KEY fob in the washer and dryer

You might try taking it apart . Clean it with 90+% rubbing alcohol. Or distilled water. Maybe some minerals stuck in there causing a short circuit.


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bag o rice

 

Maybe spring for "contact cleaner"? I think Mass Air Flow sensor cleaner would be similar. I've used CRC SensorKleen (Mass Air Flow Sensor Cleaner) on flakey remotes with good results.

 

A friend of mine took a long swim in Lake Superior with his fob. It never opened the doors again. It would start the car when inserted in the slot.

 

I would take conservative steps.
At this point I would NOT add chemicals, or clean anything.

At this point, I might try the bag of rice trick, or disassemble ONLY to try to allow it to dry out as much as possible.
It's possible it's just not dried out yet.

How many days since you put it through the clean cycle?

My first step would be, to allow it time to thoroughly dry out.
Also batteries aren't expensive, I might take the opportunity to change it out,- as a matter of course.

If that doesn't work?
Then I'd start worrying about cleaning...and/or replacement.

 

Buy a new case. Take the fob apart, remove the circuit board and transponder chip. Soak them in distilled water for a day or so. Reassemble everything (including a new battery) in the new case. If it works, you won. If it doesn't, you have a spare plug-in-the dash only fob.

A wash job doesn't change the programming, so reprogramming isn't going to repair any damage.

 

Personally, I have NEVER seen a machine washed/dried FOB returned to life. EVER. But that is just personal experience of having it happen in my family 6 or 7 times over my life with a variety of vehicles.

That being said, the transponder chip in the case will pretty much always work to start the car when inserted into the FOB slot on the dash.

I'm going to venture a guess that you're going to end up purchasing and programming a new one. Just look for the chicken dance thread. I have a recent post in there where I did a new FOB for a recently purchased Gen 2. Procedure worked great and I think I had the part number and where I ordered the FOB for about 130ish.

How to Program a New Key Fob for Full SKS Functionality | Page 27 | PriusChat

 

Actually just happened to me about a month ago.
Caveat,- mine is a Honda Fit Fob...with keyless entry and push button start. Additional Caveat, I have one of those Silicone/Rubber slip over protective covers. * Which I highly recommend.

Accidentally had it in the pocket of some pants I washed and tumble dried.
Result: Fob looked great. Clean and shiny like it was brand new.
About a month since it happened, and it's working fine.

When it happened, I replaced the battery...which meant opening it up..looked for any signs of moisture...seemed like the dryer cycle dried it out.
It's been flawless since.

Not recommending it. It obviously is NOT something you want to happen. But in my case, the fob "luckily" seems to of survived fine.
It may of helped it a lot, that it had the silicone protective cover, which I imagine kept a lot of water out of it.
Also, it was thoroughly dried in a large load of "soft" laundry.

I don't want it to happen ever again, because I feel I dodged a bullet, BUT...Wash, Rinse, Tumble and mine seems to of survived.
So I have to say...survival IS possible, even if I admit in most cases probably not likely. I got lucky.

Wish the OP would return just to let us know what happened.
I'm spoiled now, with the Prius and now the Fit, having keyless entry and push button start. But the complexity of the system does make replacement or repair a complicated and expensive endevour . Makes me think fondly of the old days when all you had was a metal key and a turn the wrist ignition.

 

This happened to one of our smart keys and I took it apart and rinsed and dried the board inside the fob. I just glued the original case back together and it works fine.
I would recommend taking it apart because even if you dry it out there may be soap residue that will dry on the board. We had to do the same to our other fob because we ran with it a lot and sweat got into it. The salt from the sweat built up on the electronics board and caused a short. It worked fine again after the salt was rinsed off the board.

 

I’m with him on taking it apart to throughly clean and dry the board. I would go with one of those new snap together fobs though, in case you do it again. Also DO NOT throw the old case away until you can confirm you changed the rfid chip. So many stories around here of people that forgot to do that.

 

I've "washed" two of mine and they both survived.....after they were opened up and dried out.

You don't "program" the FOB, you program the car to recognize the FOB.
If the FOB is critically damaged, no amount of "reprogramming" is going to make it work again.