I had a strange key fob experience today. I drove my car, parked it and locked it with the fob, no problem. I come out, unlock it just fine, drive for about 30 minutes, park it and it the fob wouldn't lock the car. None of the buttons did anything at all. I figured the battery had gone bad, so I replaced it (all the connections looked fine when I had it apart), and still nothing on the fob worked at all. I go about the rest of my day, get home and grab my other fob. All the buttons on it work normally. As soon as got done testing it, I grab the one that wasn't working and all the buttons were functioning again normally. Any ideas?

 

Jon, I am really glad it worked!

It appeared that the original soldering on your fob was not very good from the factory, and the connections began to fracture from years of use.

No wizardry involved, just many years of experience designing electronics.

 

QuartzSTypeR,

Your symptoms sound very similar to mine during the past year or so. Every now and then my S-Type fob would refuse to work. I would take it apart and clean the circuit board, battery contacts, and rubber pad with alcohol and Q-Tips. That would usually restore the functions for awhile. Then I discovered that if I used my wife's rarely-touched S-Type fob while holding my own fob next to it, my fob would magically began working again for awhile. At the end of last week when I took my fob apart for at least the 5th or 6th time in order to clean the innards, that's when the chip fell off the board and onto my kitchen table....

Try taking your fob apart and cleaning all components of it. That may buy you some time. But if these devices are not particularly well-crafted at the factory as Steve has apparently discovered, a refurbishment similar to mine may be your eventual solution....

 

That's quite possible, I replaced both mine recently and the function was vastly superior to what the old ones had deteriorated to.
Maybe a new career on the horizon for Steve?