Hey all!

I just bought a 2008 Panel and really love it. The guy I bought it from hardly used it and so it only has 10500 miles on it. He let the battery go dead and after he charged it up the keyless remotes no longer worked, both of them. I knew this when I bought it, but got what I considered a good deal so I wasn't concerned. I did run a Carfax report and everything else checked out fine.

Today, I took it to my local dealer to get the remotes reprogrammed. As I thought, they said the system needed resetting since it had lost power when the battery died. As I was waiting to have this done for the estimated $60, they came in and told me that the system had been reset and the remotes now worked, but when the system came back up it indicated a abnormal tire pressure in one of the tires, which turned out to be a false signal from the tire pressure sensor and it needed to be replaced. He said that all the wireless features of the car are tied in together, and that's why I never saw the tire pressure warning until after the system was reset. He said to replace the sensor would be around $200 total, which was the part, labor and resetting the remotes. I had no way of knowing whether this was legitimate, but it sounded reasonable so I said to go ahead and do it.

They did, and the total ended up only coming to $168.00, which was cool! :)

When I left, I used to remote start and remote door locks, which worked great. When I got home, I tried opening panel's side doors with the remote, but they wouldn't open, they do with the buttons on the dash, but not with the remote. I should have checked it at the dealership, but I didn't. So I called them and the service guy talked to the technician and he said the side cargo doors DO NOT open with the remote, you have to use the buttons on the dash. But in the manual, it shows how to open them with the remote and there are the two buttons on the remotes themselves that show the driver side and passenger side cargo doors.

I think the tech has to be wrong! Has anyone ever heard of the cargo doors not opening with the remote if there are buttons on the remote for it?

 

Some Panel guys should be on to answer your panel specific questions about the door locks.

My guesses:
Are you holding the buttons down for the one second it says to do in the manual? My other “guess” would be that the general unlock command has to be sent before the panel door unlock button is used, but I do not know.

What I do know: The 2008 does have a problem with the receiver losing programming after a power outage. So all you heard about the TPMS from the dealer sounds correct. There would have been an indication of all dashes on the DIC in place of the tire pressures, but since you are new to the vehicle you would not have known that.

 

Yes, you're right there. All the tire pressure places on the DIC showed spaces instead of numbers before they reprogrammed and now they show tire pressure for each tire, so I'm sure they were being truthful about that.

I have tried every which way I can with the remote and everything else works as the manual says it should except the side cargo doors. But like I said, they do open with the dashboard buttons. I wonder if they needed to be programmed separately and the tech just missed it. Or does everything get reprogrammed at the same time when they do it?

 

Yes the rear door will open with the remote what the dealer don't understand is on the 08 panels the rear doors have its own module for the remote release. the rear doors get programed separaetly from the other remote modules. I know this because I had the same promlem under warranty and it took three trips to the dealer before they discovered the other module was there. Take it back and make then read the book on the rear remote reprogram procedure.

 

Great, thanks! I can't take it back until Monday because the service rep that is working with me is off tomorrow. I may print out your response and take it with me! LOL

 

Thanks for the tip Lucky,
I just bought a used 08 Panel and have to program the new FOBs with rear door buttons.

 

I don't think there are any seperate modules for the rear doors, but rather they have to choose the correct body style when reprogramming.

 

that may be my info comes from the dealer who had trouble programing the rear doors. I do know that you can open the rear doors with out unlocking the front door. mabe there just another screen you have to go to program the rear doors?

 

I'd like to find out which it is, because I have a feeling I'm going to have to tell the dealer exactly how to do it. They're nice enough, they just don't seem to have much experience in doing this, at least not with the panel. I had to remind them it had remote start after they told me the remote was working for keyless entry. I should have checked the side doors while I was right there, but since the remote start and keyless entry was working, I didn't even think about the rear doors.

 

A little off topic but can you reprogram these things by yourself or do you HAVE to take it to a dealer?