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  • Author Author: Gough Lui
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element14 to the Rescue: Toyota Camry (2000) Remote Repair

Gough Lui

I suppose all the car owners out there love the luxury of having a remote keyfob to lock and unlock their cars, but periodically, they need their batteries replaced. Imagine my surprise when my Dad said that "the battery doesn't seem to be replaceable" ... when every remote I had met to date had a socket for some odd-ball A21 12v cell or a lithium coin cell.

 

Thanks to element14 and their prompt order fulfillment, we were on our way with nothing more needed than a soldering iron, desoldering braid, solder, superglue and an AU$1.18 part. Beats buying a new remote for $88 ... one with an unknown lifetime, but it does give pause to think why they would engineer a product in this way, and whether this inbuilt obsolescence was the right thing to do in the first place.

 

Full work-log at http://goughlui.com/2016/05/31/repair-teardown-toyota-camry-2000-remote-key-fob/

 

- Gough

  • Very cool post! I just came across this. I have two key fobs that need some "TLC" - One is this from Adafruit which basically requires a similar "permanent" battery since there is a lot of corrosion buildup on the battery contacts. I always have to clean the contacts to make them work again... I also have a remote start that has very poor reception. I actually need to scope out the signals from the fob to see what's really going on with it.

  • in reply to mcb1

    They technically are replaceable in the sense they are not hard coded in particular ways, although some of the similar models require a "voodoo" style procedure to "pair" a new key with the car (e.g. here) which is an absolute PITA. That being said, this particular car was a domestic AU spec provided by a local dealer, but we do get some Japanese Imports around here too but since the import restrictions and registration requirements are somewhat onerous, they are not as numerous as might be imagined.

     

    That being said, most surface mount push buttons do last a good deal of time. I just picked a random cheap switch with the same sort of shape (MC32882 - MULTICOMP - SWITCH, TACTILE, SPST-NO, 50mA, SMD | element14 Australia) for about AU$0.40 and according to the datasheet, the operating life is a whopping 200,000 cycles. Assuming one uses it 10 times a day for the past 15 years ... that's only about 27% of the life consumed. Given it's used a lot less, I suspect the button mechanism still has quite a way to go yet image.

     

    - Gough

  • in reply to shabaz

    I suppose with the newer key-integrated style of controller, it's easy for the car's RFID field that's normally used for the key transponder to be used to trickle charge the battery and top it off. Glad to see they have a decent lifetime - it could almost be excusable if it was not replaceable if they had made it rechargeable but sadly technology was not quite there yet in the "consumer value grade" cars of 2000.

     

    - Gough

  • Good work.

    I guess since it doesn't have a chip and the sync process is in the manual they are replaceable.

     

    Many of the domestic Japanese cars are designed for 5yr life, as they then require lots of items replaced under local laws.

    Hence in NZ we have lots of "Japanese Imports" that have strange things compared to something for the Aust/NZ market.

     

    Given that the button cover is worn out (and most likely the actual button next), making it a non-replacable item is not as bad as first thought.

     

    Mark

  • Hi Gough,

     

    Interesting article! Yeah a shame Toyota shaved some cost this way.

    The car I have uses a wireless charging method, and the battery is completely sealed. It uses a VL2020 lithium battery, apparently with 1000 charge cycles so I guess there is some intelligence to figure out when to charge the battery (e.g. after 100 lock/unlock cycles etc, or the key reporting battery status). It could explain why occasionally (well, very rarely, e.g. once per year perhaps, for a period of a week or so) I thought the battery was dying - perhaps my driving pattern had changed and I'd not drive the car for long enough to charge it. It always seems to recover.