2018 Chrysler 300
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2018 Chrysler 300 Smart Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from a guy over in Conejo Oaks, right off the Thousand Oaks side near the golf course. He had been fighting his 2018 Chrysler 300 for a couple of weeks. The fob would work fine, then suddenly the car would sit there showing a key-not-detected warning even with the fob in his hand. He tried holding it closer to the start button. Sometimes that worked. Sometimes it didn't.

He had already been to the dealer. They told him the fob was dying and quoted him a number that made him pause long enough to look for other options. That's when he called me.

I pulled up, popped the fob open on the hood of my van, and the CR2032 tested low. Not dead, just low enough to be unreliable in certain conditions, which is exactly the kind of thing that produces intermittent failures. Replaced the battery, reseated everything, and ran through all five buttons while walking the car. Lock, unlock, and each of the remaining buttons in sequence. Touch the handle. Check the start button response. Everything came back consistent.

Then I confirmed the fob was still paired correctly. It was. The gateway authentication went clean, no re-enrollment needed because the fob itself was never actually failing, just starved for power.

He watched the whole thing from about three feet away. When I handed it back and it worked cleanly on the first try, he had the look of someone who had spent two weeks being told the problem was bigger than it was.

The dealer wasn't wrong that the fob needed attention. They just reached for the expensive answer before checking the simple one.

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