Kessy Key Fob

[Redditchboy]

Kessy key fob went dead without warning, the car is only just 12 months old. Is it normal for batteries to fail this quickly. I thought you got a warning on the dash if the battery was low. Anyone else had the same problem?. Dont fancy being out one dark winter night and to try and use the key in the hidden lock on the door

[James@RRG_Skoda_Rochdale]

Just about every owner with a KESSY system will probably have this at some point, the keys do a lot more than a conventional key and sap the battery faster as a result. In all fairness you've done well to get 12 months out of a KESSY key battery. 

 

The best advice I can offer is:

 

-Replace the battery every 6 months

-Upgrade from a cr2025 to a cr2032

-Don't buy cheap batteries that are 20 for a quid. Buy varta, duracell, Panasonic etc

[ScoutCJB]

51 minutes ago, Redditchboy said:

Kessy key fob went dead without warning, the car is only just 12 months old. Is it normal for batteries to fail this quickly. I thought you got a warning on the dash if the battery was low. Anyone else had the same problem?. Dont fancy being out one dark winter night and to try and use the key in the hidden lock on the door

 

I would have expected a dash warning, mine always used to.  Battery life as James points out above varies a lot - 1 battery i put in lasted a little over 2 months.  I also found that I would get issues starting the car and have to hold fob near button about a week before then getting the dash message.  Go for the CR2032, its a little fiddly but it does go in and go for a Duracell.

[Redditchboy]

Thanks for your replies, will try the higher spec battery next time

[aki78]

22 hours ago, Redditchboy said:

Kessy key fob went dead without warning, the car is only just 12 months old. Is it normal for batteries to fail this quickly. I thought you got a warning on the dash if the battery was low. Anyone else had the same problem?. Dont fancy being out one dark winter night and to try and use the key in the hidden lock on the door

Yep, sometimes you don't get the warning message on the dash, probably because the battery dies so quickly. The same thing happened to my colleague while I got the warning message as normal. In our experience the CR2025 lasts 1-1.5 year while the higher capacity CR2032 is good for 1.5-2 years.

[varaderoguy]

The other thing - make sure your KESSY keyfobs are not kept together.....that will considerably shorten the battery life span.

[TechyDonkey]

My KESSY is coming up to 5 years old shortly and so far I've only replaced the batteries twice in the main key fob.  It may or may not be a factor that my fobs are kept apart, and they also spend any time when they're not in a pocket in one of those shielded pocket things which protects the fob from being scanned by some toerag outside your front door in the middle of the night.

[TrinityJay]

Same thing happened to me! Key worked fine until it didn't, no warning. A short while later my 2nd key prompted low battery warnings from the car, and I changed it. In hindsight I should've tested the voltage on that key's battery to see how it compared with the one that gave no warning.

 

 

[varaderoguy]

To understand why KESSY keys fail with their battery, you have to understand that the key fob itself transmits every couple of seconds to the car.  Compared to a normal car with a keyfob that just gets inserted into the ignition (which the car reads the internal chip once to get the approved code for starting the car and disabling the immobiliser).  KESSY whilst in the car is still transmitting that it is close by; most batteries will try to hold their voltage as high as possible until all their chemical is utilised, then they will just die).  This is why you don't get much / if any - notice that the KESSY keyfob is failing.

 

This is also why you should not put both KESSY keyfobs together; each keyfob will try and out-do the other (from an RF perspective) and completely flatten the battery.

[ahenners]

Kessy keys seem to get through batteries quickly but getting no warning is odd. Mine warned me this morning to replace the battery but kessy was still working fine. When it starts to get really low keyless entry usually stops working but it will still start the car. Never had a kessy key battery just die completely and unexpectedly.

[varaderoguy]

Don't be caught out. If you get a warning, this is not the car just being overly cautious, it really means the battery will be about to die. Would be embarrassing to call out breakdown cos your KESSY key stops working.

[JayLibove]

Just happened to me. 16 months old new-bought 2020 Octavia Scout. I don't drive regularly, and the key is kept much farther away from the car than can possibly reach, so when the car is parked, the key is completely out of contact.

No low-battery warning at all. No "have to be close for the car to unlock". Just worked fine this morning, and then this afternoon on returning to the parked car from a bicycle ride, temperature 4°C and falling, getting dark, the key fob is totally dead.

I was lucky; a nearby restaurant's waiter had a pocketknife (I normally carry one, but not on the bicycle ride!) which made it possible to extract the battery (the battery in my car model's key fob is stuck in there too strongly for anything but a metal flat screwdriver or similar to remove it - we tried fingernails, plastic, even a metal wire), and even more fortunately I happen to keep extra CR2032 batteries on my bicycle because my bicycle computer uses them. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have been stuck out there in the cold dark waiting for the auto club or a taxi!

I'm rather disappointed that the system gave no warning, and that when the key fob dies, it is impossible to start the car. (Or, is it possible to emergency start the car somehow?)

 

[TheWanderer]

My fob went dead at 1.15 am, no battery available and left me stranded at work, no warning from the car. 

 

In the end Skoda Assist got me a taxi home because I didn't know that it was a combination of dirt in the fob and flat battery. Eventually got home at 3am.

 

Took the fob apart cleaned up the inside and replaced the battery with a decent one and another key and all was fine. 

 

Now have a second key in a RFID pouch with backup batteries in my work bag, another set of batteries in the car and another set in my wallet. Its done it once, it won't get a second chance to lock me out. I hate KESSY. 

[JayLibove]

@TheWanderer ouch, 1.15am ...

I wonder how well the local auto club (I'm in Spain) would handle this. I don't have Skoda Assist or any kind of extra Skoda services, just the stock 2-year warranty (which will end in Sept 2022). Though, hopefully, now that I know that it should be possible to start the car by pressing the start button with the battery-dead keyfob, I should never need the assist.... 🤞

[TheWanderer]

Oh no you can't. 

 

I had to open the door using the blade of the key to get the cap of the door off, turn the lock which opened the door OK, but as soon as I opened the door the alarm activated, along with the immobiliser so absolutely no way to start the car and when I shut the door and locked it the alarm continued to sound for another 20-30 seconds despite me relocking the car. 

 

Why oh why is there no way to manually deactivate it such as a security code or something like that so you can get home or drive for 15 mins max so you can get assistance. 

 

I suppose the best solution would be to have mobile phone operation of the door locks and immobiliser via an app and QR code. 

Edited 30 January, 2022 by TheWanderer

[JayLibove]

In this case, was the key fob totally dead, or just the battery in the key fob was dead? It seems that some of our number here have been able to get past a dead key fob battery by leveraging the RFID inducer in the start button (powered by the car battery). That should work even with the car alarm sounding (or, in my case, as my car has no alarm, just the immobiliser activated).

  

10 hours ago, TheWanderer said:

Oh no you can't. 

 

I had to open the door using the blade of the key to get the cap of the door off, turn the lock which opened the door OK, but as soon as I opened the door the alarm activated, along with the immobiliser so absolutely no way to start the car and when I shut the door and locked it the alarm continued to sound for another 20-30 seconds despite me relocking the car. 

 

Why oh why is there no way to manually deactivate it such as a security code or something like that so you can get home or drive for 15 mins max so you can get assistance. 

 

I suppose the best solution would be to have mobile phone operation of the door locks and immobiliser via an app and QR code. 

 

[TheWanderer]

Completely dead. 

[JayLibove]

Ah. Yes. That would fatally suck.

And, in any case, I agree, there should be a manual backup method to start the car with a correct physical key despite the total failure of the fob circuitry, similar to limp mode for AdBlue Diesels. For technology (including security) to put the car driver in a potentially dangerous situation is not acceptable.

-Jay

  

40 minutes ago, TheWanderer said:

Completely dead. 

 

[PetrolDave]

The immobiliser in the fob is totally passive, it doesn't need the fob battery to be able to start the car - as has been suggested holding the fob (with dead battery) against the Start button will start the engine and turn off the alarm.

 

At least it did when I needed to do it earlier this year ...