Bolt EV Key Not Recognized

OK... there is a definite bug in the key recognition process for the Bolt EV. I've now experienced this 6 times with my Bolt EV Premier. Firmware version 14.1.0. I do have Keypass turned ON with my cell phone. Here is what happens:

1) Press the small button on the door handle to unlock drivers door
2) Drivers door UNLOCKS (so it must have recognized the key, right?) but then the car horn starts to chirp to alert you the alarm is about to go off.
- If you don't do anything, car alarm goes off (very annoying!)
- If you press the keyfob unlock button, it silences the alarm
3) When you get in car, car won't start and driver display says something like "keyfob not recognized, place keyfob in pocket to start".
4) Placing keyfob in the bottom of the center console in proper location allows vehicle to start and drive.
5) Today, I noted that after this occurred the seat heaters didn't work. Touching the seat heater icon changed it from "auto" to 3 blank circles, but seat heaters wouldn't turn on.
5a) Resetting infotainment system by holding down "home" and "fast forward' buttons didn't resolve this.
6) When I went to shut off the car, it said something like "Keyfob not recognized" again and car didn't shut down normally. It took me 3-4 tries to get car to shut off.
7) Shutting down car, locking it with keyfob, walking away for few minutes (so keyfob wasn't in range of car), and then starting over resolved the issue.

I'm kicking myself for not taking photos or video of the various error messages and behavior, but I will do that next time since this is definitely a reoccurring problem.

There have been several other people who have reported this. I would LOVE to get a response from Chevy on this, but it doesn't appear their customer service people are responding to posts on this website recently? Has anyone had luck getting this addressed by Chevy or through their dealer service department? My experience with these kinds of intermittent computer software glitches in vehicles is 1) nearly impossible to demonstrate to the dealer because it is intermittent, 2) Since it involves software, most dealers don't have any way to address is anyway, they just say "wait for a firmware update".

If you've had this happen to you, please reply here. Maybe we can get some traction from Chevy support if people report the same issue!

I have had this happen twice recently myself. I am on the latest software, and my care is late December 2016. Interestingly, no problems until a few weeks ago. I did not notice all of what you got such as the seat heaters, but did have the chirping horn, auto alarm, key into holder area to start issue. Intermittent. Gotta be a bug. I believe there is a TSB, but I think it involves replacing the sensor in the car. I bet that is not it.

Question for you: do you happen to have the "Keypass" feature enabled? I'm starting to wonder if it is related to that.

Yes, and from what I can tell, Keypass does nothing useful for me. Perhaps I will disable it. The remote features I use seem to work just fine from the app over the web.

I have KeyPass enabled and have only encountered the "Key Fob not detected" problem 2 times in the past 7 months and 6K miles. I don't think they are related.

The question is why is the KeyFob not being detected? I know that some smart key fob systems from other marquees like Toyota have the ability for the fob to be put into sleep mode where they won't be detected. I'm wondering if we are encountering an undocumented case of this ability for the Bolt.

devbolt said:

The question is why is the KeyFob not being detected?

Click to expand...

I had the same question. The thing is... I think the KeyFob IS being detected! The door unlocks, which wouldn't happen without the KeyFob. But when the door unlocks, it is triggering the the horn to start beeping and then the alarm to go off.

I've disabled KeyPass. Can't really figure out what advantages it was supposed to be giving me other than car headlights turning on every time I got close to the car. The remote lock/unlock/precondition features in the MyChevy app seem to work just fine without Keypass using OnStar. So I'll stick with that.

I'll report back if disabling KeyPass changes anything. But may take me a few weeks since this is so (frustratingly) intermittent!

OnStar in the Bolt uses AT&T cellular service. Unfortunately, AT&T service at my house is less than stellar. So having KeyPass enabled makes it easier for me to do certain things that would normally go over the cellular network.

So does anyone know if Chevy support is still monitoring and responding to posts on this forum? It looks like they were in early days, but I don't think I've seen any replies from them in recent past.

devbolt said:

The question is why is the KeyFob not being detected?

Click to expand...

This is just a guess, but it wouldn't surprise me that with KeyPass enabled in the car but not in the phone you've got an argument between the two validation methods used by the car: one that says "I see a key fob so the car is allowed to start" and the other that says "I can't contact the Keypass app so the car isn't allowed to start". Obviously the car should start if it can validate either way, but there may be some sort of race or timing condition that triggers the problem when the car's Keypass software can't detect the phone app.

Happened for the first time today for us too. We don't use Keypass. My wife and I both had our keys in my pocket and her purse. I unlocked the door and pressed the start button. Got the message and tried to put the key in the different areas around the console. Nothing worked, so I took both keys out and walked away from the car (50ft or so).

Clicked lock and unlock, then re-entered the car. Started with no problem.

Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come.

oftheseven said:

Happened for the first time today for us too. We don't use Keypass. My wife and I both had our keys in my pocket and her purse. I unlocked the door and pressed the start button. Got the message and tried to put the key in the different areas around the console. Nothing worked, so I took both keys out and walked away from the car (50ft or so).

Clicked lock and unlock, then re-entered the car. Started with no problem.

Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come.

Click to expand...

If the fob is not instantly recognized, it won't help to try different areas around the console. The fob needs to be placed under the armrest tray, as per the manual.

Chalk me up as another person who has Key Pass enabled and had the same issue as all above. Reading all this I tend to agree that it may be KeyPass related. I only recently turned keypass back on and that’s when the issue happened.

I’ve had this happen to me back in February before I enabled KeyPass so I’m reasonably sure it isn’t related to that.

I had it happen again this summer, I think, but I’ve forgotten exactly when or what the details were. I did, however, figure out that you can still lock and unlock the car via OnStar (or KeyPass) with the smartphone app even if the key fob isn’t being recognized. If you lock the car, walk away with the fob, and do something else for 30 minutes or so it will give time for the car’s computers to fully shut down so when you come back to the car it will do a full reboot and begin recognizing the key fob again.

At least that was my experience.

This just happened to me tonight for the 4th time since purchasing the Bolt. It’s not repeatable so it’s hard to see a pattern. Major pain.

I'm not sure any of the keyfob recognition has ANYTHING to do with the Keypass settings. Keypass is strictly for your bluetooth, and as far as I can tell, is really only a second way to connect to the car to perform the "button" functions that are available through the app.

On the other hand, I'm on month 11 of my Bolt, and I JUST had the keyfob disappearance thing the other day. Maybe it's a battery issue? I stuck it in the armrest and it worked fine, and next time I got in, it behaved normally again.

I chock my error up to RF interference or a dead battery. You'd hope it would have better immunity, but it was at work, and it's a VERY noisy radio environment (next to a train yard, a video game R+D facility and a massive cell phone radio tower)

TIme will tell.

I’m 100% sure my issue was KeyPass. In my first month of ownership I had this problem apx 6 Times, all while KeyPass was enabled. Since disabling KeyPass, >4000 miles with not one single episode.

Doesn’t meant there aren’t other issues that are caused by something else. But I believe my issue was a conflict between KeyPass and the KeyFob RFID.

I still have got answer as to what benefit KeyPass is supposed to give you. For remote lock/unlock, preconditioning and vehicle status I have OnStar or the KeyFob which both seem to work fine. I don’t really care if the lights turn on as I approach the car.

Tetondoc said:

I’m 100% sure my issue was KeyPass. In my first month of ownership I had this problem apx 6 Times, all while KeyPass was enabled. Since disabling KeyPass, >4000 miles with not one single episode.

Click to expand...

I've avoided setting up keypass because of a number of problems that people have reported that seem to be related to it. The only issue is that the infotainment screen seems to be in the habit of telling me to set it up every few days and the only way to dismiss the message seems to be to press the "Home" button, which often takes me away from the screen I want to be on.

Tetondoc said:

For remote lock/unlock, preconditioning and vehicle status I have OnStar or the KeyFob which both seem to work fine. I don’t really care if the lights turn on as I approach the car.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I find that the key fob works fine to precondition the car even when it's in my detached garage which is about 50 feet from where I use it inside the house.