DIY fix your car remote control

Aim of this page

The aim of this page is to fix a car remote control by yourself.

Glossary:

IC Integrated Circuit
PCB Printed Circuit Board. This the name of the green board without component
Plip This is the name of the remote key.

Introduction

We will see here how to fix a plip that does not work properly or doesn't work at all. The case here is for a Peugeot 207, but it's the same for other PSA cars : Peugeot 208, 307, Citroën C2, C3, C4 and C5. You can probably follow this tutorial for other cars. Someone tells me that for his Alpha Romeo he succeeded in repairing thanks to this page.

List of symptom caused by a solder failure :

• The remote works properly in the neighborhood of the steering wheel
• The remote works sometimes when you twist the key
• There is no message Low Battery on the display

Clean contact

As a first step, we will ensure the battery has a good contact with the PCB.

Open the plip thanks to a coin. You must see this :

It happens that in bringing the battery fingerprints cause oxidation. Clean the battery 1 by removing oxidation trace by scrubbing with a tissue or kitchen paper. Scrub with fine sandpaper the tabs2 and 3 to remove oxidation trace. Lift the tab"2" and the tabs "3" to have a better contact when the plip will be closed.

Remake solder

With bad solder join, we call this phenomena dry solder. With the time, this kind of assembly goes to have no contact between the IC and the PCB.
At the beginning, I advise to use a soldering iron with a chisel tip.
On pictures below, I remade IC solder joins. Put the tip on the pin of the component. Remove the tip as soon as the tin melts. It's not necessary to add tin.

Do it again on all "discrete" components. On each capacitors and resistors, heat, wait that it melts and leave it cooling. It' not necessary to add tin.

Conclusion

It looks that there is an issue on the key. This can be solved by yourself if you have a soldering iron. Just in case, it can be a good idea to have spare keys with you !

You can add comment on this page. It's in french but it doesn't matter.