About a year after we bought my wife her HHR her key fob stopped working. We assumed dead battery. Instead of replacing the battery she just used the other fob.

Well, a little over a year later, the other fob stops working. So I go get new batteries today and when I open the remotes, I realize it's probably not the batteries that are dead, the remotes are broken.

I did a little digging around on here and see that a couple people have had the same issue. I thought about soldering the connections again, but then I read somewhere that I wouldn't be able to program it myself anyway. Is this true??? I really don't want to solder the connections myself and then pay the dealer to reprogram.

BTW: I'm out of warranty. Kind of makes me wish I had replaced what I thought was a dead battery over a year ago.

 

I had this happen to me but it was replaced under warranty. It was just one side that was unsoldered, I also had the same thing happen to the Uplander I drive at work. If you are not to far out of warranty maybe your dealer will replace it for you anyway, if not check ebay using the part number of your fob and have you dealer reprogram it. I did this when one of my fobs and key was lost and picked up them up for about $20 each and it ran about $30 to have them programmed you will need both sets to reprogram it.

 

Same thing happen to me also. I had a little more B.S. with mine though. I lost my spare key when we moved. They gave me a new Key Fob and Key However they could not get the car reprogrammed with the key. Took them 4 Days and a Module later to get the car programmed.

 

While I also had this issue and had them replaced under warranty - the dealer knows of this issue (bad solder at joint) and this item may be covered anyway (so called secret warranties). I would take one of your keyfobs and re-solder it. Whats the worst that could happen? You have 2 now that don't work.

 

Since batteries do get replaced in the fobs life time, which requires no new programming, having a solder connection to the battery go bad would be like having a dead battery. If the dealer won't honor it since it is too far out of warranty, then I would re-solder the connections, put in the new battery and I would think you should be fine.

 

The car is programed to your key fob number. if your repairing the same key fob the car will not need to be programed. Only have to reprogram if you replace the key fob.

 

Already had the bad solder joint issue here months ago.

Just resoldered it and all is fine.

No need to reprogram.

 

I had this happen with my key fobs & the dealer told me that it could not be repaired. We'd have to order new fobs & have them programmed (out of warranty, of course). My hubby manages a local muffler shop and ordered the key fobs from Chevy, but he could not re-program them. I'll have to have the dealer do it the next time that I take it in. At least one of mine is still working, though (for now!).

 

I also started to experience flaky fob performance. It worked OK for about a year and then started to intermittently not open the doors. I was looking for instructions on how to replace the battery when I found this thread. THANK YOU for pointing out this problem. I just touched up the solder joints and it is working like a charm, no need to reprogram. Mine too was only broken on one side, but both sides were cold. The center connection was sound. If you are handy with a soldering iron this is an EASY fix.

 

Same thing happened to one of mine. All 3 points came loose. I re-soldered. It still worked without re-programming.