Technical Central locking (remote fob) not working

[dtimmins1985]

Guys,

In need of help.

Yesterday my central locking stopped working.

My door lock has never worked with the key, tried to diagnose why the lock turns but won't unlock but never managed to get the door panel off, I got the trim / door card off, took all bolts out the metal panel but couldn't get into the guts of the door.

I fear it's in need of removing the door glass then the panel will come out...

Anyhow, my boot lock has jammed and can't use that so I'm stuck...
Yesterday my fob stopped working, fitted new battery but no luck, had to break into the car after work and scared a lady who works at my place half to death.

Car is home now waiting autoglass, and I'm forced to leave my car unlocked.

How can my fob simply stop working? I locked the car, then went back for my cigs like 30secs later and I couldn't get back in, the fob lights up as it should, I've changed the battery, I've even disconnected my car battery for an hour to see if that helped and also changed some bulbs when I had the chance... still no joy...

Can anyone help???

It's cost me £80 plus taxi fees and a battery for my fob and I have to leave the car unlocked all the time

 

[Artermis]

Sounds electrical on the car side to be honest. The central locking and boot releases are all electric solenoids.


Have you had a flick through the owners manual to identify suspect fuses and checked them out? If you wanted to be really thorough you could go through all 1-by-1.

 

[dtimmins1985]

Hey up artermis,

So far, I've checked all the fuses in the battery compartment, had the whole unit out when I was swapping out headlight bulbs, all are fine in there and the purple connector underneath (d4?) is bone dry, there is a tray that sits under my battery with a long tube going down, possibly fitted to drain water from battery tray and help reduce spray from the road... so it's not suspect no. 1.

The only way I can unlock the boot is by unplugging battery and reconnecting then the boot unlocks, but locks after it's been driven... the menu setting for the boot lock does nothing and it always auto locks.

The other fuses to check are below the steering wheel, but from looking at the manual none of these could be the cause... but who knows.

I can lock the doors from inside with the panel on my door, but it won't unlock it when pressing the unlock button on the panel, this has been faulty since I pressed it hard and damaged the button (dumb) but I doubt that button could cause my issues since it's been out of action for over a year and the fob has always worked.

The fob did go through the washer once and I was locked out however, been a techie... I stripped it dried it out and reflowed the dry and tired looking joints... all is still fine with the fob and appears to operate fine.

However. If it is the key I will never know until I've isolated everything and go my door manual lock working...

Can any tell me all the fuses that are in the central locking system and all the fuses that are in the remote system receiver on the car... once I isolate all this and test the circuits... I can rule it out or repair if required.

 

[dtimmins1985]

Evening all, still facing this issue and not been able to work on the car lately however, a couple hours of my lunch breaks and I've found a few fuses to check.

Anyway, despite the fuses that are in the wiring chain of the central locking unit antenna module in the roof, none are blown. All fuses are fine and I stripped them all out to check, engine bay are all fine, dashboard fuses all ok, no fuse box in boot.

I'm starting to think that the key fob is at fault or it's lost it's sync with Body computer, god knows how as the battery was fine and I'd locked the car like about 20secs before.

Tried all other stuff like removing battery etc but no joy, it's too cold to strip the door and fix the key lock so I'm stuck to leaving the car unlocked, thank god I can lock my driveway gates

Any ideas guys?

Feel like I'm going to have to buy multiecuscan, cables and my code from fiat before I can try reprogram it, then maybe a fob if the fob is at fault.

 

[Artermis]

Have you thought about contacting an auto-locksmith to see if they can test the remote signal strength for you? I'm fairly sure you can get bits of kit to test such things That'll tell you whether or not the key remote is actually working or not at least?

 

[dtimmins1985]

Good idea will get on it

 

[dtimmins1985]

Update guys.

I had the key tested at timpsons today - he said it was giving out a signal on the remote and also the transponder (knew that was ok as it starts the car) but glad to know my actual remote is emitting a signal.

He gave me some advice on how to pair it to the car if its not fully lost its sync, this dint work...

So, I've ordered the cable kit and elm cable for my stilo and just bought MES licence.
I have the code key for my car, in the orange fiat zippy thing that has all the books for the car in... if this doesn't work - i will have to buy the code from fiat - will wait and see.

Anyone got any experience in used FES / MES to reprogram the key, oh and id like to reprogram my second key (none remote) so it can start the car as at moment it wont start the car and is useless.

 

[dtimmins1985]

YEY - Finally, i got my fob working again.

Had to buy a MES cable kit - consisted of ELM / OBD v1.4 and a K-Line Vag com cable, along with adaptors to talk to various computers on the car.

MES Licence - £43 ish (50euro)

Car codes from Fiat - £12.50 + vat (immobiliser, radio, key code (blade and barrel).

5 mins faffing with MES and bingo, my remote is working again and i have enabled the indicator function so that the cars indicators blink when locking / unlocking the car.

Got other niggles now after fault finding with MES - need to tackle these asap so maybe some new threads starting if i cant find the answers.

Anyone ever need any MES work done in west yorkshire then give me a shout, if i can help out i will

 

[Artermis]

YEY - Finally, i got my fob working again.

Had to buy a MES cable kit - consisted of ELM / OBD v1.4 and a K-Line Vag com cable, along with adaptors to talk to various computers on the car.

MES Licence - £43 ish (50euro)

Car codes from Fiat - £12.50 + vat (immobiliser, radio, key code (blade and barrel).

5 mins faffing with MES and bingo, my remote is working again and i have enabled the indicator function so that the cars indicators blink when locking / unlocking the car.

Got other niggles now after fault finding with MES - need to tackle these asap so maybe some new threads starting if i cant find the answers.

Anyone ever need any MES work done in west yorkshire then give me a shout, if i can help out i will

Mate - well played. Glad you got it fixed and well done for giving it a go. Good luck with your other issues. Post up if you need help you know I'll offer what advice I can!

 

[dtimmins1985]

Mate - well played. Glad you got it fixed and well done for giving it a go. Good luck with your other issues. Post up if you need help you know I'll offer what advice I can!

Thanks bud.

I will try spare another hour or so this week as i have some faults present in the airbag system which i have the log files for so i dont have to keep reading the faults.

Will be purchasing some contact cleaner and some small wire brushes, possibly a new cigar lighter, the skinniest one, mines got a fault and is a larger euro one (chargers dont hold in tight) showing a live high voltage, shorted...

 

[Davren]

Will be purchasing some contact cleaner and some small wire brushes, possibly a new cigar lighter, the skinniest one, mines got a fault and is a larger euro one (chargers dont hold in tight) showing a live high voltage, shorted...

I wouldn't advise using wire brushes on electrical connectors. Airbag connectors are gold plated, and others are tin plated. Wire brushes could damage the plating. If you must use them, get brass, not steel, bristled ones.

Always a good idea to post the fault code(s) you get. It enables other members searching for a code to find your post, and possible solution.

If your cigar lighter code is B1037, then it refers to the cigar lighter illumination.... new bulb or clean the contacts.
.

 

[dtimmins1985]

I wouldn't advise using wire brushes on electrical connectors. Airbag connectors are gold plated, and others are tin plated. Wire brushes could damage the plating. If you must use them, get brass, not steel, bristled ones.

Always a good idea to post the fault code(s) you get. It enables other members searching for a code to find your post, and possible solution.

If your cigar lighter code is B1037, then it refers to the cigar lighter illumination.... new bulb or clean the contacts.
.

Ahh thanks for that, ill try get some brass ones tonight, i did notice the local mini market shop had a pack of 3 and one was brass, the other two was dark silver.

Also, i will post the codes later when im at home and the house is settled, mad house at the moment, i may even post them later whilst at work - just depends if i get 10mins spare to go through the logs files (uploaded them to my cloud drive).

Also, will double check the cigar lighter, i think it could be the whole unit, it no longer works, fuse it fine, it was high current / fatal in MES.

 

[Artermis]

Is your airbag light on? The airbag system tends alert you to pretty much every error it thinks it has so should show a light.

First things first with fault codes, now you've logged them, clear them and see what comes back. That way you know what is historic and what you've got to deal with.

 

[dtimmins1985]

Is your airbag light on? The airbag system tends alert you to pretty much every error it thinks it has so should show a light.

First things first with fault codes, now you've logged them, clear them and see what comes back. That way you know what is historic and what you've got to deal with.

Done that first lol... thats why i havent posted yet, every airbag is showing a present airbag fault, not intermittent, and its open circuit, im sure its a contact cleaner job.. then i have another weird present fault relating to seats and air bag ecu.

i will post about them once i have time, im just browsing for now and gathering what i can as i may have a bigger issue that im not prepared to fix and will soon maybe scraping / breaking the car near to MOT time... will see.

Dan

 

[Davren]

every airbag is showing a present airbag fault, not intermittent, and its open circuit, im sure its a contact cleaner job.. then i have another weird present fault relating to seats and air bag ecu.

Very unlikely that every airbag or its connector is faulty. More likely that one or both of the multi-pin connectors on the airbag ECU has been disconnected. Possibly to prevent the airbag warning light coming on?
.

 

[Artermis]

I'd agree with draven, the odds of every component being dicky is like winning the lottery slim. start at the ECU side of things.

 

[dtimmins1985]

Cool, will have a look into this tonight.

Maybe i knocked or broke something when i changed the pollen filter as its just above and behind the ecu and ive been in this area on the car a few times now, also cut the plastic back near the clutch for free movement and a resting place for my foot (used to do lots of motorway driving in the stilo)

 

[patatouka]

Resurrecting this to confirm that using MES (I used latest version 5.0) I was able to make my key remote work again - thanks to OP for information.

I used a bog standard ELM327 Bluetooth adapter (Mine was a Veepak one from Amazon)



Used Windows 11 - the device surprisingly was added as an audio device.{whatevs}

To demystify the process:

1. Make sure the Bluetooth adapter purchased is connected and working with your computer and not just your mobile phone.
2. After that, fire up MES [which you have to buy] and run a test/scan devices by going to the settings to validate that its in fact detecting the Bluetooth device.
3. Select the body computer option on the lower left of the application, the correct model in the middle and then click connect.
4. You can then run to the section of reprogramming - there's a separate section for the remote programming in my case at least and it's separated from programming the keys, which is reassuring - select the remote programming.
5. Add the 5 digit code provided by FIAT for your vehice VIN (got mine easy within the same day of asking)
6. Follow the instructions.
7. The key should be recognized immediately with a button press - if not, you have yourself a bad key most likely.
8. Bonus is you can add the indicator function for the keys as per OP: dtimmins1985

Hope this helps someone,

Cheers.