Militarybuilt

I’m ready to burn this thing to the ground. I only have one key for it so that might not be helping. But I’ve replaced the fob battery with a brand new energizer battery, replaced the battery in the Cayenne as well. I’ve looked at the door handles and they all seem sealed and they all work. I haven’t torn up the carpet yet to check out the drivers side wiring. It also doesn’t matter where I put the key in the vehicle, I even pulled the dummy key and used the actual key and it still does it.

this alarm makes driving this thing miserable.

any help is very much appreciated. Thanks.

gregeast

It is most likely your driver's side front door outside lock button has failed, causing an intermittent short.

There are several threads on the forum about this, give this one a read: "Key not recognized" + KESSY Problems

Militarybuilt

I tried to search the forum as I didn’t want to be that guy, but I must have not done a good enough job.

The handle seems to work every time I try it, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ll check that one out.

Thanks!

gregeast

I just ended up cutting "the green wire" as described in that thread. That disables the push to lock on the driver's side front door (Most used = most likely to have failed) but solves the Key Not Recognized issue and the other 3 push to lock buttons still work, as does the remote lock. Otherwise you're looking at buying a new door handle, painting it, etc.

Notsurewhat

One of your door handle rubber button has cracked and let water get under the button. For me it was my rear doors, which I just cut the wire. Unlocking still works like normal just that the button to lock doesn't

911guyinaz

This issue is exacerbated with frequent and strong power washing. I have never seen this since a stopped washing the door area with big power.

pyramidimaging

My 2013 CD has the outer cover missing from the driver's side rear door handle and I'm hoping that putting black tape over it will stop any water intrusion and thus stop this error message of key not recognized. Sometimes the error happens while driving and sometimes it won't allow us to start the car. Not starting the car is the most worrisome when it happens after pumping gas and there is a line of cars waiting to pull in. I never thought the door handle could be the issue because it seems to correct when we put the key fob nearer to the ignition key. Should I never get this error again then I'll consider removing the handle and cutting the green wire or just continue covering the rear handle buttonhole with something like black electrical tape. That fits in line with my MacGyver kind of fixes on my '91 964.

pyramidimaging

Ok, putting black electrical tape over my rear door handle didn't fix my occasional problem with key not recognized. The error just popped up again in the midst of driving.

Any thoughts other than a possible for handle short?

Nixer

I had the same problem and the issue was with the battery. I see that you already tried a new battery. Sometimes even new batteries don't hold enough charge. Can you check the battery voltage using a multimeter or try another battery?

ALEV8

Replacing the fob battery seems to be the fix for me. Get a bunch for $20. Starts acting up and replace it. I have an original battery in the car, it was CPO purchase at 48k mi 2017 manufacture. 81k mi now and it’s intermittent or less than that. What I do is turn key to position 1, pause, get the cluster to wake up, then start car. 99% of the time this works too. I have a second key and update that battery as well, and swap keys if one is worse. FWIW Porsche’s fix under warranty was to replace fob battery. Don’t start cutting wires and poor boy this one. Try those tricks and give your main battery a health check. Mine needs to go and I’m holding off needlessly. Easy repair and battery is like $238. Get yourself an iCarsoft scanner while you’re at it.

pyramidimaging

Changing to a new battery from a pack of new IKEA batteries hasn't fixed "key not recognized" problem. Since a new battery worked for other people I bought a whole new set of batteries online. That new battery solved the problem... For about two weeks. Now the error is slowly starting back again. I think what ever the car item that is the receiver of this fob handshake is losing its ability to detect. Is this Bluetooth communication?

reneeweiss

I think the battery compartment in the fob is kind of flimsy and may be causing the issue. Make sure you clean the new battery with alcohol and swab the fob battery holder- that may help.

BrendonSF

For what it's worth, I had the same problem, but the issue turned out to be an aftermarket key cover. I swapped out the key shell with aftermarket different parts (silver in color), and it appeared that the paint was inhibiting the signal.