johnodrake

Here is a set of circumstances that I dealt with this morning.

Being one of the few nice days we have seen here lately, I decided to drive the GS Clone to the Gym. I went to the car and the door did not open. Crap - (I had had a few problems with the door not opening with the pad but it would with the button on the fob. I figured weak battery and noted to replace) fob dead. So, as I keep several CR2032 batteries, I changed the battery. No Joy. Double crap. I went to fob 2 which hasn't been used in a couple of years at least and voila - NOTHING! OK What now. I opened the trunk with the key, pulled the lanyard and opened the door. No fob detected. I put the fob in the slot and things worked normally. So it all added up in my mind - RCDLR failure. Triple crap (they aren't cheap). Jumped in the truck and went on to the gym.

Ok, before spending money at the dealer, try some more stuff. Came back and replaced the battery in fob 2. Well, what the... Worked fine. Fob 2 battery was dead. Tried fob 1 again, still no action so I put yet another battery in fob 1 and ---- it worked.

So, the set of circumstances:

1. Fob 1 battery died. (I replaced it two years ago.)
2. Fob 1 replacement battery bad
3 Fob 2 battery dead.

How often will that happen!

Ya'll have a great day!

JD

cclive

RCDLR failure would not at all be my first conclusion. I would bet on FOB power. Bad battery or incorrect install in the fob. Check again. The battery in the second fob could certainly be dead if you haven't tried it in years. The fact that the fob works in the slot pretty much excludes the RCDLR from consideration...it is involved in the slot also.Glad it's working now.

Al Gumby

The FOB battery contacts are flimsy and sometimes need adjustment.

johnodrake

Yep. Re read the post.

The odd set of circumstances combined to point in the wrong direction.

There was nothing wrong with the fob or the contacts. Fob 1 battery died of old age (prematurely, I might add - it was less than two years old.) AND the brand new battery that I put in the fob - from a sealed package - was also bad! The second battery I put in fob 1 worked.

Fob 2 battery was also dead but that battery was likely 3 years old. But one would expect longer life of a battery that was in a fob that has never been used to operate the vehicle. The replacement battery caused fob 2 to work now.

I don't think the slot works through the RCDLR. If it did that would be a single point of failure - which is part of the point of the slot. Perhaps we could get that researched.......

Vette_DD

You were probably just holding your mouth wrong when you installed the first replacement battery in fob #1.

Seriously, I'd make it a point to remember where I bought that 1st replacement battery and I'd try not to buy any more there.

cclive

The RCDLR still has to receive the signal and decide if it will allow starting or not, so I still believe that it is involved in operation from the slot. And to be fair, there are lots of single points of failure in the C6...I just did a new harmonic balancer...LOL

AORoads

Having only pulled apart both fobs once with the quarter and something very thin, I have no wish to ever do it again, John. I was positive that I was going to crack one or both fobs!~ I didn't. But I'm sure it was luck, not skill. Then, on each one the entire "guts" seemed t o spill out along with the battery. Oh lovely, now what?

I got it all back together, and then tried them. They worked! But if I'd had a dead, new battery, I would've really been convinced that I'd broken something, or something had fallen out that I could not see on the floor! Seriously.

Dano523

Walmart sells replacement batteries in 2 per pack for a few dollars, so when I replace the batteries in one fob for any of my cars, I just replace the cars other fobs battery as well.

bolivar

Buy a cheap multimeter. Test the voltage on those batteries. If you've got 3 volts (usually even higher on a new one), the battery should be ok.

FortMorganAl

When the car started with the FOB in the slot that indicated the RCDLR and slot antenna were OK. If the RCDLR is good and the buttons don't work on the FOB, that means a bad FOB. A bad FOB is a bad FOB battery 99.9% of the time. I don't know much about how button cell batteries are manufactured but my experience is they have a much higher infant mortality rate than any other battery type.

dvilin

Very unusual FOB batteries should last 5 years, at least mine did. But to have one die early and the replacement being bad would drive you crazy trying to figure out what the problem is.
Anyhow glad it all worked out for you in the end.

RadarP3C

All's well that ends well.

Dano523

If the Fob battery is being drained down quickly, when you pull the fob apart to install the battery, you can pull the rubber panel off the front cover to clean up collected lint and goo from the buttons.

I state this since there may be debris between the buttons and the front face that is keeping one of the buttons slightly depressed, and what is causing the quick batter drain of the fob.

Mad*Max

between my two cars with fobs, I have noticed that the battery in the unused fob sitting in the closet dies at the same time as the fob that is used with the car...