This is a follow-up to my PKE range issue I posted sometime last spring. My range was down to 6 inches drivers door only. I tried a few suggestions given here, but none helped with my range issue. So basically I was just living with it, no big deal.

Last weekend I washed my car and after I was done I grabbed my keys to move my car and all of a sudden my range was back to normal. Driver side, passenger side, and rear all worked at about 5 feet. Awesome, but I didn’t know why.

Yesterday I was leaving the gym and walked up behind my car the doors unlocked; I popped the hatch with my FOB and threw my gym bag in the back. Shut the hatch and drove to work about 2 miles. I got out walked away and the horn beeped, car armed. When I came out of work 6 hours later it had rained. I walked up and the doors would not open no range at all. I had to use the keys. I got home still nothing and the alarm would not arm. I went out to do some basic troubleshoot an hour later. Turn the key the light on the dash says PKE is working. Held my door open button down and cycled the locks. Cycled again and the PKE started working. The range was good, but it was slow to open the doors when I approached the car. When I walked away it beeped and armed. This morning everything worked fine again. I went out to run an errand came back back, got out of the car and it armed. An hour later I walked backed to the car and it’s not working again. Dead. Any suggestions? Anyone experience this before?

 

Only thing I can think of to do is open up the fob and look for hairline cracks on the connections. Some members have had sucess fixing intermitent problems by resoldering the fob connections. Sorry if someone has already brought this up. If you figure it out please post an update and let us know.

 

I can try that. Although my original issue with the short range was on both FOBs. Unfortunately my 2nd FOB is MIA

 

Took my FOB apart. Touched up a couple of cold looking solder joints, put a new battery in even though the other one was at 2.9 volts and still nothing. Went through the PKE diagnostic checks up to the DTC codes. I'm going to check the codes tomorrow. Still not operational.

 

My fob sometimes doesn't work. I tap the fob on the door handle and it works. I think the battery connectors are dirty and sometimes don't make contact.

 

Sorry, sounds like maybe the receiver is going out on you. Or maybe a loose connection/ground somewhere? Good luck

 

I found a loose wire on the splice for the tan wires that run to the antennas. I re-soldered it, but that didnt fix the problem. I have 3 volts on the antennas. The error code is DTC 13 that I have no key FOB within range, even though it was next to the antennas and then reciever.
Anyone know a way to check that the key FOB is operational?

 

Click on the url below and also watch the video.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1562441927-post1.html

 

Thanks I'll see if I can find one locally.

 

Well after much persistence I have finally fixed my PKE issue. After all the troubleshooting with the shop manual everything pointed to the FOB, but without my second FOB I had no easy way to eliminate that as a problem. I read some articles about how bad the workmanship was on the inside of the FOB so I used a 7X eye loupe and inspected the board and found solder ***** in between the IC leads. I removed them, touched up the leads, and tried the FOB again but it still did not work. I went back to the workbench and continued inspecting the circuit board component side. I found nothing obvious. I turned it over to the battery side and was inspecting every square millimeter when I found the culprit. The little can with ball in it that rolls around had one of the tack weld leads disconnected. It was the lead up against the hatch button switch. The gap was really small like about 0.010” In fact it was so small I missed it twice, it wasn’t until I turned it and the light hit it right that I saw it. So I soldered the lead back to the side of the can. I included a picture. The red circle shows how it should have looked and how the marginal tack weld looks on the other lead. The green circle shows my repair to the separated lead (not pretty, but functional). I put it back together and it works great again.
Thanks all for the suggestions especially MarkKlein for sending me down the hairline crack path.

 

Is that the component with the ball inside it?

 

Yes, the silver domed canister that looks like a LED has the ball inside it.

 

History of the PKE system.

Designed by Kiefer.
http://www.ked-wireless.com/automoti...less_entry.htm

Announced in 1992 the PKE system to be manufactured by Lectron.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/LECTRO......-a011963033

And a thread about some one with inside knowledge about the system.

Your failure appears to be the same as in this thread.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-t...ob-repair.html

 

Hooked on Vettes,

Thanks for the links. Very informative.