Originally Posted by kingtj

I *really* appreciate the instructions posted on disassembling the keyfobs -- but I didn't have as good of luck with the procedure as I thought I would.

I bought one of the replacement keyfob cases off eBay (shipped from China). It came with just a black plastic shell and an uncut key, but no circuit board/batteries/etc. inside it.

I took my existing (worked fine, but all beat up with melted buttons) keyfob apart using the snap-ring pliers and a knife and got the original metal key and transponder out just fine.

Unfortunately though, I really had a struggle separating the portion of the plastic where the batteries go, so the circuit board would successfully come out. I think the ONE thing I screwed up was not immediately realizing I had to be careful to preserve (not bend or mutilate) the little metal tab sticking up in the plastic ring that acts as the positive terminal for the coin cell batteries. While trying to tug the plastic loose with a small locking pliers, I managed to smash the little metal prongs down on that tab.

I transferred everything over to the new keyfob case, but now that it's all reassembled, the buttons on the keyfob do nothing! (I even tried that thing where you hold down lock and unlock at the same time until you see the red flight flash to indicate you're changing the way it unlocks the doors/trunk... Never saw a light flash.) I tested the coin cell batteries with a battery tester and they check out good, so it's not those.

I figured that metal tab I bent up was simply not making good enough contact with the batteries anymore, so I tried cutting and inserting a small piece of aluminum foil to help make sure it makes good contact. But still nothing!

The key unlocks the car door and it will start the engine fine (so the transponder part must be ok)... but if I can't get the buttons to work, I may as well have just left this whole thing alone, in the original keyfob!

Also tried to reprogram the keyfob with putting it in the ignition, pressing unlock twice, and then turning the key to "run" -- but that did nothing either. It's like the keyfob simply has no power....

I'm puzzled now, because I was pretty careful not to damage the circuit board when removing it, other than just bending that little tab up a bit. Anyone else run into a similar issue?