2003 Toyota Land Cruiser
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2003 Toyota Land Cruiser Remote Head Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got the call from Limoneira, out in Santa Paula, sometime after 8pm. She had just picked up her kid from a hospital stay and they were standing next to the Land Cruiser in a parking lot. The fob had gone quiet. She pressed the button, nothing happened. Pressed it again, still nothing. The dealer was closed and she had a worn-out child who needed to be home.

She called me.

By the time I got there, she had the kid settled in the back seat because she had used the mechanical blade in the key head to get the door open. Smart move. The interior lights were on, the car felt normal, but the remote functions were completely dead and the engine would not start.

I popped the key head open on the hood of my van. The CR2016 had corroded enough that the contact on one side had lost its grip. That was most of the story right there. But the corrosion had also left residue on the contact plate inside the fob housing, so a fresh battery alone was not going to fix it. Cleaned the contacts, seated a new CR2016, closed it up, and then went to the OBD port to confirm the immobilizer was reading the key correctly and to test all three buttons.

Everything came back. Doors, remote functions, engine start, the works. I walked her through it and watched her run the buttons herself before I packed up.

The whole call, door to door, was under an hour. The dealer would have been a morning appointment at the earliest, and she would have spent the night figuring out a rental or a ride. That was not the night for any of that.

BSIS Licensed

LCO#6792

CA Bureau of Security & Investigative Services

NASTF Certified

National Automotive Service Task Force

Fully Insured

Liability & vehicle damage coverage

Google Guaranteed

Verified & backed by Google