When a remote only works with your hand already on the door handle, the fob is rarely broken. The cell inside it is flat. We bring the right one to wherever the car is parked in Coquitlam, fit it, confirm the fob still talks to the vehicle, and tell you plainly if the fob itself has given up.
Changing a fob battery takes minutes, which is exactly why it is not worth a drive across town to a kiosk that may not stock your size. We come to the car instead, and it can be sitting in a parkade stall, a trailhead lot, a driveway or at the kerb.
A key fob is a short-range radio. As the coin cell drains the transmitter keeps firing, just weaker, so the distance it works from shrinks a little every week and you adjust without noticing. That is why the same failure feels gradual in a driveway and sudden in a parkade. Three levels down under a tower on the Burquitlam corridor there is enough concrete and steel around you that a cell still working fine outdoors gives you nothing at all. Plenty of Coquitlam drivers meet the problem for the first time in a parking structure and assume the fob broke that morning. Usually it had been fading for months.
If you live in a tower, your key ring probably carries two fobs, and only one of them is a locksmith's problem. The car fob we open, re-cell, test and re-sync. The other one, the little plastic tag that gets you through the lobby door and lifts the parkade gate, belongs to the building's access system. Those credentials are issued, cancelled and replaced by your strata corporation or property manager, so we could neither supply you a new one nor program it if we did. It is worth a sentence on the call, because one word covers both things: say which fob has quit, and if it turns out to be the building tag we will tell you who to ask rather than send out a truck you do not need. In the towers around Lafarge Lake, along Clarke Road and at Coronation Park it comes up regularly.
The number printed on the old cell is its size, so the fastest thing you can do before we arrive is read it to us. We carry CR2032, CR2025, CR1620, CR1616 and the other sizes in common use. If the case will not open far enough to look, your year, make and model is enough for us to bring the right one plus the neighbouring size. One thing worth knowing: the cell itself is a variable. A sealed, in-date cell from a known brand holds its charge for years, but loose or undated bargain stock can be weak the day you open the blister. A fair number of careful home swaps fail for no reason other than the cell that went in.
| Service | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Coin cell for one remote, fitted and tested | $10–$25 |
| Both household remotes in one stop | $18–$40 |
| Push-to-start proximity fob battery | $15–$35 |
| Cell plus contact clean and reseat | $20–$45 |
| Cell plus re-pairing to the vehicle | $40–$95 |
| Diagnosis when a good cell changes nothing | Quoted on-site |
Cells are cheap, so the visit is what you are actually paying for: we drive to the car, open the case without wrecking it, fit the right size, and confirm the fob still works with the vehicle before taking payment. A battery-only call carries a small minimum because it is still a truck roll, which is why a fair number of Coquitlam customers use the stop for something else at the same time, usually the second household fob. The number is agreed with you first, and payment at the car is card, e-transfer or cash.
Year, make and model, and whether it is a flip key, a remote head or a sealed proximity fob. Sealed ones need different handling, and on a few vehicles we want the programming tool on standby before anyone sets off.
The truck carries the common sizes plus the one on either side of yours, a case tool that opens a seam instead of splitting it, and the programming equipment in case the pairing lets go. Nothing here needs you to drive anywhere.
We test from a normal distance rather than with the fob resting on the door handle, because that is the test that would have passed yesterday too. Should the vehicle have forgotten the fob while its power was out, that gets put right before we leave.
Most fobs do not care. Power comes out, power goes back in, and the rolling code the fob and the car share is still in step. On a minority of vehicles it is not: leave the case open too long and the pairing with the immobiliser drops, which leaves you with a remote that unlocks the doors and an engine that will not turn over, or a fob gone completely silent. That is a programming job rather than a battery job, and it needs equipment that can talk to the car. We carry that on the truck, so a pairing lost while we have the case open is ours to put right. Coverage is not universal, though. On some European models it depends on the model year, which is why we ask for those details on the call instead of discovering it together in your driveway.
A flat coin cell almost never strands a modern car, which is worth knowing at eleven at night on a lower parkade level. Push-to-start vehicles keep a backup: hold the fob against the marked spot, usually the start button itself, sometimes the steering column or a pocket in the console, and the car reads the transponder inside the fob directly rather than over the air. Most proximity fobs also hide a mechanical emergency blade behind a catch on the side, and it opens the driver's door. Plenty of people have owned the car for years without ever sliding it out. Find yours once, in daylight, before the night you need it. None of that revives the remote and none of it is a reason to leave a dying cell in place. It only means a dead fob is an annoyance rather than an emergency.
There is nothing precious about a flip key with a visible seam and a slot made for a coin. If you have the correct cell and a plastic pry tool, go ahead. The calls we get are the ones after that went sideways: a shell split at the wrong seam, a battery clip flattened so the new cell reads as dead, a proximity fob that was glued or ultrasonically welded shut and got opened anyway, or a case put back together with the seal pinched so the next wet week finishes the board. Stop at two points. If the fob is sealed, and if a new cell has already failed to change anything. A replacement remote costs many times what this visit does, and a cracked case is how the moisture gets in that ends a fob for good.
This is the rare car-key job that is not an emergency, and it changes how you should book it. A flat coin cell still leaves you the emergency blade and the backup coil, so you can generally open the car and drive it. That means you get to pick where the repair happens instead of having a parkade pick for you at midnight. Most people choose whichever address the car sleeps at. Others choose the lot at work, because that is where they first noticed the range had gone. Either suits us, and the quote does not move between them.
The one setting that rewards a little planning is an underground stall, and there is a neat irony in it: the same concrete that finally killed your fob's range is the reason your phone has no bars down there. Book from street level if you can. Tell us the civic address and which level the car is on, say whether the visitor bays need a code or a call up, and if you do end up waiting below, walk toward a ramp before you text. In a genuinely secured structure we will either arrange it through building management or meet you at the lobby and go down together.
Of everything that goes wrong with a car key, a flat coin cell is the cheapest by a wide margin. The rest of the list is below.