PistolPete

I'm just going to throw this out there and hope for some ideas from the crowd.

My GT4 key fob will randomly died on me. When dead, I can't lock/unlock or pop either trunk. The LED will flash indicating the button was activated but nothing happens in the car.

During my Atlanta road trip this would happen multiple times during the day when we stop for gas/lunch. I had BOTH key fobs with me and both would not work so I think this is an issue with the receiver in the car and not with the key itself.

Hennesy Porsche in ATL took a quick look and found no errors stored in the car and both key fob batteries were fully charged. This has been driving me insane and I've had multiple other owners witness the behavior during our group outings.

I plan to head to my local dealer on Saturday and spend the day there trying to reproduce it. I work in IT and troubleshoot crap all day and I've found no pattern to the failure. The closest I can get is that it normally happens after shutting down the engine after the first drive of the morning.

Once the key decides to work again after an ignition cycle, it will be perfectly fine until the next failure.

This happens everywhere so it's not RF interference at specific locations. I had a theory that my Wifi GoPros (or GoPros in the cars next to me) were interfering but I had no GoPro in the car this weekend (and was by myself) and it happened again. Humm, I was parked next to another GT4, maybe that is the case? Maybe it's because I'm carrying an iPhone and I should leave that home? As you can see, I'm grasping at straws right now.

I've been smacking the dashboard and windshield glass when it happens hoping it's a loose connection somewhere but no luck either.

I'm hoping it will fail at the dealer this Saturday but with my luck it will be perfectly fine. Any thoughts?

-Pete

9elheven

Hi Pete - Sorry to hear you're having issues. When my Audi RS4 fob failed, I had to re-synch it, and it has worked fine since. The other fob was OK at that time, but later the 2nd one needed re-synching also. It was super simple, based on googled instructions I found. I think it was also in the manual. Anyway, I'm not saying the GT4 is the same as the Audi, and it sounds different as this is intermittent for you. If there is a fob re-synching procedure for the GT4, perhaps it would be worth a try. GL!

PistolPete

I know of a resync procedure for a 987 but not for a 981. If anyone knows what that is, I'd appreciate it. (Please don't tell me this is in the manual, I'm going to look now...)

9elheven

I don't remember coming across that when I read the manual, either hard copy or on-line. I just wonder if, perhaps, something on the fobs or receiver is off just ever-so-slightly, and it works intermittently, and a re-synch (if that's even applicable in this case) would restore it. Both fobs exhibiting problems suggest something else, though.

24Chromium

By any chance did it go thru the wash? That happened on my GT3 and the key would only work under very specific circumstances. I've got a post up on the 991 GT forum about it.

PistolPete

No car washes for me, just a garden hose in the backyard. And it wasn't washed at all during the entire week long trip to Atlanta.

Rac10000

^ I think he meant if the key went through the washing machine ... not the car

PistolPete

Oops! LOL. I'm losing it!! Haha

Yargk

Any news PistolPete or others? Same thing happens to me, the car just stops responding to remote commands. It's intermittent, affects both key fobs, both key fobs light up, and it happens with new batteries. Usually it will just stop responding for a few minutes, then work again. Recently it stopped working for a longer period, then worked again.

PistolPete

Strange, I thought I have followed up on this thread, guess not.

Anyway, my key failure situation was 100% reproducible.

Basically if I had my external Garmin GPS unit running OR my iPhone 5 running ANY mapping app (Google or Waze) with the device in the car, my keys will not lock the car.

As soon as I turn off the Garmin or remove the phone from inside the car, my keys would come back to life. I don't use the Garmin much anymore since I've converted to Waze. I look to this quirk of my car as a "feature" that reminds me to take my phone if I left it in there since it won't lock.

jphughan

That just happened to me a few days ago -- key fob would flash but none of the buttons did anything. I started the car up and turned it back off, no change. So I locked it with the physical key so I could go run my errand, then drove the car home, and when I parked it in the garage, the fob worked again (so I didn't bother testing the 2nd key), and it's still working now. Very odd....

Sadly unlike PistolPete, I don't have any external GPS, I don't recall running phone-based GPS since we drove to a frequently visited place, and I don't think my wife or I left our phones in the car. That is an interesting finding though.

9elheven

PistolPete, I seem to remember you DID discuss your findings back last year. Did they disappear from this thread, or was it in another thread?

PistolPete

Maybe the location you were parked had a lot of RF interference. I'm no wireless engineer so that's only a guess.

My problem was consistently inconsistent. It drove me nuts until the dealer tech noticed my Garmin and turned the damn thing off.

I was told the receiver is part of a unit that controls many other aspects of the car. The thought of needing the car ripped apart to replace this control unit with no guarantee of a fix made me leave it alone.

Yargk

Wow, this is crazy, but somewhat consistent with my observations. I have an external bluetooth gps unit for my phone (increases the frequency of the position updates) and had it running longer the time the locking didn't work for a longer time.

e46mike

Had this happen to me once. it was a little embarrassing because I was trying to leave and a group of kids was admiring the car.