2016 Buick Encore
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2016 Buick Encore Remote Flip Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from a woman over in Bressi Ranch on a Tuesday morning. She was in her driveway, not going anywhere. Her 2016 Buick Encore would crank fine, but the engine would fire for a second and then die. She'd tried it four or five times. Battery was good, no obvious warning lights staying on, and she had her key right in her hand.

She mentioned the flip blade had been feeling loose for a few weeks. That detail stuck with me on the drive over.

When I got there and looked at the fob, the blade pivot had backed out just enough that the blade wasn't fully seating when she pushed it into the ignition cylinder. The transponder portion of the blade was sitting at a slight angle inside the cylinder, far enough from the antenna ring that the immobilizer wasn't reading it cleanly. The car would catch and stall because it was getting an inconsistent signal, sometimes partial, sometimes nothing.

I pulled the board and transponder assembly out of her worn flip shell and transferred it into a new housing with a solid pivot. No reprogramming needed because the transponder never left the equation, it just got a stable home. Retest, clean start, held idle, all buttons working.

She said she'd been assuming the whole key system was failing and had already called the dealer to get a price. She wasn't expecting a shell swap on her driveway to be the answer. Neither was I, honestly, until I saw that pivot.

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