Newbie... remote central locking problem

[berko]

I have a 1995 518I with a 3t alarm (single button on three inch long
fob) and over the last few days have had to get closer and closer to
the car before the remote will open the doors. Now it's stopped working
altogether.

The obvious starting point was the battery in the fob so I changed this
but still no joy. I then tried the spare fob which worked the other day
but still nothing.

The car starts and runs fine apart from that so could someone please tell me if this is a common fault and how can I rectify it?

[Springfield1952]

I can't give any advice on your particular remote but I seem to have similar problems though it seems to come and go. Some days I fell like I have to be on top of the car before the remote acitvates and other times I'm 30 feet away and it works.

[berko]

Annoying ain't it!

[mikell]

The rear seat. Really, I had a similar intermittent deal going, which drove me nuts. I'd re-program the alarm and it worked fine, but stoppoed when I reinstalled the rear seat. Seems that seat cushion pushed down on the box and caused a discontinuity, which sometimes got better, then worse again (changing temps?) Anyway, remounted the alarm box so the seat did not impact it, and all seems good now for more than a month.

Another possibility is corroded contacts - try cleaning the plug contacts with contact cleaner, then reprogramming the remote.

So, try re-programming the alarm, then try it before reinstalling the seat. Maybe leave the seat out for a day or two if you can. Or, do what I did and just relocate the darn box. What have you got to lose?

Good luck.

[berko]

The rear seat. Really, I had a similar intermittent deal going, which drove me nuts. I'd re-program the alarm and it worked fine, but stoppoed when I reinstalled the rear seat. Seems that seat cushion pushed down on the box and caused a discontinuity, which sometimes got better, then worse again (changing temps?) Anyway, remounted the alarm box so the seat did not impact it, and all seems good now for more than a month.

Another possibility is corroded contacts - try cleaning the plug contacts with contact cleaner, then reprogramming the remote.

So, try re-programming the alarm, then try it before reinstalling the seat. Maybe leave the seat out for a day or two if you can. Or, do what I did and just relocate the darn box. What have you got to lose?

Good luck.

I'm on the case. All I need to do now is find out how to reprogramme the 3T alarm system and then work out which box is which. There's a gold coloured aluminium one which has no markings on. Could that be it?