daSong

hi, i noticed that the range to unlock or lock my 2001 E320 was pretty small. i would have to be at least 30 feet from the car. that seemed ridiculous as some of my friends' cars (albeit hondas) respond at over 200 feet!!! so i naturally thought maybe my batteries were low and replaced it with new ones and same thing. is it normal for these cars to have such short range? i'm not talking about the infrared to open or close the windows (summer feature), i'm talking about the usual RF to open and unlock the doors. please tell me this is normal, or how to fix it... thanks!

JimPurdy

Your experience is about the same as mine. I would be willing to try some modification to increase the distance to 30 feet.

patrick_y

The E320 in my garage is pretty bad as well. It seems to get progressively worse, since I remember when the car was new, the range was quite sufficient.

I've tried replacing the batteries and i used a can of pressurized air to clean the inside and outside of the Smartkey.

So far, the range seems to be quite limited, I'd say less than 10 feet. Sometimes I have to be standing right next to the car for it to unlock. The range for Locking seems to be somewhat further. The trunk button hardly seems to work at all unless you're standing very close to the car. Haven't tried the panic button.

daSong

perhaps this thread should have been placed in the electronics section so more MB owners would be able to comment. could a moderator move this please? sorry for creating the thread here, i am a n00b to this forum and to MB... but i love my e320...

raymond g-

this is simply a radio rx/tx issue but a little more problematic to solve. one can:

- boost Smartkey power output - haven't tired. unrealistic

- increasing Smartkey antenna - unrealistic since it would make key larger,
though you can always use the ghetto method of touching business end of
Smartkey to your chin for about 50% improvement

- better receiving antenna - haven't found an easy yet but this shows promise

Musikmann

I have not measured how far away from my infrared sensors in the door handles respond to the Smart Key, but it does seem to be inadequate. If anyone has a quick fix or solution to this issue, I'd like to read about it here.

sts15

I too thought this was a problem. On another thread about the same issue, someone said if you hold the key up to your throat and open you mouth and click it, the key works at a greater distance. Sure enough I tried it and it works and my kids think it is great fun to try. The other thread said somehting about boosting the range, but I do not remember why. Try it and let us know.

Some folks in a crowed mall parking lot might have you arrested if you do it too much because surely it would be hard to explain to a cop why you are walking around with your mouth open and clicking a key to your throat...

raymond g-

forgot to mention trick #2: i have smartkey with metal key which slides along
the edge of the key. i press the locking tab to release...or, i can slide the key
so that the metal sticks out next to the IR port. when I do this, and touch the
metal to my jawbone, I can activate the locking mechanism approx 80' away.
when the key is retracted back into the Smartkey body, i lose another 20' range.