fixing a prius key - fob

wanted to share with the community how i fixed a remote keyfob where the switch was stuck open. what i mean by that is that when you push the clicker to open the doors, the switch was stuck in the down position...and would not come back. after finding out how much money it was to buy a new fob, i simply used my spare fob until the same problem happened on that key the other day.

we drive our prius as our primary car so the fob gets quite a workout. but the vehicle is running perfectly at 100K miles. well anyway, i had to get serious on the fob or i was going to be spending hundreds of dollars that i didn't want to spend. my dealer told me they could only think of new fobs as the answer.

ok...so here is what i did. with an exacto knife, i carefully scored the edge between the rubber cover of the button pad where it joined the plastic (did this only around the close button) and carefully pulled the rubber back about 1/3 the length of the rubber pad. (kind of like pulling the lid off a sardine can with the lid being the rubber key pad) to my surprise, as soon as the rubber was loose, the buttons clicked again. i suspect that what happens is after aging, the rubber deforms (not sure if it shrinks or expands) and was holding the underlying switch for the 'door open' in the down position (e.g., the mechanical switch did not have enough spring to push the rubber back up...so it was held permanently down).

i then got a little black silicone adhesive from the local hardware store and glued the rubber cover (that i just scored/pulled back with the knife) down a bit looser than its original position and the key worked perfectly. performed the same surgury on the second key...and it too came back to life. so two working keys for about an hours work.

hope this helps others.

howard