Security Remote / Ba T Stopped Working

[Full Monty]

Hi Guys, I tried searching on this and came up with nothing. My wife just called me in a tizz, becuase she went to jump in the car at lunchtime and couldnt open it. I'm figuring its simply a low / flat battery in the key remote fob, as her remote has always had low range / signal strength, and you have to press the unlock button quite hard to activate it.

Is it a simple open and replace the battery, or does it need reprogramming by ford following the battery replacement?

She rang Ford and they said over the phone that they never see the batteries go flat in the BA/BF remotes and that it must have failed, this im not so sure about.

Thanks guys, need a quick answer as im sure Fraud will try and sell her a new key remote etc for $150+

Thanks Gav

[turbo.vixen]

You can change the battery and that's all you need to do, no need for reprogramming . When you open it up, check for moisture inside as that is a common problem that causes them to fail

[Full Monty]

Thanks for the quick reply Vixen. Thankfully it was just that, she took it into ford, as they are just around the corner, and luckily she was served by the guy that always looks after me. They had their tech guy check the insides that it was all ok, and they simply changed the battery for $3.

Yay a win for once.

[EvilDaifu]

Yeah here's a bit of a thread mine

Started where button presses on the key fob weren't working first time on my BA T. Eventually opened up the key fob and found it like a jungle inside Must have got wet in the rain or whilst washing the car - who knows

Anyway, dried it up best I could. But it was still doin it. Got progressively worse where I'd be like standin next the car pretending to look into the window/look around/anything other then look like furiously pressing the lock button

Did put a fresh battery into it but that didn't help.

What worked though was putting a small piece of double folded paper inside between the battery and hard plastic case. That acted to put extra pressure on the pcb and helped make the buttons work. It's because the rubber gasket gets a depression around the edges over time and so button presses put less pressure on the metal button. Might have also been a bit of oxidizing of metal I.e. rusting (due to being wet) causing poorer eletrical contact button performance but firm pressure on the button seemed to work every time.

Anyway - thought I'd share that as having a flaky BA key fob was just driving me to distraction (was thinking of swiping the misses key fob but then so decided the sort out the one I always carried).

This is prolly gonna be more of a problem as our cars age - hope it helps someone else and saves them from forking out whatever a new key fob costs nowadays (saw $150 back in 2010 )

[EvilDaifu]

Does anyone know if you have the battery out of the key fob for several days if the the fob loses its settings and needs reprogramming once the battery is back in?

in advance

[tab]

The programming works the other way round. You teach the car to respond to the remote - so I can't see how the remote could 'forget' as it always should just pump out the same signal regardless. So I'd say the remote is farked.

I think I've got a spare one at home that you could have, but it was for a ute so won't be very useful to you. If you've got two keys then you can do any learning yourself, so can just grab one off ebay or something. Should be fairly reasonably priced.

[EvilDaifu]

Well, am guessing alot of our BA vintage key remotes are getting well worn and used by now

Thanks to tab and (indirectly by going Back to the Future) iDags - manual page 79 has the answers about training key remotes here

http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/17893-procedure-for-learning-remote-to-vehicle/

and here

http://www.fordmods.com/fordmods-technical-documents-diy-f38/how-to-program-a-ba-or-bf-key-remote-t67420.html

And I plan to buy one a replacement one from here $49

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/161005429994?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Sounds like I need to have both metal keys to train the car to use the new remote though and need to do both remotes at the same time.

[tab]

No just one key I think, the two keys is to program more keys. Ignore what I said previously.

Poor iDags.

[Wenier]

You need 2 keys to program a new key. And when programming remotes once in program mode you have to teach it every remote again so all keys must be pressed in that case. That is so if you misplace/lose one you can simply put the car into the remote learning mode and it will forget all of them, then you reprogram the ones you still have and it makes the lost one useless.

[tab]

  On 07/05/2013 at 11:22 AM, Wenier said:

You need 2 keys to program a new key. And when programming remotes once in program mode you have to teach it every remote again so all keys remotes must be pressed in that case. That is so if you misplace/lose one you can simply put the car into the remote learning mode and it will forget all of them, then you reprogram the ones you still have and it makes the lost one useless.

Fixed. Otherwise it'll confuse things even more.