Just bought car - Remote unlocking woes - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Hi all, first post :-) Just came back from purchasing my first Porsche, a 986.2 and whilst the remote seemed to work fine when i looked at the car before buying. I've come home to find that the 2nd key i have doesn't seem to work to lock/unlock the car (it can manually open and start the car).. Also the 1st key it seems really hit or miss whether it locks or unlocks. sometimes it will happily do it. others i'm standing there pushing the button for a good 20 seconds before it bothers locking. I've changed the batteries in both. The red lights are flashing as expected with each press on both. Really don't want the expense of buying 2 new keys at £150+ a pop. Any ideas? thanks in advance

there are a few threads on the forum about key remote issues etc. The short of it is this. Pop the key apart and look at the little circuit board inside. Look for corrosion or more common is a broken soldier joint. If you are good with a soldering iron, and have a fine tip for it, you can retouch all the joints. I did this on my remote along with replacing a micro switch. Works like new And welcome to forum, I have only been here since December and this place has saved me many times.

hi, thanks. yes i saw a bunch of posts about it but none seem to show similar issues to me that i saw (intermittent). So you're saying that the intermittent one, even though the lights on the key are flashing, could be to do with solder joints? what about the remote that doesnt work at all? cheers

Quotes source post: 594742

Same thing: Examine the joints.

Ok I will try to...looks like I have to resolve the battery bit to see the joints. Cant see anything obvious on the button side. If it makes any difference .the "kind of working" key flashes constantly quickly when button pressed down.. prob 3 or 4 quick flashes on a single press and the not working one flashes like once a second if held down. And just the once on a quick push That mean anything?

The "not working" one is dead. Once they get the slow flash, there's no coming back. The other key is likely due to bad solder joints on the back, as stated.

I followed this simple hack on renntech today and it greatly improved the functionality of my remotes. It seems the foam in the a-pillar blocks a lot of the remote antenna. If you are comfortable pulling apart some trim on your new car you could try this.... https://www.renntech.org/tutorials/article/36-insuficient-or-remote-control-tsb-9662-made-easy/

Read this thread too because the boxster 986 is a little different than a 996. The wire you are looking for is translucent clear and I didn't have to cut mine. It was already 130mm. Just move the wire out of the foam and it works again or doubles the distance at which your remote will work. https://www.renntech.org/forums/topic/4958-insuficient-or-remote-control-tsb-9662-made-easy/

Quotes source post: 594827

I couldn't access the link, but what's the foam made of? RF signals should have no problem going through foam.

I don't know, Vibranium maybe. It's a real thing though... Porsche put out a TSB 9662 for dealers to follow if customers complain that the remotes don't have enough range. You have to register an account on renntech to see the link.