Kia Owners Club Forum banner

Key fob battery.

Tags
key fob
11K views 20 replies 18 participants last post by  Indalo  
#1 ·
My current Stonic is 18 months old and both of my key fobs are flashing up the low battery message on the dash. I'm sure a key fob battery should last a lot longer. The second fob is just used as a spare and is kept in a safe place indoors.
Any similar experiences?
 
#6 ·
Mine were still going strong when P/X the Stonic after 3 years.
Daughters Picanto is 5+ years & still on original batteries.
Do you open the doors with the fob or the button on the handle?

As we only use button on door handle & boot. Rather than the fobs. Which may explain the longer life.
 
#8 ·
Mine is keyless, the car is 4.5 yeras old and I've had it for 2.5 years.

My partner complained she couldn't lock the car yesterday, when I checked the batteries they were down to 2.75 volts, so almost dead. So the batteries seem to have a decent life even with keyless entry.
 
#14 ·
Hi. Only just got my Stonic last week and I bought a couple of those signal blocking wallets to keep the keys in when they're not being used. They're the type where the key clips onto a chain on the wallet and you tip it out to use it but the key stays attached to the chain (hope that makes sense!) Anyway, I started getting a low battery signal so I removed the key from the chain and I don't get the messages now. It seems the wallet was blocking SOME of the signal whilst the key was in the vicinity of the wallet which, whilst it still works, causes the low battery message. May be helpful?
 
#18 ·
My thought was that the worst possible scenario was the fob being somewhere close enough to the car that they can chat, possibly with difficulty so they keep trying. Like somebody having the car securely in a garage, but the key is just through the wall. But I can't really see that being the case...

The fobs have to have some electronics active to "listen" for signals (in case it is the moment when you are by the car and you've pressed the door button). In theory I can't see why the car would transmit anything for the fob to hear and respond to unless a door button gets pressed. So the activation process should be:
Fob always receiving; car door button pressed; car transmits a request for the fob to respond; fob receives and identifies that it is the right car; fob responds with a code which means the car knows it is a paired fob; car unlocks.
This only needs the fob to receive nearly all of the time - but even "nearly all of the time" may mean it is 950 milliseconds of every second, so that the owner's impression is that it took less than a second to unlock. The car only needs to transmit in order to validate an unlock button press. The less it transmits the less chance of hackers tuning into the RF and attempting cracks of the exchange.

We keep our keys in Faraday pouches, a long way from the street-parked car, so car and fob would struggle to make any contact! Car and fobs are a few weeks short of two years and counting.
 
#17 ·
My current Stonic is 18 months old and both of my key fobs are flashing up the low battery message on the dash. I'm sure a key fob battery should last a lot longer. The second fob is just used as a spare and is kept in a safe place indoors.
Any similar experiences?
Mine is the same age. I went to kia about 3 months ago. They changed the battery for me and now I am getting the message again! Due to surgery I didn't drive for 5 weeks. So battery they put in only lasted a couple of months.
 
#20 ·
Just replaced the batteries on my 2022 Stonic again. My fully keyless fob using cr2032 batteries seem to last about a year. So this is my second change on my usual fob. In the middle of doing it I thought , wonder about the"spare fob". Went to get it from the safe place and tried it..not working. Opened car with key, alarm went off had to use the other fob to cancel the alarm. replaced battery in spare fob and everything fine. Now keep a spare cr2032 battery in the car.
So conclusion.
1 You won't get a low battery warning on your spare if you haven't used it.
2 If you go on holiday and come back to find the battery in your fob is dead you are knackered, your car won't let you drive even though you open the door..
3 Keep a battery in the car. Use the "spare" fob occasionally.
 
#21 ·
In my experience, Panasonic CR2032s seem to last longer than any of the other button-type batteries for small electrical pieces of equipment.

As stated by others, it’s wise to keep one spare in the car so that if the need arises to utilise the not so secret keyhole, it will only take a couple of minutes to open the fob and replace the battery. Even a stored battery will lose energy slowly but for the sake of a couple of quid or whatever they cost now, I’d make a point of changing both fobs and replacing the spare one in the car. Measure the cost of two or three CR2032s against the aggravation that ensues when you are stuck far away from home because of the absence of a decent battery.🤔