Recovering your key fob remote
 

If you've accidentaly put you key fob through the wash or like I realized recently ... discovered that it had coffee with cream and sugar spilled onto it or the damn thing was dipped in a cup!? Then listen up. :icon_idea:

While I was in Watkins Glen last month for the Vintage festival where Jaguar was the honored marque I discovered that my FOB remote was working worse and worse each day.
When I got home I decided o replace the battery which is not the easiest or most straight forward task but in the process of that I discovered sticky goo all over the insides and it smelled like coffee! I have no ideea how that happened but it clearly did.

So I separated the two halves, electronics with buttons from the flip-to-close key retainer. Then I had to pry the back off of the electronics portion to get at the battery. But wait ... the battery is behind the small circuit board and that requires removing a little screw. Not difficult but not typical either. What I discovered after examining it was that the board and micro switches were covered in coffee goo and only one the switches had any mechanical action left. All the others were stuck. What to do?

So I made up a solution of hot water with dish soap (not dishwasher soap) in a small jar and put the circuit board in it to soak. The only thing actually effected by the water and soap are the switches which is what I wanted! Everything else on that board is completely sealed/encapsulated so no worries there.

I started at 1 hr. and some of the switches began to move again but not enough. Anyway ... I ended up letting sit for 3 days in the solution periodically heating it up again, pushing the buttons each time and shaking the entire jar. Then I got some movement and when I put it back together each of the buttons worked but not reliably. So I put the board in a small jar of rice and let it sit overnight. That helped but it was still erratic in operation. So I went to 4 days sitting in the rice and after that not all of the buttons have their full mechanical action restored, probably due to wear, but the remote now works perfectly.

Wow both my fobs do not work. I will try this for sure before spending big bucks. Thanks staatsof