you probably will still need to purchase a separate flash unit. There are dozens of “options” to select in the starter that may or may not be pertinent to your car and installation type; you will need the flash unit in order to communicate to your starter (via your computer) and set the specific options to your car. In my case I installed everything correctly, but there was ONE incorrect option selected – a simple enough fix since I had the flash unit (impossible if you don’t) which leads me to . . . Fourth – Use technical support. I saw some reviews criticizing the manufacturer’s technical support. Keep in mind this is SUPPORT – not hold your hand and tell you how to install – there are detailed instructions for that. You must be somewhat technologically savvy in order to take full advantage of the support. That said – don’t feel intimidated; I found them to be helpful and understanding – taking their time to make sure I understood my issue (called 3 times) and how to move forward. On my last call they actually looked up my starter’s last “flash” and saw that it had an incorrect option selected, which was preventing my starter from working correctly. A few clicks of the mouse and I was up and running! Fifth – Not to be confusing or contradictory, but there are some connections on the instructions that do not necessarily need to be made in order for the starter to work. Tech support can go over them with you if you have questions, and again, if you can read a wiring schematic, you can see which connections those are. Again, depends on the actual car and the type of installation you are doing. Lastly . . . while this is a great product and the plug and play portion of the installation is literally taking care of dozens of connections that would have been done manually years before, keep in mind it’s the sellers of the product that are touting the “plug and play” ability, not the manufacturer – I couldn’t see that anywhere on their website. Yes it is easier and Fortin does a great job at taking the guess work out of it, but don’t expect your installation to be unplugging a couple wiring harnesses and plugging in a couple bypasses and you’re done (believe me I hope yours is that easy, and it could be). It all, mine required 7 wire splice connections to be made – 2 splices to the OBD and 4 splices between the unit and the supplied harness, and 1 other spice behind the radio - pretty simple overall. If it were not for me needing to re-flash the unit with the proper options, I would have been able to accomplish in less than an hour – that is AFTER spending the appropriate amount of time researching what exactly is needed for your car. Hope this helps! Do your research and take your time. Good luck!

I have put this on three vehicles but on my Ford Fusion can't get it to work. Worked on it for over 30 hours . Don't know if they sent me the wrong on or what. But never had any trouble with the other vehicles I have put this remote starter on . Paid over $130 for it and ready to throw in the towel and get another one that's plug and play. Can't get any information on line and they are only open while I am at work so can't find out anything.

Let me start by saying that I have installed 6+ remote start units in a wide variety of vehicles over the years. Most the time they are complicated and tough to install. They would typically take me about 6-8 hours and that's if the transponder bypass was cooperating. Spending hours on the floor trying to locate wires under the dash and behind the glove box or in the engine compartment. Adding relays and diodes for the right motions needed for locks, lights and trunks. When I saw the T-Harness I quickly went to You tube and watched a video. What I saw was a guy doing this install in minutes, not hours, but minutes. So I was skeptical but said I am going to try it. I looked up my 2013 Ford Explorer on the Fortin website and sure enough they had this for my car. I ordered the unit and when it came in I still gave myself alot of time. I also ordered the Flash updater since if this worked I was probably going to do more. Glad I did. YOU NEED THE FLASH UPDATER. I will explain why when we go through the install. Install: First thing I did was lay out the cables, Print out (or use a tablet) the install instructions. I used it as a standalone remote start with T harness. I made the 3 connections for the ignition to the T harness. I went to the vehicle removed the lower dash panel at the drivers side, the metal plate behind that. At this point I can see the Ignition and transponder plugs. I reached up unplugged them both. Plugged them in to the T harness and the T harness in to the ignition and transponder plugs. I then removed the 2 screws holding the OBD connector up. I located the CAN high and CAN low wires (pins 3 and 11 I believe). I tied in to them. At this point all connections into the vehicle are complete, YES you heard right complete. Total time in 15 minutes. I followed the instructions holding the program button down and plugging the data cable in. When the blue and red lights were lit I released the button, plugged in the remaining connectors and followed the instructions.... Key 1 to on for 3 seconds, Key 2 to on for 3 seconds, Key 1 to on. Decryption for the keys is complete. Total time is now 20 Minutes. I now unplugged the module and take in to the house. Here is where that flash updater is necessary. I downloaded the software, plugged it in. Located my vehicle and found the Firmware version needed. Flashed the unit. Went in to the options and set what I wanted, IE runtime, Heated seats, etc... We are now up to about 35 minutes. Took the module back to the car plugged in all the connections and tested. Bam, worked like a charm. I mounted the module and put back the lower dash panel, cleaned up my tools and tested again. Works. TOTAL TIME about 45/55 minutes. Overall experience/Notes: Best remote starter I have ever gotten, It not only starts the car every time, but it uses the Factory fob. Still works all locks, lights trunk release and alarm. Turns on the heated seats, the rear defrost and sets the temp to 70 degrees(need these flash updater to add these features). Installed in less than an hour. Only 3 out of car splices and 2 in car wire connections.

This remote starter is fairly easy to install but you must buy the programmer to be able to actually program it for your car. It works well every time and uses the key fob you already have.

Nice unit but to get rid he features to work you have to buy a programmer and a pin switch and on/off switch,I would recommend buying one that is complete as this is not a plug and play system

This EVO-ALL unit is really a great stand alone remote starter for someone that wants to use the factory remote at a very low cost. I have used it for a few months and love it!!! Below is some comments that would have helped me in researching the best unit and I did run into some issues with the FORT1 harness and programming. Troubleshooting noted below the install comments: I used this on my 2010 F-150. The FORT1 unit says it is not compatible with the 2010, but I did a ton of research, and it is partially compatible. This T harness does plug directly into the ignition barrel (Rx/Tx wires), but not the ignition harness. The T harness saves a few splices and includes the diodes. This to me was worth the ~$20 price for the T harness and I used the 3M T Taps for the Ignition wires and spliced them with T taps to the T Harness. Trouble shooting: I bought the Flashlink updater really required for the install. This worked great, but after trying to program for an hour and testing all connections numerous times, I ended up having to do a master reset on the unit - then syncing with the flash, back to the truck to reprogramm and I got the unit to work.First night was a couple hours for a novice that struggled with the programming due to it needing the master reset Thinking I was wrapped up, I tapped everything up and cleaned up the wiring. Tried the remote start - Nothing Spent hours taking everything back out, testing connections (that seemed to work), then kept getting different results of pushing the remote start, re programming would sometimes work, sometimes not....then at some point the next day it was working again....I thought it was one bad connection that I fixed... wire by wire I was taping back up and trying the remote start. A few wires in to putting it back together and it stopped working again. End result - I removed all of the conduit on the T Harness. Found that the internal connections are crimped, not soldered and when I was bending them, they were getting pulled apart. This happened on three of the FOR T Harness connections. I resoldered the conncetions and it worked great Final Comment In all the testing and hours put into the research, it was a good learning experience, but I am a novice and willing to dig in on things. I installed another unit in my brothers truck in 35 minutes (I made my own T Harness for that). My unit, I broke the red harness in the install as shoving a wire tester in it so many times broke it. I called Fortin and they couldn't sell me a new plug as the cost was going to be $60 due to it being form Canada. The store on Amazon wasn't helpful either. I was able to rig it to work and have soldered connections....Just don;t expect a lot from the seller or the company.

Great product. This was my first time attempting anything like it but I came out better than anticipated. I've spent a decent amount of time wiring sound systems in my car, including head units. In that regard I am familiar enough with wiring to find my way around a schematic. I easily spent 12 hours studying this though for my wife's vehicle (2012 Ford Escape). Probably spent 3 or 4 hours of installation time. Not an easy job for a first timer. You should be familiar with 12 volt systems, wiring schematics, and somewhat know your way around the vehicle you're working on. Things like the driver door pin and park lights I had to do a little searching behind panels to find the right relays and splice into them. Once you wire it up this device is fairly plug and play. This is a top tier manufacture from my one experience, they do their stuff right and it shows. More than likely you will need the Flashlink 2 firmware updater. It's not only used to update the firmware, but also to pick and choose the settings you want for your device. For instance, I wanted to use the factory remote for a 3x Start (Standalone) setup so I needed to use the Flashlink 2 in order to tell the bypass device to tell my car computer that it needs to start when I press my lock key three times. I think if you order these directly from Fortin you can ask them to have certain settings preloaded and eliminate the need for the flashlink, assuming you plan to leave it alone after the initial installation and never change it's settings. That's my speculation. Also depending on your car you may need to buy things a relay and fuse for the 12 volt power, or a hood pin for safety reasons, ect...all depends on your car and it's individual demands alongside your own. Do your research, what more is there to say. Be wise.

It sure as hell isn't plug and Play. You need to connect several wires to make it operate and may even need to buy the optional Fortin programmer. Mine still isn't working. You need to download the very complex multi installation, multi language instructions. Wish I had bought a Ford factory remote start.

The T harness makes installation very easy. Requires Flash link 4 to change parameter. Went through the setup with 2 keys and it worked perfectly.

The Evo all I recieved need to be programmed with the flash link after what I found on my research , and what I was told by technical support . For this I need a flash link cost 86$ . I'm trying to returned to the seller .

Plug and play assume. Loaded the right filmware and away it went. Had a question for tech support and he solved my problem in minutes.

Works as expected. Works on my nephew's 2014 Ford Escape.

can fast it was not program send it back all was good