1996 Buick Lesabre
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

1996 Buick Lesabre Remote Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

Over in Nestor, a guy flagged me down while I was already parked up on a job near the Otay Mesa commercial strip. He had a 1996 Buick LeSabre sitting in a lot and was holding two fobs, neither of which was doing anything.

He had already replaced the batteries in both. Still nothing. He figured the car had somehow stopped accepting remotes, maybe because it sat for a while after the previous owner passed it along to him with no paperwork and no explanation of the key situation.

I asked him to try the ignition key first. Car started fine. So the mechanical side was good, the immobilizer was not the issue here. The problem was isolated to the remote system, which on a 1996 LeSabre is a separate loop entirely from the ignition.

I walked him through what I was doing. On this generation of GM remote, programming requires you to enter a learn mode through the door lock and ignition, and once you are in it, you press the button on each fob you want registered. The system only holds a set number of remotes in memory, and it clears what was there before when you start fresh. His two fobs were both the correct unit for the car, the factory fob with four buttons and a CR2032 inside. They just needed to be enrolled.

Both fobs locked, unlocked, popped the trunk, and triggered the panic inside of about ten minutes. He tested each button twice before I packed up. He mentioned he had been quoted a dealer trip that would have taken most of a day and cost him more than he wanted to spend on a car this age. Getting it handled in a parking lot in Otay Mesa while he waited was not what he expected.

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