Key fob screwing up
Thread Starter
Instructor
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 163
Likes: 2
From: Green Valley AZ
Key fob screwing up
I was on my way to Vegas. We stopped for breakfast and as I walked away from the car the horn honked. I have the fob's passive feature off. It later locked the car when I was gasing up. Lucky for us the wife had her key or we would have been screwed.
I figured that maybe it was the battery. It was the original in my 99. I goes to the Rat Shack and gets two new batteries and re learned the fobs. Everything worked OK except that both fobs are in the passive mode even though I have it turned off. Anybody else run into this? I have the service manuals and I thought that it was interesting that when you get to the part about re learning the fobs, the instructions end in mid paragraph and the rest of the page is blank.
I figured that maybe it was the battery. It was the original in my 99. I goes to the Rat Shack and gets two new batteries and re learned the fobs. Everything worked OK except that both fobs are in the passive mode even though I have it turned off. Anybody else run into this? I have the service manuals and I thought that it was interesting that when you get to the part about re learning the fobs, the instructions end in mid paragraph and the rest of the page is blank.
Instructor
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 189
Likes: 1
From: Bonita Springs Fl
Hi Bob;
I had the same thing with my 99. Keys in the house.Passive turned off. Walk by the car doors unlock. I even ordered 1 new fob same thing.
Now I took the FOBs off and put them away and just use the key. The car would lock and unlock its self just walking by it.
Good luck, Bob
I had the same thing with my 99. Keys in the house.Passive turned off. Walk by the car doors unlock. I even ordered 1 new fob same thing.
Now I took the FOBs off and put them away and just use the key. The car would lock and unlock its self just walking by it.
Good luck, Bob
Tech Contributor
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 32,910
Likes: 2,402
From: Anthony TX
CI 6,7,8,9,11 Vet
St. Jude Donor '08
Go into the DIC "OPTIONS" page and configure the FOB options to turn off that function.. Its been a while since I had my 98 but I believe that there is a value in there to configure fob stuff! Could be wrong but its worth a try.
How is the charge on your battery. If you have a weak/ old/ or bad 12 VDC main battery, every time you crank your car, (drawing lots of current causes available battery voltage to go very low for a short amount of time) you will set the memory options back to the default settings. Some of the tell-tail ways that you can tell if this is happening is you will frequently need to re sync the FOBs, you average fuel mileage will reset, your memory functions will change (there are a few more but i cant remember what they are at the moment)
BC
How is the charge on your battery. If you have a weak/ old/ or bad 12 VDC main battery, every time you crank your car, (drawing lots of current causes available battery voltage to go very low for a short amount of time) you will set the memory options back to the default settings. Some of the tell-tail ways that you can tell if this is happening is you will frequently need to re sync the FOBs, you average fuel mileage will reset, your memory functions will change (there are a few more but i cant remember what they are at the moment)
BC
Veteran
Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 2,082
Likes: 1
From: Louisville KY
Sometimes this trick will work.
Stand by the car and move the passive switch to on.
Walk away from the car until you are out of range with the remote.
Slide the passive switch to off.
Come back to your car and see if that fixed the problem.
If not, there is a member on the forum that explained how he took care of the problem. He opened up the remote and snipped the wire that operates the passive switch. Problem solved.
I don't remember his name but if you do a search you might find him or maybe somebody will post in this thread with the info.
Stand by the car and move the passive switch to on.
Walk away from the car until you are out of range with the remote.
Slide the passive switch to off.
Come back to your car and see if that fixed the problem.
If not, there is a member on the forum that explained how he took care of the problem. He opened up the remote and snipped the wire that operates the passive switch. Problem solved.
I don't remember his name but if you do a search you might find him or maybe somebody will post in this thread with the info.
Racer
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 368
Likes: 0
From: ormond beach/ Simcoe florida / Ontario
I had the same problem on my 99 .I replaced the batteries,the cars battery ( some problems went away) and finally bought a new fob .That fixed the problems for good. My buddy at the dealer tells me there were a lot of problems with those fobs.
good luck
good luck
Thread Starter
Instructor
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 163
Likes: 2
From: Green Valley AZ
I did a search for key fob. Along about page 10 was a thread where a guy showed pictures of a wire to cut in the fob that would disable the passive function. I did it and everything works perfect.
That thread should be made a sticky.
That thread should be made a sticky.
