malibu 05 keyfob to unlock doors not working, locking does

My remote keyfob started to have problems, no always unlocking my doors or having to press longer or needing several tries , and now has completely stopped working . It peferfectly locks the door(s) and opens the trunk. Pressing the "unlock" button does absolutely nothing. Although it did work one more time after not having used it for a couple of months, I had put the key in the door and pushed the unlock button just to see,tried it again to no avail.
Anybody an idea?
thank you

It sounds like you need a new battery put in your fob unit. I believe the procedure is detailed in the owners manual.

Not necessarily. Both of my Key FOBs ('04 Maxx) have recently been acting up, and one of them just got a new battery last month (it had died completely, with no warning and wouldn't lock OR unlock).

I'm beginning to think that the FOB receiver is going bad. Maybe a bunch of the receivers are starting to go bad, not just mine. I'll put up with it for one more week. If I take it to the dealer (I'm under Extended Warranty), I'll report back.

Try the FOB battery first, though.

6/25/08 Update: I took the Maxx in yesterday and after an hour or so, the dealer's Service Dept. determined that BOTH key FOBs needed to be replaced. Thanks to GMPP, I paid zilch.

The explanation is that on vehicles with Remote Start (like mine), the key FOB circuitry doesn't last much beyond 4 years. The Remote Start function apparently uses a lot more electrical energy, which shortens the FOBs life. Both FOBs had "open internal circuitry".

Truth be told, I've used the Remote Start like 6 times, EVER, and have never even had to replace a key FOB battery in any of my vehicles EVER, until this.

My hunch is that the key FOB supplier was a "low-ball bid" when GM sourced them.....

disregard

Hello all.
I'm hoping somebody will see this here and be able to help me out...
here's the deal, I own a 03 chevy malibu, and I dropped my remote recently in the parking lot (something we all do timei to time)...thing is, with my bad luck a small piece broke off of the circuit board so the remote wont work. I still have the piece, but im not sure if I can reconnect it. The number on the piece is 101 0146F04, it looks like its just a small piece of plastic, but it must do something. please lemme know if you have any suggestions. thanks!

Hello all.
I'm hoping somebody will see this here and be able to help me out...
here's the deal, I own a 03 chevy malibu, and I dropped my remote recently in the parking lot (something we all do timei to time)...thing is, with my bad luck a small piece broke off of the circuit board so the remote wont work. I still have the piece, but im not sure if I can reconnect it. The number on the piece is 101 0146F04, it looks like its just a small piece of plastic, but it must do something. please lemme know if you have any suggestions. thanks!

Go to Ebay and buy another one. The aggravation of fixing the broken one isn't worth the price of buying a used FOB. You may even have to reprogram your broken one after the fix.

My Lock button started giving me troubles and then stopped working a couple years ago. The other 4 buttons on the FOB still worked and I tried replacing the battery but to no avail, so I switched to the other FOB.

Well, this past fall the 2nd FOB's Lock button started giving me troubles and by December it stopped working. Both FOBs got new batteries which made no difference. So I did a little research and found a site that sold the button pad for less than $10 and by replacing the button pads both FOBs now work. The site is:
https://www.remotesandkeys.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=2924

It seems that something happened to the little black dot on the back side of the button and it no longer made the contact that was needed to connect the circuit for that button. Before I purchased the new button pads I tried taking one of the FOBs apart and by pressing the Unlock button (on the button pad) into the Lock circuit (on the circuit board) it immediately locked the car proving that the black dot for the Lock button on the button pad was defective.

My Lock button started giving me troubles and then stopped working a couple years ago. The other 4 buttons on the FOB still worked and I tried replacing the battery but to no avail, so I switched to the other FOB.

Well, this past fall the 2nd FOB's Lock button started giving me troubles and by December it stopped working. Both FOBs got new batteries which made no difference. So I did a little research and found a site that sold the button pad for less than $10 and by replacing the button pads both FOBs now work. The site is:
https://www.remotesandkeys.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=2924

It seems that something happened to the little black dot on the back side of the button and it no longer made the contact that was needed to connect the circuit for that button. Before I purchased the new button pads I tried taking one of the FOBs apart and by pressing the Unlock button (on the button pad) into the Lock circuit (on the circuit board) it immediately locked the car proving that the black dot for the Lock button on the button pad was defective.

Thanks for the link, that will come in handy as I have learned that the problem IS the rubber keypad wearing out. I got a replacement FOB at a local locksmith for $50 (included programming) and was told the keypads routinely wear out on these, it's not "the added remote start function wears out the internal circuitry" or "the FOB receiver is bad", the receiver is built into the BCM (body control module), if the BCM fails the car won't even start. Dealer wanted $120 for a new FOB AND $39.99 to program it!, now with the site Silverfox linked to I can repair this problem cheap. Mine was a "lock" problem too but it has absolutely nothing to do with any particular function, it's just whatever one wears out first.

The last time my FOBs were replaced, the dealer admitted that they're only designed to last about 3 years (when the bumper-to-bumper expires, ahem).

Using a very clean pencil eraser on both the gold pads on the circuit board and on the black pads on the keys will help a lot.

My key fob was working intermittently on all functions. I had to solder the battery holder tabs to the circuit board. There were cold solder joints on these tabs. It has worked perfectly since then.