My father and I have two cars and two small car remote controls. One car is a couple of years old. One is about 10 years old. And both remotes still work fine. Furthermore, there is no place on the remote to insert new batteries, naturally.
How do car (and other similiar) remotes never run out of energy? As I’ve said, these are the kind of remotes that don’t take batteries or recharge.
Thank you in advance to all who reply:)
There’s got to be a battery. These things cannot just emit a signal by themselves.
What kind of car is this thing for, by the way?
I wasn’t planning on telling the make of the cars. But FYI, one is a 2000 Malibu and one is a 2007 Impala.
BTW, I don’t know if this is helpful. But actually when I was a kid, I did have something that didn’t require a battery. It was a keychain light. Solar lights were all the rage back then. But the maker (I got it mail order) claimed it absorbed radio waves or something directly from the air. Anyways, I didn’t use it enough or something, and it stopped working so I threw it out. It may have nothing to do with my post, but I thought it is an interesting story to answer your post about things always needing a battery:).
There absolutely is a battery. The key remote is very tightly fitted together and might require a special tool to open and replace the battery. Dealerships will usually do this for free.
OK.
They both take batteries. Somehow the batteries have held up, or they’ve been changed and you didn’t know it.
The remotes open by prying the top and bottom apart with a coin or a knife. I guarantee you’ll find a battery in there.
Just because theres no obvious battery slot doesnt mean there isnt one or way to replace it. On my model there’s a slot you put a coin into to pry open. I suspect yours has something similiar.
The 2000 Malibu remote in this picture looks just like the one for my Pontiac, also GM.
Chevy Malibu Key Fob Replacement & Fob Accessories?
Look at the end where the key ring hole is and you should see a small slot, about 3/8" long, to stick a screwdriver, coin or similar object to pop it open.
Most of those Malibu remotes are down right mean looking.
For my BMW remotes, there is a rechargable battery sealed inside the head of the key / remote. There’s a coil around the ignition key cylinder that recharges the battery when it is in the car, similar to the way contactless toothbrush / shaver chargers work.
I recently changed the batteries in my car keys. The car is 11 years old and it was the first time they needed to be changed. They are not rechargable like the ones described by Terry Kennedy - they are CR2032 coin-shaped lithium batteries. All 3 keys stopped working over a period of around a year. So while it is amazing that batteries could last so long, your experience is not unique.
In this particular case, the battery change was completely straightforward - I had been worried that the keys would have to be expensively reprogrammed after replacing the battery, but no, they still worked.
The car is set to the fob, not vice versa.
It’s entirely possible that the “absorbing radio waves” bit was hype, and it did have a battery. And it stopped working because the battery ran out.
My '97 Grand Cherokee remote has a seam around the edge; if you drop the keychain just right, the remote pops open and the little coin batteries (two of them) roll or bounce under the furniture or down the nearest drain. Fortunately, the two halves of the remote are connected by the keyring. The '09 Grand’s remote has a little panel on the back that you could pop open with a screwdriver.
It depends on usage. I had my last van (GM) for 10 years and replaced the battery three times. By the time I sold it I had to practically be touching the car with the remote to have it work. My husband had his truck (Dodge) for 13 years and replaced the battery once. His was a drive-to-work vehicle and mine was the family vehicle so the remote was used at least four or five times more often.