New here, be gentle. This issue with my keys is driving me nuts.

Long story short(er)...

05 Dakota, I have 2 keys. One is a keyless entry, one is a regular key. The contacts went bad in the keyless remote, had them re-soldered at a locksmith, remote is now emitting a signal again. Both my keys are synced to my truck, both will start the truck and work fine.

That said, despite the battery being good, and it sending a strong signal, the keyless will not open, lock, or panic. Now, my friendly Dodge dealer is about as helpful as two left shoes, who will only tell me to "bring it in" so they can charge me $40 to even look at it.

The locksmith is concerned about reprogramming the keys again because of the keys only being able to be programmed a certain amount of times. I've never heard of this but I digress. They said they will do it for me(reprogram) but they said it may erase the transponder information in the keys, because of the way Chrysler allows the keys to be programmed.

The other thing is they thought it could be the truck itself not receiving a signal, and that the keys may be fine.

So I don't know what to do. I do not like not having the keyless entry because we have a newborn, and having to manually unlock the drivers side door to unlock the other doors to get a baby in and out is a pain.

I figured this would be the best place to ask.

Thank you for any advice.

Matt

 

That's the problem with the sentry system on this trucks, it has to be fix by the dealer, most of the time. If the keys are sending the signal and the truck is not responding maybe the computer has to be reset. Have you reset the computer, meaning disconnecting the battery? If not try it to see. If that does not fix it maybe the dealer will have to take a look at the truck !! Good Luck !!

 

i agree follow those steps and should do it either way! one just is simpel easy 5 min. other ones are out of the way and may be pricey!

 

Did you get your keyless entry problem resolved? If so - how?
I am having a similiar problem - only I'm not certain that my keys are sending a signal. How did you determine that the keys are sending signal?

 

Sorry I never updated this thread. I did in fact get it working. I took my key to a locksmith who verified it was sending out a signal, with some device they use to test for such a signal. After scouring every single Dakota key issue I could find on google, one of them mentioned to keep clicking the lock button on my keyfob repeatedly until it somehow starts working. Took a chance and what do you know? It worked. I can't explain to you how, or why, or what happened, but it did.

So in all, once it stopped working, I took it to the locksmith, had them re-solder the contact points inside, and cleaned it all out. After that, they verified it was sending a signal, and like I said, I kept hitting the lock button on the remote and for some reason it works. Good luck!!