Problems gaining access via remote & No Key Detected message

[Brian Miles]

 Hi,

I have 2011 SR AWD 2.2D-Cat Auto, for the past few days I have been experiencing difficulty accessing the Vehicle via the remote (Have put a new Battery in the remote)  after several attempts, I gave up, but when I tried again later (about 20 min) the doors opened and the vehicle started via the keyless ignition, but shortly after starting I got an error message say 'No Key Detected)  I drove into my local town centre, parked up and locked the vehicle by the touch button on the drivers door.  The car responded to the touch on the door handle and it started first time via the keyless ignition. I parked up the driveway and locked locked it as normal.

The following morning I had a repeat of the previous day, but did not have thel uxuary of being able to wait until later. My wife also has a Rav 4 2006 2.0 Auto which is opened by a key fob. When my wife tried to open her car, she got no response. We now had 2 Rav 4's with different access and ignition systems failing to respond to their respective key fobs, What would be the odds on that happening !! As I don't believe in coincidences, something was very wrong . like the previous day, the fault, if indeed it is a fault, My wife decided to use the key on her fob for access, but this meant that the alarm was actinide. As I had a keyless ignitionI, i did not have that option.

That evening my car was left open, the following morning, my car refused to start,  my wife was able to access hers by using her key. the same happened again today, despite try over several hours, I am still unable to start my car.  Has anyone else experienced this, Could someone or something be blocking our signals, Any advice or assistance would be very much appreciated.

 

Regards

Brian

 

[philip42h]

It could be radio interference, though why it should start happening just now is another question ...

Can you confirm that both cars are (or may be) affected at home but never have a problem anywhere else? If so, local interference does seem likely ...

[IanML]

Are you near a mobile mast?  Providers are beginning to test/introduce 5G networks and that might explain what has changed.

[Heidfirst]

1 hour ago, Brian Miles said:

, My wife decided to use the key on her fob for access, but this meant that the alarm was actinide. As I had a keyless ignitionI, i did not have that option.

doesn't your fob conceal a mechanical key (I know that my Avensis with keyless did)?

Have you tried starting the car by placing the fob against the start button?

[Brian Miles]

Philip,

Neither of us have experienced this problem before, I haven't been able to start mine all day, and my wifes car is not responding to the key fob, so at the moment she is locking it by key.. It is as if someone has deliberately targeted our vehicles, but for what purpose, if it is purely to wind me up, then it has worked.

 

Ian,

No, we are nowhere near a mobile mast

[Brian Miles]

Heidfirst

I did as you suggested, I depressed the brake pedal and held the remote against the start button , and she started !  I have no idea as to how that works, but I am very grateful that it did, and hopefully will continue to work. Once I had closed the drivers door, I got the error message of 'No Key detected"  The central locking is still not working. I am curious, does the fact that there is a metal key within the remote have some bearing on this ?

My wife is still having to use her key to gain access to her car as her fob still refuses to work

 

[furtula]

If I close the doors with a bit more force, i would also get a temporary no key detected warning, but goes away after few seconds.

The tip from Heidfirst is actually a safeguard from Toyota, in case your Battery gets empty, you could still start the car by putting the Toyota eblem towards the button.

As asked above, but still not answered, does this happen at other places, or only in front of your house?

 

Could also be that the replacement Battery you bought has sat on the shelf for few years and the charge was almost none when you used it, but this is a long shot.

 

[Djmackers]

Those batteries hate the slightest bit of oil/moisture from your fingers. Just one to watch for. 

[Brian Miles]

Further to this ongoing tale of Woe,

My wife has just returned with my car,  She was able to use the remote to open and close the doors in several locations and the car responded to the keyless ignition without problem and without any error messages stating that No Key Detected.

Having returned home, the vehicle has again failed to respond to the remote control and the same error message of No Key is once again being displayed. To the best of my knowledge and belief there hasn't been anything installed that could possibly cause this to happen. My car is parked up our drive and my wife is some 30 - 40 yards away on the other side if the road. .  My wife now thinks that we have been deliberately targeted ! 

[furtula]

Toyota in UK (Europe) should be using frequency of 433 Mhz for keyless entry system.

Same frequencies in UK are assigned to licensed radio amateurs, with  output power being 26 dbW for frequencies from 432 until 440 MHz .

It could be that you have a radio amateur nearby, which is interfering with your signal, fits the story of sometimes working, sometimes not.

 

You can buy jammers for this online, but they come with omnidirectional antennas, and are very short ranged, but that would mean also your neighbors would experience the same issue.

Yes, you can make a directed antenna, but i doubt anyone would actually go that far. I doubt anyone is doing this intentionally.

[IanML]

Although the 433 MHz frequency is far removed from navigation radar frequencies (8 to 12 GHz), these have been known to disable some remote controls (BMWs come to mind).  I'm not suggesting this problem is necessarily caused by a radar (although if Brain lives near a port or airport...), but to illustrate that interference does not have to emanate from a source at the same frequency.

[Mike169]

Hi.

Interesting topic.

Very occasionally I find my Rav 4 unlocked in the morning and I know I locked it the previous night, push start/stop button also. Something close to me, maybe my neighbour who has an Audi or whatever unlocks it. It starts and works perfectly and no trouble in that dep't at all. Mine has a feature (I Believe) if you unlock it and the doors are not opened within I am guessing 3 mins they self lock again but no it stays unlocked but not 100% sure on this one.

Another interesting point which might help you Brian is I worked in garages for most of my life and one customers car wouldn't start outside his house so we towed it 1/2 a mile away and it started first time so something local to him was 'playing with his anti start/theft system. An AA man told me this is not uncommon and he had done it several times with the same result.

Good luck, Mike.

[Brian Miles]

Thank you to all who have given me advice and possible causes.

I have signal detector and scanner, that will hopefully be arriving today, if someone is trying to disable our vehicles by means of an electronic device, either by design or accidentally , then this scanner should be able to detect the signal and where it is coming from. 

Probably not related but  it might be, last night my wife disturbed a couple of teenagers crouching down at the front of my car, which was parked up our drive way, they were both looking towards the road, when challenged they claimed to be hiding from someone chasing them in a car, having been told in no uncertain terms to go, they did. I am disabled so was unable to go after them. I did however report the incidence to the police.

I locked my car with the key from the remote, it was opened up this morning with the key, the car was started by holding the remote against the ignition button, my wife's car is still not responding to the remote.  It would definitely appear that this problem is localised as once away from our home address, everything, so far, works normally.

Thanks again to all concerned for their input

Regards

Brian

 

[furtula]

2 hours ago, Mike169 said:

Mine has a feature (I Believe) if you unlock it and the doors are not opened within I am guessing 3 mins they self lock again but no it stays unlocked but not 100% sure on this one.

This is a standard safety feature, on my old mazda  it was 30 seconds, never really checked on Toyota, but yeah, it gives peace of mind knowing it's there.

[Gerg]

Obviously I have no knowledge of where you live but, would it be worth doing some simple tests local to your home to establish how far you have to travel for the door locking to start working again.  Then, try this in other directions if you can, to establish where the edges, and thence the centre, of where the disruption is?  Hopefully your scanner will sort this out without needing to do this when it arrives.

For what it's worth, there was a situation similar to Mike's above that was reported on a motoring website some years ago.  Basically, when any Land Rover Discovery was parked in a specific area of particular Italian town, it could not be opened on the fob or started - the cars had to be towed to somewhere else to get them to work.  It was eventually discovered to be a radio system at the local police station nearby that was the cause.