I hate to post something that has been brought up before, but this problem to me, still seems somewhat unresolved.
I did a search in the Forum and noticed several post/topics which are similar, but I thought I would see if anyone else has gotten a better resolution.
1. Came out this morning to open the car, and when I hit the Unlock button on the keyfob nothing worked. Could not get the door to unlock with the fob at all. Car was purchased on 2/23/06, and built on 2/06, so the battery surely was not dead.
2. My second key fob was regrettably at the office, about 2 miles away, so after standing there for 5 minutes, I basically had no good choice but to unlock and open the car with the actual key in the door method, which of course, as we all know, set off the alarm.
3. Biggest annoyance to me was, that when I started the car with the key, the alarm kept going off, contrary to what the Owner's Manual says on page 23..."Also using a valid sentry key and moving the ignition switch to the on/start position will disarm the system".
4. Actually resorted to driving 2 miles, with the alarm going off ( people on the street surely thought it was a stolen car at that point ) to get the other key fob at the office. Got there, and the 2nd fob ( which had never been used - so the battery should have worked ) did not disarm the alarm either.
5. Called the dealer from the office, who tells me that "they guess they will have to tow it in". I said, no you won't, because the car starts and drives just fine, except for the alarm going off.
6. So at this point the alarm/horn/lights all have been going off a good 10 minutes, ( also contrary to what the Owner's manual says...Page 22..."the system will turn off the horn after 3 minutes....") and finally, after repeatedly trying both keyfobs to try to Lock/Unlock the doors, pressing, amazing one keyfob works and holding the PANIC button for a good 3 seconds, the alarm finally goes off.
7. Now for no apparent reason, both key fobs started working again fine, and I can now unlock/lock the car with either keyfob to my heart's content. I really think that our HAL has the same glitch as the 2001 version.( the movie of course .
I logged on, did a search and noticed several folks had similar problems, and had offered several solutions that all seemed fob battery related.
A. So I checked for the battery connection, loose connection in the key fob. I took my fob apart, and no loose connection to be found. So that took that out of the equation.
B. Somebody else posted that they had on a couple of occasions experienced what they believed to be RF frequency interference which effectively "disabled" their key fob, and they had to resort to the use actual key/open door/set off alarm, no way to disable it approach. In my situation, I was parked in the exact same place in my driveway, and there is nothing new built in the area, so I don't think the RF interference should have been the culprit either.
Guess after all this typing ( sorry for the long winded frustration post ) my basic problem is that it does not seem that anyone has figured out how to disarm the Alarm WITHOUT a functional key fob.
In other words, if your parked 200 miles from the wife's keyfob, or the dealer, and you drop your keys while walking up to the car, and break the keyfob, well, you are going to have to drive 200 miles with the alarm going off, because there does not seem to be away to disarm the alarm without a working fob. Anyone?
That just does not make sense, especially with what is written in the manual.
I did a search in the Forum and noticed several post/topics which are similar, but I thought I would see if anyone else has gotten a better resolution.
1. Came out this morning to open the car, and when I hit the Unlock button on the keyfob nothing worked. Could not get the door to unlock with the fob at all. Car was purchased on 2/23/06, and built on 2/06, so the battery surely was not dead.
2. My second key fob was regrettably at the office, about 2 miles away, so after standing there for 5 minutes, I basically had no good choice but to unlock and open the car with the actual key in the door method, which of course, as we all know, set off the alarm.
3. Biggest annoyance to me was, that when I started the car with the key, the alarm kept going off, contrary to what the Owner's Manual says on page 23..."Also using a valid sentry key and moving the ignition switch to the on/start position will disarm the system".
4. Actually resorted to driving 2 miles, with the alarm going off ( people on the street surely thought it was a stolen car at that point ) to get the other key fob at the office. Got there, and the 2nd fob ( which had never been used - so the battery should have worked ) did not disarm the alarm either.
5. Called the dealer from the office, who tells me that "they guess they will have to tow it in". I said, no you won't, because the car starts and drives just fine, except for the alarm going off.
6. So at this point the alarm/horn/lights all have been going off a good 10 minutes, ( also contrary to what the Owner's manual says...Page 22..."the system will turn off the horn after 3 minutes....") and finally, after repeatedly trying both keyfobs to try to Lock/Unlock the doors, pressing, amazing one keyfob works and holding the PANIC button for a good 3 seconds, the alarm finally goes off.
7. Now for no apparent reason, both key fobs started working again fine, and I can now unlock/lock the car with either keyfob to my heart's content. I really think that our HAL has the same glitch as the 2001 version.( the movie of course .
I logged on, did a search and noticed several folks had similar problems, and had offered several solutions that all seemed fob battery related.
A. So I checked for the battery connection, loose connection in the key fob. I took my fob apart, and no loose connection to be found. So that took that out of the equation.
B. Somebody else posted that they had on a couple of occasions experienced what they believed to be RF frequency interference which effectively "disabled" their key fob, and they had to resort to the use actual key/open door/set off alarm, no way to disable it approach. In my situation, I was parked in the exact same place in my driveway, and there is nothing new built in the area, so I don't think the RF interference should have been the culprit either.
Guess after all this typing ( sorry for the long winded frustration post ) my basic problem is that it does not seem that anyone has figured out how to disarm the Alarm WITHOUT a functional key fob.
In other words, if your parked 200 miles from the wife's keyfob, or the dealer, and you drop your keys while walking up to the car, and break the keyfob, well, you are going to have to drive 200 miles with the alarm going off, because there does not seem to be away to disarm the alarm without a working fob. Anyone?
That just does not make sense, especially with what is written in the manual.