My Car Key Remote is Not Working?

What are Car Key Remotes?

Car key remotes are pri­mar­i­ly respon­si­ble for con­trol­ling spe­cif­ic aspects of your vehi­cle. Ini­tial­ly, car key remotes were lim­it­ed to oper­at­ing car locks. But recent tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments mean that the car key remote is no longer hum­ble. Instead, it can con­trol locks, start vehi­cles, adjust win­dows, and engage car alarms.

Your car key remote is like a minia­ture radio trans­mit­ter; in the sense that it sends sig­nals to the cor­re­spond­ing receiv­er in your vehi­cle. Did you know that lithi­um coin bat­ter­ies pow­er most car key remotes? 

Here are some rea­sons why your car key remote is not working:

The Bat­tery is Dead.

Bat­ter­ies are the pri­ma­ry pow­er source for car key remotes and work direct­ly with the trans­mit­ter in the car remote key; most of these bat­ter­ies have a long shelf life. How­ev­er, once drained of pow­er, a dead bat­tery can leave a car key remote useless! 

For a replace­ment bat­tery, you can arrange a key bat­tery replace­ment here.

Dam­aged Trans­mit­ter or Receiver.

Car key remotes run on the basic trans­mis­sion and recep­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tion prin­ci­ple, exchang­ing sig­nals with a paired receiv­er. As a result, they can per­form var­i­ous actions, from lock­ing the car door to start­ing the engine.

If the car key remote trans­mit­ter is dam­aged, it can­not suc­cess­ful­ly inter­act with the car’s receiv­er. In addi­tion, loose con­nec­tions and inter­nal dam­age can affect the remote trans­mit­ter. Car remote trans­mit­ter dam­age is chal­leng­ing to fix; how­ev­er, one of the tech­ni­cians at 3D Autokeys can repair a faulty key remote quick­ly.

My Car Key Remote is Broken. 

A bro­ken car key remote is a com­mon rea­son for faulty car key remotes. Sup­pose your car key remote’s inter­nal mechan­ics, such as bat­tery ter­mi­nals and oth­er sol­dered parts, are dis­placed or dam­aged. In that case, the car key remote will not work, even if your trans­mit­ter and receiv­er are ful­ly functional. 

Your car key remote can be appro­pri­ate­ly pro­grammed or equipped with a trans­mit­ter and cor­re­spond­ing receiv­er. Still, if the but­tons on your receiv­er are not work­ing, your car key remote will not work.

Let’s fig­ure this out!

Is the car remote not work­ing consistently?

If your car key remote is work­ing incon­sis­tent­ly, it is often a sign of an under­ly­ing issue with your car remote bat­tery. A good exam­ple is hav­ing to press the but­tons on your car remote mul­ti­ple times for it to work. This can sig­ni­fy a weak­en­ing car remote bat­tery or dam­aged inter­nal connections.

Anoth­er com­mon sign of this is the need for increased prox­im­i­ty. For exam­ple, most car remotes can send sig­nals over 15 metres. But if you have to bring the trans­mit­ter and receiv­er togeth­er for your car remote to work, it indi­cates a car remote bat­tery problem.

Is the spare car key remote working?

One of the best ways to deter­mine that your cur­rent car remote has a deep­er issue is to test your spare car key. Every dri­ver needs a spare car key for instances like these. Not to men­tion a spare is nec­es­sary if you ever find your­self locked out of your vehicle! 

If the prob­lem orig­i­nates from a weak bat­tery, you will notice that the spare car remote works bet­ter than your orig­i­nal car key remote. How­ev­er, if the spare car remote shows the same issues as the orig­i­nal car remote, it might be an issue with the car’s sig­nal receiver. 

Do not med­dle with the key; call an auto­mo­tive lock­smith and have an autho­rised tech­ni­cian work on your car remote. Tak­ing apart your car remote with­out the prop­er train­ing will like­ly dam­age your car remote. 

What Should You Do?

Con­sult the Midland’s most trust­ed auto­mo­tive lock­smith team. We’re trained to repair or replace key fobs.