jerryho

My Keyless-Go works about 90% of the time. But 1 out of 10 times it will not work. I go to open the door with the door handle, and BAM, it is locked. However, once I unlock the door with the remote, then the system has no problem starting and recognizing the key from that point on.

I tried replacing the battery to the key unit but it still does the same thing.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Polar Bear

What if you try multiple times to open the door with the handle? The handles are known to go bad and are fairly easy to replace.

It could be a faulty key - do you have a second key to try for a while?

amdeutsch

PB is right. When that happens try another door. Matter of fact, try all doors and the trunk. This will help to isolate to the offending handle, hopefully.

Quadcammer

mine gives me problems if I have the key sitting next to my cell phone in my pocket for more than a few minutes.

MBNUT1

Mine is acting flakey as well. Is there a sequence that you have to go through. Like apply the brake first. Or if it is working correctly does it not matter as long as your foot is on the brake when you press the start button. Mine seems to get all out of synch and I have to go through the sequence a couple of times and eventually it starts using the keyless go.

sdunham

Mine is acting up also but worse than yours from your description... My Keyless Go works about 50% of the time... It's really inconsistant too... One time, I'll unlock the door fine, adjust the seats fine with the "start" button on the shifter, but when I step on the brake and pres the 'start' button, I get "key not recognized" ... Other times, I'll start the car fine with keyless go, then while driving, I'll get "key not recognized", stop the car, shut off the engine, get out and the door will lock just fine...! It happens to both keys which both have new batteries...

Barry45RPM

I had an intermittant "key not recognized" situation when sitting in the car & pressing the start button on my '04. Once in a while it would even crank for a split second then quit & then display the "key not recognized" message. That was the extent of my problem. It always locked & unlocked properly when I touched the outside handles.

It turned out that I had a defective stop light switch, which I guess prevented the launch sequence. Replacing the stop light switch solved the problem.

sdunham

Stoplight switch, that's an interesting fix I would not have thought of... Speaking of "odd fixes", my wife's new '08 ML320CDI was having an issue of the HK Stereo shutting off and then back on when listeneing to local radio stations or satelite stations... The fix was to replace the glow plugs... Not sure how they are related but that's what the repair ticket stated...

Barry45RPM

Remember when consumer electronics was in its infancy? Christmas light strings would all go dark when any one of the bulbs in the strand blew. I don't know how people solved the problem if more than one bulb was bad in the string!! Then, in the mid '50s they discovered that things should be in parallel, not series.

Television

The Brake light switch uses the CAN BUS when faulty as on a 210 the switch shorts out the CAN BUS and the car does not know what to do.

I would ask your dealers to re program your keys,this takes ½ hour on STAR

sdunham

Just an FYI, I dropped my '05 E500 off this morning for service of the intermittant "Keyless GO" as well as the "Visit Workshop" Airmatic problem... I'll post the fixes once I pick the car up tonight...

sdunham

Picked the car up last night. Airmatic issue turned out to be a loose contact in the Airmatic Compressor harness and the Keyless GO didn't show any signs of malfunction according to the Tech and Service writer...

gdhcpa

Found keyless go works best in left pocket and not right pants pocket - guess too close to gear shift. Also as stated the keyless go and your cell phone can not be in same pocket or close to each other as that will cause the key to not be recognized

Polar Bear

I have never noticed that problem personally. There is a Keyless-Go module that is located in the ashtray - I haven't paid attention as to whether this is actually an antenna or a module (I think it an antenna).

One thing I have noticed is that you can actually hear the antennas in the car search for a key. Get in your car and leave the key outside (or temporarily remove the batteries from the SmartKey) and try to start the car. Depending on how good your hearing is and the ambient noise, you can hear the car activate all of the receivers in the doors searching for the SmartKey. It's almost like surround sound - they make noise in sequence around all of the doors.

Barry45RPM

I can keep my key anywhere on me. Once in a very great while, when I try to open the door, I might have to move it out from behind some pocket change. Thats an extremely rare occurrance, though.

MBNUT1

Is it a faint extremely high pitched noise?

Polar Bear

That's exactly what it sounds like.

cmorganjr

Isn't it FUNNy how we all get so accustomed to the keyless go conveniences. I catch myself getting irritated when I have to actually put the darn key in the ignition to get it started. It might happen about 1 time out of 100.....but, boy you'd think someone had cut me off on the freeway. lol

We are SO spoiled, huh?

IndiumGreyE63

Yeah - we are spoiled. Only a couple of times I've had to move my key around in my pocket for it to get recognized, but have never had to put it in the ignition to get it started.

I had a Lexus IS350 that was really bad at recognizing the key in my pocket.

rkao

I do notice that if the key fob sits 'in front' of the key in my pocket, it seems to disrupt the keyless door operation and needs to shift the key a bit and it all works fine.