2012 MINI Hardtop 2 Door
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2012 MINI Hardtop 2 Door REMOTE-HEAD-KEY Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

Got a call from a guy over in the Wildwood neighborhood in Thousand Oaks. His 2012 MINI Hardtop 2 Door was sitting in his driveway doing absolutely nothing. Key would go into the ignition, turn to accessory, and the dash would light up with the steering lock symbol and just sit there. No crank. The remote buttons had been dead for a week, and he figured it was just the battery running low. Then Thursday morning the whole car quit on him.

He had already called the MINI dealer. They told him tow it in, leave it, could be a few days, might be the CAS3 module. He did not love that answer.

I pulled up, popped the key shell apart on his mailbox, and the CR2032 was corroded on one side. Green crust on the negative contact inside the fob housing. The Hitag2 chip was fine, the shell was fine, but that corrosion had been creeping. Cleaned the contacts, dropped in a fresh CR2032, and the remote buttons came back immediately. But the car still would not crank.

Plugged into the OBD port under the dash, talked to the CAS3, re-synced the key's transponder data. Took about twelve minutes. The engine turned over clean.

He stood there holding his phone with the dealer's number still on the screen. Just looked at it and put it in his pocket. Whole thing was done in his driveway for a fraction of what they quoted him.

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