Key Fob Stopped Working? Check These Things First

A remote that has stopped working is annoying rather than serious, and in a good number of cases it is fixable for the price of a battery. Work through these before assuming you need a new fob.

Start with the battery

It is the cause more often than everything else together. The giveaway is range: a fob with a fading battery still works, but only from a metre away instead of across a car park. If you have to be almost touching the car, replace the battery before doing anything else.

Most take a common coin cell available anywhere — which one, and how to open the case without cracking it, is in which battery does your key fob take.

Try the other fob

If the spare works perfectly, the fault is in the first fob rather than the car. If neither works, look at the vehicle instead — a flat car battery, a blown fuse, or a receiver fault will stop both.

This is the single most useful test there is, and it costs nothing. It also tells us a great deal on the phone, so it is worth doing before you ring.

Look at the fob itself

Dropped fobs crack, and a cracked case lets moisture at the circuit board. Buttons that need pressing hard, or that have stopped responding one at a time, are usually a worn contact pad rather than a dead fob.

Both are repairable, which is what our key fob repair service exists for — a rebuild costs considerably less than a replacement.

Consider what changed

If the remote stopped right after the car battery was replaced or went flat, the fob has often simply lost its pairing. Re-pairing it to the vehicle takes minutes with diagnostic equipment and does not need a new remote at all — that is remote key programming.

If it stopped after a wash or a swim, go straight to key fob water damage, because time matters there in a way it does not for the other faults.

If it only fails sometimes

Intermittent is its own diagnosis and usually points at a weak battery, a worn contact or a cracked case. That pattern is worked through in why your remote works sometimes.

If it is genuinely beyond saving

If none of it helps

We cover Hamilton and the surrounding Waikato and look at fobs at your vehicle, so there is no posting it away and waiting.

Most of these turn out to be a battery or a worn contact, both of which are dealt with on the spot.

A replacement remote is supplied and programmed at your vehicle rather than ordered in and fitted days later. Send us the make, model and year through our quote form and we will tell you which of these it is likely to be.