The car worked fine except I had to manually lock and unlock the doors. I pulled the battery from the key and replaced it again, but no luck--the light remained on. Finally, through google I found someone who took the battery out, reinserted it backwards (polarity reversed), pressed a few buttons (I just randomly mashed buttons), and then put it back in correctly. I tried it, and it worked! Has anyone had a similar problem and fixed it this way? From an electronics standpoint, I don't understand how this could work.

pressed while carrying the key in a pants pocket. Since I started removing the keys from my pocket when I'm at home or the office I can't recall the last time this happen.

The battery reverse trick is a way to kill the key module circuitry completely. Small circuits like that can retain enough power to stay partially alive and in a goofy state for a long time. You might be able to accomplish the same thing by simply removing the battery and pressing the buttons down but this may take some time. And with the battery in place, though reversed, the module is a bit easier to handle/manipulate.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

When this happened to me, I took the battery out for five minutes or so. That seemed to do the trick and it never happened again.

--db

and when it would lose its coordinates or corrupt separation files, the trick was to put an opened paper clip across a certain capacitor to short its circuit. Voila: end of problems... for a while at least.