Key Fobs & Stereo 'Eee' Sound Issues

[Stolenchan]

Firstly, hey! I'm a bit new to this forum and have been looking over the past few days to see if there were any posts similar to my two problems, but I got a bit stuck, and so hopefully, maybe you would be able to help? Any advice is really appreciated, they're both driving me round the bend!

There's two general issues, and so... apologies if this is in the wrong forum, I think it is right, but just in case.

My car in question is a Micra SE 2004 1.2l (do I need to provide any more info?!)

Problem One - Key Fob
The key fob started getting a bit dodgy a couple of weeks ago (up to about a month) where when I didn't use my car for a couple of days, it would take a couple of presses on either the door buttons or on the key, and after about five times it'd work. It's now got to the point where even if I'm using the car several times in one day, its taking me up to 10 minutes to properly unlock the car (which is never a great thing for me when in a dark public car park late at night!). I took it to a garage and they said it could potentially be my car battery which they replaced for me, and they managed to lock/unlock it during the time it was with them, but the next day it was still acting up the same.

Any tips or advice? My next port of call was to just give up and take it back to the Nissan dealership I got it from in Reading, but I don't have a lot of time so I wondered if I could leave it as a last resort?

Problem Two - Strange Stereo Sounds
This isn't so much of a problem as not being able to get into my car, but it's certainly annoying!

About 3 months ago, after a drive back from London to Reading (About an hour) everything was fine, then the next day I noticed when I sat there driving somewhere that the music sounded really bizarre, it was missing on my left side, and after a couple of days, I figured that maybe one of the speakers had gone - I sat my car on the drive and listened to music and there was nothing coming out of the sub speaker in the footwell on the passenger side - I didn't have enough money to replace it and so was forced to leave it.

This just made everything sound a bit less 'full' up until about 3 weeks ago when I was stuck in traffic on the m4. I was just happily listening to the radio at a low volume when I realised I could hear this high pitched 'eee' sound constantly running just underneath. I muted the radio and heard it, and wasn't really so worried. I was stuck in traffic, couldn't do anything then! After about an hour of sitting there and crawling along, the sound had gotten louder, and was also getting louder in reaction to when I accelerate and break. I thought there was something seriously wrong with my car (I hadn't yet realised it was just the radio!) and so pulled into a garage and there was nothing wrong they could find, except for something on the front of my engine not actually being connected but is now.

So I got back in my car, and then discovered when the stereo was off, there was no eee. The garage tried to rectify this when they changed the battery in problem 1, but its still there. It's so irritating I just won't put anything on, but... I don't want every car journey I make to be in silence!


I figured if I put both problems up here, in case they link, it might help.

I know I could use the actual key to get into my Micra from the passenger door, but since I can't afford a new car for a very very long while, I don't want to do that every day for the rest of my car life, nor sit in silence for every journey.

Hence why I am hoping someone here will be able to shed some light on one or even luckily both problems! I'm open to any tips and it's all completely appreciated, it's driving me up the wall!!

Thanks in advance!
Em

 

[smtmicra]

with regards to your key fob problem, it may be due to strong ambient interfearing signals overriding the weaker radio frequency signals from the fob, this diagnoses can be ruled out by taking your car to some other distant place and see if it does it elsewhere, as it does outside your home or in the car park you mentioned, if it happens in most places then the issue is likely to be the fob itself, strangely how silly the Nissan dealers changed your car battery instead of changing the key fob battery as a first port of call, I would try and complaint about that and get your money back or request your original battery back and return the new one, that you need not have spent your money unnecessarily on a new battery. Try changing the battery in your fob as that may have gone weak.

On another note, do you fumble with the key fob like having a habbit of pressing the button whilst in your pocket well away from the car, because if you do that, then there may be a possibility that the codes emitted by the key fob get unsyncronised after a few presses of the button and therefore requires a re-sync by pressing the button a few times for a few seconds to sync again. Have a read in your car's hand book. This is a feature in some key fobs using so called Code hopping techniqe where the codes cannot be grabbed as each time the fob sends a different code and the central locking system receiver knows the next few codes it is likely to receive and if it receives a code outside the allowed limits then it won't open the doors. Do you get the same problem when locking?

With regards to your stereo, check all the power and speaker connecters at the rear of the radio, and possibly a loose fit fuse.

 

[jim_bling]

how do im guessing its a k12 micra there is 3 or 4 functions on the key where it will only open the drivers door with one press two presses does both passanger door and drivers and then the 3rd does all doors if a 5 door model and the 4th opens the boot

the music one could be a bad earth mate or even a lose cable on the sub i can ask at work as i work for nissan mate and work next to the line where they build the micra

 

[Stolenchan]

Hey! thanks for posting...

smtmicra: It was a local garage who hoped to rectify both the sound problems and the key problems who replaced my battery so I'm most likely to go back and tell them it didn't work as soon as I get an opportunity to.

Also, I don't tend to press the key buttons at all (I always loved being able to press the door buttons, I'm a girl and always have way too many things in my bag) - in the first year I got my car the key fob was always sensitive and so I used to set it off in my bag, so I always learnt from then to keep it seperate from then on.

I've not had the same problem with locking the car to the same degree, I can lock it with the key fob in one go, but can't seem to use the door buttons.

One other thing I meant to mention was that I can't see a way into my key fob to change the battery, and I was going to take my spare key with me today to see if it's the same. Is it something that a Nissan dealer would be able to change?

As for the stereo I'll try and check that, its the manufacturers fit radio so I'm not entirely sure how to look at the back of it? Sorry if that sounds really stupid, I've just never had to do it before!

jim_bling: Ever since I had the car it was always one press on the key fob to open all the doors. When I looked at earlier posts, I went outside and checked all my doors including the boot, which were all locked, after each press I checked each door and they were all still locked, until finally my key fob unlocked the car and all the doors would open. Is this what you meant? It's a 3 door hatchback... lucky that or I'd have been testing doors forever!

That would be great if you can see if you've had any problems like that before or see what they see, I'm still going to check the fuses and speaker connecters (as long as I can get to them!) as smtmicra suggested in the meanwhile


Unfortunately as my car stays at my house in Reading and I stay at friend's houses in London when I'm working, I might not have any immediate results, but I'll definitely report back as soon as I have something new!

Thanks for all your help
Em

 

[jim_bling]

ok no probs chuck will find out when i go back to work for you and let you know what i find out