'98 and up 210 drivers - be carefull with those fancy keys!
 

Guys,

Just got up off the floor at the dealership. The retainer on my key broke and allowed the sliding insert to come out and leave the plastic remote part to drop off from the rest of the keys. It's also been acting up and not opening the doors every time despite new batteries so I said: "heck, it's 10 years old, I'll just buy another one".

Well, $154, my driver's license and registration later, I have a new one on order. The girl at the parts counter was very enthusiastic about saying that "The part was superseeded by a new number and it's the cool new chrome one..."

Maybe I should take a picture of it and frame it when it comes in... Moral of the story is: Be carefull with those danged expensive keys!

Did this a few weeks ago, was $148, and ordered Sat, picked up Thursday thing.

Yeah thats what they cost now, they wanted $175 for one for an S320.

Don't lose them!:D

I have removed all but the house keys, I had one that did the same thing during warranty. You can always get one of those E- bay remotes and swap housing, pull out the board (like you are changing the batteries) and put into other housing. The chrome one is nicer!

Only crappy thing about the new key style is that they don't have the metal key portion for the older models (like my 1998). You only get the IR option of unlocking. The new key is shorter, and hence the metal key cannot be cut from the shorter stock.

Dang, reckon' you're out of luck if the remote battery dies...

They are cheaper somewheres else, but I cannot remember where.


There is a battery inside the remote that can be replaced, and its easy to do.

Yeah, I replaced the battery(s) and it didn't help the range of the remote. My main gripe is that the remote part slides off the silver "key" every time I pull it out of my pocket...

On some of the smart keys, you have to bend the little metal contacts that slip into the fob part, so they will make contack with the fob, and operate the remote.

This isn't true in the UK - could be a USA dealer being lazy, but I have an old key and a new key, and both have the metal insert. The new key has a shorter insert which means its a bit tricky to lock the boot, but its definitely there.


To the OP - do you still have the old key? They can be repaired, your fault is most likely cracking on the PCB around the 3 switches. Pull it to bits and go over the track with a soldering iron. I'll eat my trousers if that doesn't fix it.

Wow. Would you eat my skirt too ? :D

That depends on how its presented to me. ;)

My new key is in. When I pick it up and make sure it works, I'll goof around with the old one and see if I can improve it's performance.

Be happy, they are much cheaper now than they used to be......

Same thing happened to me. After I got sick of the plastic key falling off of the metal key (and occaisionally on the ground) I just left it seperate. So now I have my key ring and my car key seperate in my pocket. This system seems to work fine.