on the growing sophistication of cars....

[Dave Eaton]

my wagon has ³advanced key² which means that it provides keyless entry.
which can be surprisingly handy.  so last month, after a long holiday away
the keyless bit wasn¹t working.  so i swapped the battery out of the remote
with a new battery.  still no joy.  use my other keys and get intermittent
results.  replace the battery in the other unit.  still intermittent at
best.  sometimes even the remote locking/unlocking functions would not work
until i had pressed the remote 6-7 times.

if i take it to the dealer, i them become a hostage to their diagnosis, and
this is stuff i should be able to figure out myself.  sigh.

i access vag-com.  i am seeing multiple 955/966 errors but they are recorded
as intermittent.

access elsawin.  try to understand the interface of advanced key with normal
remote lock/unlock as the failure mode is influencing both. there are 3
aerials one in each rear door and one in the trunk.  there is a reader unit
under the dash and a precessing unit under the centre console.  to get
access to all that gubbins would not be the work of a moment.  check out the
wiring diagrams, there is a common ground or 2 but nothing obvious that
would contribute to the failure mode that i am seeing short of a fundamental
system failure.  there is some talk on the internet of how a faulty door
aerial could cause the others to stop working.  could be door wiring.  the
failure occurs irrespective of which side of the car i am accessing.
mentally prepare myself for $500 labour and $500 parts bill from the dealer.

with vag-com i run control element diagnostics on the start module and note
that all tests pass with not faults logged.

i finally follow a hunch and and replace both remote batteries again with
new ones from the supermarket.

it all works like a charm.  $6.

and a bad batch of cr2032 batteries that is now in the trash.

dave
¹08 rs6 avant
¹12 vw passat alltrak