Fob follies

[hobbit]

This pic should say it all.
Toyota's parts-counter response: "you have to buy a whole new fob".
That's completely ridiculous, what with all the attendant hairball
of reprogramming the ECUs to accept it -- this is a high-stress
part, and ought to be replaceable by itself.
.
_H*

[galaxee]

schmedleys. i was afraid of that tab wearing out.

unfortunately the fob comes as a whole assembly <_< but let me see if DH can do some digging when he's back in town.

actually i wonder if he still has that destroyed fob- that backing might be usable...

[naterprius]

If you are still under warranty, this should be covered.

Nate

[hdrygas]

I would say unless you can fabricate something your self you may be out of luck. That is frustrating I know. Galaxee's DH may have fixed this in an hour but that is not this story. I know the feeling of "but I don't need the whole assembly all I need it to replace THIS" I am thinking back a few years ago to when my wife had a flat. She took it into the tire store to have it fixed after AAA had used the spare to replace it. She had a MiniVan. What else 2 kids, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 2 guinea pigs. The spare was stored under the fuel tank in the back and worked by a winch. The winch had a sticker next to it saying not to use power tools to crank it, but what did my wife see by the person replacing the tire using the air wrench to winch it up. OK this is by memory 5 or 6 months later and another nail in a tire and the winch does not work. Long story longer. We got the tire off, headed it in got it fixed and put it on. My aching back. The Nut in the floor behind the tail gate under the carpet just spun and spun. Clearly it was no longer attached to anything. Called the dealer (DH, if I might be allowed, are you listening?) and they could obtain and install a entirely new winch assembly for many hundreds of dollars. I looked at the problem and clearly the nut that was, like a lug nut, and worked by the lug nut wrench, was connected to the winch post by a simple roll pin that was broken. All I needed was the roll pin replaced!!! I called the Service Manager to tell him of my discovery! I was excited. This was a simple fix anyone could wrap their mind around! The Service Manager informed me they had no roll pins all they could do is replace the winch for the cost of my next pay check. It took me 3 hours but I pounded the pieces of the broken roll pin out and searched for 2 days for a replacement finally found one. That was only because I had seen my Dad use a similar roll pin on the rigging of his sail boat years earlier and went down to a boat store were I found a roll pin of the same size. I cut it to the proper length filed it smooth sanded it and because there was no room to push it in it took me 2 hours to get it in place. Worked perfectly, after I cleaned all the dirt off the winch. Call it a moral victory. I must have spent 4 or 5 days doing this. Skinned many knuckles, but I beat the MAN. Are YOU ready to take up the gauntlet? How hard could it be to mold your own plastic?

[galaxee]

h:

that's the reason he started working on his own cars to begin with, furthermore the reason he decided to do it for a living. he still feels way too many people are getting screwed.

really many things are fixable with minimal part replacement and many parts being reused. however there is a time vs money trade off. he fixed a car for some friends where the objective was to do it as cheaply as possible. instead of replacing $800 or so worth of parts, they paid $140, got free labor, but he only had time to fix it after work and on days off, a couple hours a night, took him 2 weeks/$300 worth of his own tools destroyed/multiple tries with a 20 ton press/blood and sweat. it was about 45 hours of work, risk to his job security, and plenty of time where he didn't get to see his own wife. and our "friends" had nothing but complaints for him (and anyone else who would listen) when he finished. nevermind we saved them well over $1000, a couple hundred of which he would have earned in commission.

and we never did ask for replacement of the tools he destroyed on their car.

in many cases people would rather pay the money rather than take the time. and that's the operating premise of major parts replacement. well that and profit... always a key motivator for companies...

[talonts]

I'm curious - just what are you guys carrying in your pockets, or how often are you removing the mechanical key?

I carry tons of stuff in my pocket with my fob, haven't even come close to wearing it out. Then again, with SKS, and actually shutting the car down when I park, I've only removed the key from it at most a dozen times in 2.5 years.

I do agree, however, that the back cover should be replaceable. Try calling the Consumer Affairs # on the Toyota site and complaining about it.

[hobbit]

I don't have SKS, so the thing is on and off the metal key all the
time. What I'll probably end up doing is drilling a hole through
the fob body itself and attaching some sort of little clip, like the
ones found on badge-holder lanyards... and then I can whip *that*
on and off of my normal keyring. Advantage of doing this: metal
key isn't buried in the fob, making it easier to use it to lock the
doors when the system is still powered up and I'm very briefly out
of the car. So I've already got a backup plan, but that still
doesn't let out the PRINCIPLE that I can't get such a simple thing
from Toyota. [like better instrumentation, eh..]
.
It's not actually *broken* yet, but I'll ask about the warranty
thing.
.
_H*

[richard schumacher]

OK, no SKS: so why not lock/unlock using the buttons on the fob? Isn't the mechanical key only a backup for when the fob batteries go dead or other emergency?

[mikepaul]

Why not just get a spare key made, then epoxy the fob together so that not being able to remove the key is no big deal? It's not like I've ever used mine to open the car. About the only issue will be a new method of attaching the fob to your keychain so you can detatch it for oil changes rather than hand-over all your keys, but that's also rather cheap compared to new fob parts...

OK, even without SKS, the fob is all you need until the battery is dead. Just be sure the epoxy doesn't prevent battery changing and you should be good...

[naterprius]

You can get a copy of the key made just about anywhere. The copy will have a bigger head.

Nate