2020 Toyota Avalon
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2020 Toyota Avalon Smart Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I was over near The Collection in Oxnard, had just finished a different job, when the call came in. A woman in the parking lot at a children's hospital, kid freshly discharged, 8pm, and the Avalon would not respond to her fob at all. She pressed the button. Nothing. She tried the backup procedure where you hold the fob directly to the start button. Nothing. Dealer was closed.

I told her I was close and to stay put.

When I got there, the fob looked fine on the outside. Battery was not old by her count, maybe six months. But when I cracked it open, the CR2032 had leaked just enough to film over one of the contacts. Not corroded black, just dull and resistive. The backup coupling procedure depends on the fob antenna being able to pass a signal through the start button housing, and a dirty contact kills that.

Cleaned the contacts, seated a fresh CR2032, tried the backup procedure again. The car read it.

From there I connected to the OBD port to confirm the key was properly enrolled and that no fault codes had been tripped by the repeated failed start attempts. Everything checked out clean. I walked every button, tested the door handles, confirmed the start. She loaded her kid into the back seat while I was still running through the checklist.

She mentioned the dealer quote she had been dreading in the morning. I told her what we charged. She went quiet for a second and said "that's it?" That part never gets old.

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