Ford B-Max not responding to key fobs
Discussion
This problem has now been resolved, but I'm curious to know what happened.
The car is a 2013 Ford B-Max belonging to my late father, who died in January. For about the last six weeks it has been SORNed and parked in his garage, connected to an Optimate battery conditioner, while I wait for probate so I can sell it.
I went to move the car at the weekend, and was disturbed to find that the car didn't respond to either of the remote key fobs. The Optimate was still showing green, so the battery should have been fine.
Since neither fob was working, I thought it unlikely that the batteries had failed in both simultaneously - but I set about trying to figure out how to open them up anyway. I didn't succeed in that, but I did discover that squeezing together the 'shoulders' of a fob caused the little plastic badge to lift away, revealing a metal key shaft hidden inside.
Putting that key shaft into the driver's door and turning it caused the car to wake up - all doors unlocked, and the dash lit up. When I opened the door, it made a 'Countdown' sound that got more and more urgent, hinting that the alarm was about to sound - which it did. I eventually figured out that all it wanted was for me to press the Start button on the dash, and from that point everything was happy bunnies. I can now start the engine, and I can lock/unlock using either fob.
So what happened? Why did the car stop responding to both fobs?
The only thing I can think is maybe it went into some kind of "battery saving" mode after a few weeks where it stops monitoring the remote fobs to reduce battery drain. Does that seem likely?
Or did the car just get bored and lonely?
The car is a 2013 Ford B-Max belonging to my late father, who died in January. For about the last six weeks it has been SORNed and parked in his garage, connected to an Optimate battery conditioner, while I wait for probate so I can sell it.
I went to move the car at the weekend, and was disturbed to find that the car didn't respond to either of the remote key fobs. The Optimate was still showing green, so the battery should have been fine.
Since neither fob was working, I thought it unlikely that the batteries had failed in both simultaneously - but I set about trying to figure out how to open them up anyway. I didn't succeed in that, but I did discover that squeezing together the 'shoulders' of a fob caused the little plastic badge to lift away, revealing a metal key shaft hidden inside.
Putting that key shaft into the driver's door and turning it caused the car to wake up - all doors unlocked, and the dash lit up. When I opened the door, it made a 'Countdown' sound that got more and more urgent, hinting that the alarm was about to sound - which it did. I eventually figured out that all it wanted was for me to press the Start button on the dash, and from that point everything was happy bunnies. I can now start the engine, and I can lock/unlock using either fob.
So what happened? Why did the car stop responding to both fobs?
The only thing I can think is maybe it went into some kind of "battery saving" mode after a few weeks where it stops monitoring the remote fobs to reduce battery drain. Does that seem likely?
Or did the car just get bored and lonely?
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