My keyless remote seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes, I can unlock or lock the car from 50 feet away. Other times, I need to be standing at the drivers door. Not the passenger doors, has to be the drivers door. Then on occasion it won't work at all without walking around the car. New battery in the remote, clean contacts, and a pretty new Optima, on a tender, in the car. Weirdest part of this is that the car hasn't been driven or even moved during all of this.
Does anybody else get issues like this or am I just lucky? Ghost of Lucas??
Possibly related, possibly not.... There is a fine black wire (like 24-ga) hanging down almost to the floor behind the glovebox. Is that possibly the antenna for the remote?
Steve

 

The receiver antenna for the SLCM in the the back glass. There is a coaxial cable from the module to the glass.
Make sure the coax is attached to the glass and to the SLCM in the boot behind the battery.

bob

 

I also had issues with the remote after buying the car. Remote simply not working or when it worked, only a few meters distance. Even after changing the batteries(2 x CR2016) it still did't worked. But then I plied the small metal arms inside the remote that make the contact with the battery, since then it works great. Can even operate the locking system from distances over 30 meters. It still works after 2 months.

 

Can you posta picture of these small metal arms ? My remote only works for openening, not closing.

Thanks

Takeo.

 

He's referring to the 4 metal prongs under the batteries. They tend to get flattened over time and then don't make as good an electrical connection to the batteries. Be careful bending, though. A tiny bit is all you need.
I did all that on mine as well as checking the antenna, and it still has very short range and sometimes won't work at all without walking around the car. I guess I may have to just live with the quirk...
Steve

 

PROBLEM SOLVED!
OK, I'm bad and did not take any pics. Shame on me...
So this afternoon after work I went out to do some more re-assembly (post- timing chains, fuel pump, much more...) and as usual I had to do The Pagan Ritual to get the car to unlock. The neighbors are starting to wonder what's going on.....
I was pretty sure I had disassembled the remote and cleaned it up, but I decided to take another look just for kicks. Sure enough, goop..... Cleaned it all up and now I can lock/unlock the car from my back porch! ( 50 feet away...)

So, with a woeful lack of pictures, here's the procedure for cleaning a remote:
1) pry the remote open as if to replace the batteries
2) on the side of the remote with the circuit board, carefully remove the circuit board together with the rubber piece it sits inside of. The rubber part is the buttons...
3) once this is out of the case, you an see all the spooge around the button holes in the plastic case. Clean this out
4) carefully remove the circuit bard from the rubber piece.
5) clean the rubber piece. It'll have all manner of stuff around the buttons
6) on the inside of the rubber piece, you will see what look like tiny carbon buttons inside each molded push-button. These can be carefully cleaned off. I use a paper towel wet with Invisible Glass. Any similar cleaner will work. It will be dirty...
7) take a look at the circuit board. There are little bullseye-like areas under each button, which will more than likely be covered with a blackish goo. This is what keeps them from receiving a signal to lock or unlock the car. Clean that off. Again, I used Invisible Glass
8) after you're satisfied that all the goo is cleaned off the circuit board and rubber piece, put the two back together and back into the case
9) carefully pry up the little prongs under the batteries so they make better contact
10) put new batteries in, unless the old ones weren't old
11) re-assemble the remote case halves, take a walk, and see how far away from the car you can get and still have it respond to the remote!

Steve

 

Wow !! Just followed your instructions Steve and what a difference, thank you so much :-)

 

Problem is that you only have 2-3 minutes to do all this. If it takes longer you may have to go to the next Jag dealer (only 120 Kms) to have the damned thing reprogrammed.

 

I did not have that problem. I spent probably 10 minutes fiddling with it. FWIW, I was about 20 feet from the front of the car at the time.
On a (possibly) related note, when I put a fresh battery in it after sitting for close to 6 years on a dead battery, I had no issues with it throwing false codes, locking me out of the radio, etc.
Steve

 

I didn't have any problems either accept that I put the batteries in upside down and had to turn them around, all in all had it apart for a half hour or more and now works perfectly, the best it ever has since I got my XJ8.

I used rubbing alcohol and q tips, was amazed at the amount of goop found on the back of that chip board and inside of rubber buttons.

 

My key fob had poor range, so I changed the battery. I followed the procedures for reprogramming the fob, and can hear only 2 beeps as opposed to 5, and none of the buttons work now. Don't know how it can go from sort of working, to not working just from swapping batteries and reprogramming. Any ideas?

 

After my earlier post that I had no problems I noticed on the way to work my drivers side window would not go down and sunroof would close on its own after opening. So when I got to work I did a reset, disconnecting the negative battery cable, then turning the ignition key on, touching the negative cable to positive and holding for maybe fifteen seconds. Then turned the key off and reconnected the negative battery cable and all is well. Key fob works the best it ever has and no problems at all now.