KESSY // Keyless Issue Soutions

Just making a conglomeration of all the information I have ascertained about the pain that is our KESSY system.

I know not a lot of people have issues with this, but when you do, and there is no posts it becomes frustrating so I will make one that addresses most of the stuff I looked at or tried. The lack of feature didn't bother me much unless I was carrying something heavy and needed the trunk open, or when my lady was trying to get in the car (shes used to the feature by now)...but the Message blinking in my face was making me nuts.

I was having issues with the "Keyless Defective" warning on my MFI. It was the second time, and it began after doing some powered sub wiring in the back. I couldnt touch my handle and have the car lock or unlock.

I have also had issues with it saying "Key not in range" while it was in my pocket.

Solutions:

1) Replace battery in Keyfob, apparently the battery needs 2.9 amps in it or something to that effect for the KESSY to work properly.

2) Check the sensor behind the rear seats. (Pull up rear mat, and possibly the foam parts depending on the size of your hands). Should be directly behind rear seats. Check to see that the plug is fully connected to the brownish red square back there.

3) Get in the car, put all windows down, open sunroof, and close again. Apparently if the car doesn't think that the windows or sunroof are completely closed this can cause an issue.

4) (Thanks dbizzle22) Touch the keyfob against the push to start button and then turn the car on. (this worked for me after trying all the other things)

5) Could be a battery going bad in the car itself and not the fob.

6) Could be a bad sensor....or Kessy is messed up...Expensive.



You can tell that it is not functioning correctly if the car is still communicating the fob but the door is not unlocking (you will see a light in the car on the driver side door blink, and a light on your fob blink, but the door will remain locked).

There are Antennas/Sensors in the driver and passenger door handle, Behind the back seats, behind the rear bumper... and that is all that I am aware of currently. There was a list I found but I misplaced it and I am not sure of all the exact locations on the GTi.

The module is found above the brake pedal I believe. Once again, not positive, but based on my information.


I hope this helps anyone with KESSY/Keyless issues.

I could not go to my dealer because I am at 38k miles and i did't want to pay to repair a luxury feature.

Hope this helps someone

Thanks. Not having issues but this may come in handy in the future.

Kessy sensor behind rear seat, in front of the top portion of the foam in the trunk.

Awesome, just installed amp and sub in my newly purchased R! Got the same Defective Key message. #4 solved it for me, Big Help!

Glad it helped someone! I had issues after my powered sub install as well.

I'm looking for some help with pinpointing where and what my problem is; possibly one of the sensors or something else.

My fob battery is less than a year old, but I replaced it anyway with no changes.

Door locks work fine with the key fob: both from fob remote and using the touch sensor on the door handles/trunk.
Don't believe it to be the car battery, but I could be wrong. It's the original car battery from 12/12. But I have no issues with the starter turning over. And I presume if it were the battery, I would have problems elsewhere; such as the doors not locking/unlocking.
Only problem is when sitting in the car, the interior sensors/system does not recognize that the key fob is within the car and dash is telling me no key/fob in range. The car will only allow me to start the engine when I put the fob directly up next to the start button.

Does this sound like an individual sensor? Or something else?

That happened to me for a while. Battery replacement helped I believe (in the remote). Some of the functions work best with a battery that has a lot of life left.

I am not an expert by any means, but I would replace the battery on the fob and touch the push to start with the key with the replaced battery and see how that works.

zwalk said:

That happened to me for a while. Battery replacement helped I believe (in the remote). Some of the functions work best with a battery that has a lot of life left.

I am not an expert by any means, but I would replace the battery on the fob and touch the push to start with the key with the replaced battery and see how that works.

Click to expand...

I had done all that, and didn't believe it to be the fob. I am pointing to the sensor thing behind the rear seat; and hopefully not worse the control module. I'm sitting in the dealership right now, and they think it is that sensor (they called it antenna) behind the rear seat. But they need my 2nd key and another mechanic to assist; so I have to bring back next week to verify.

And you tried making sure its fully plugged in right

The dealership replaced both sensors/antenna's inside the car: the one behind rear seat and the one up front below the pedals; still wasn't working. The last component is the electronic control module. The dealership had to call VWoA because they said they've never had a case this severe; that all previous issues were resolved with a fob battery replacement or resyncing the keys.

So now I'm trying to find the part to see if I can save some money, as the part was $340 and another $300 for labor to get the keys reprogrammed to the new module.

If anyone knows where I can find this please let me know, thanks.
part # 5K0 959 434B

So after checking online, it appears that ECS Tuning is the least expensive for the control module. They have it discounted 24% off from the same VW MSRP. Hopefully this will be the last thing to replace to fix the problem; as the costs on this whole thing has added up for sure.

I found the root problem yesterday to my issue. Turns out, it wasn't the control module. I was about 1-2 weeks away from ordering the module. I was vacuuming my car yesterday at the car wash and couldn't get it to start when I was leaving. Everything was flashing crazy like when I pressing the start button. It hadn't done this before. I got someone to give me a jump, and it started up. So I went and had the battery tested, and it was saying it was low and needed to be charged. Battery was 2.5 years old, so I went ahead and purchased a new one as it still wasn't turning over.

The new battery made my kessy/sensor issue go away. The sensors are picking up the key fob and it can be started once again without having to place the fob next to the start button. I presume there wasn't enough voltage from the battery to properly power the sensors. I just wish the dealership was smart enough to have caught this since I took it in twice for them to look at it.

I went to CA and I think the humidity made my sensor go again... Or something... Then I drove back home to AZ and all the sudden it works again

Annnnd it's back -_-