After less than 6 months my remote quit working when the "Open" button stuck down. I took it to the dealer who said it "couldn't be fixed" and sold me a new one for $348. The other one just broke the same way and I decided to take matters into my own hands. You can't just use it with the switch stuck down because the car won't start with the button pushed (two things going on at once) and it burns the battery in a few hours. I thought to just disable or remove the switch and still use the transpoder part to be able to start the car. I saw a post with a picture of a disassembled remote but couldn't figure how to crack the case. Read a post indicating it is glued together. Inserted a knife on the "physical key" side and cracked it open just along that side. Viola! Releasing the pressure slightly did the trick. The switch popped back up and I have a working remote again for $0. I'm trying the same thing on the other one. I hoped this might help someone else.
my Open button has worn though. I don't even use it! i used smart start and smart entry!... i'm glad mine hasn't gotten stuck yet. thanks for the heads up.. i can't afford another fob at this time in my life.
And if you need a new one, check ebay. You can get one on there for about 100 bucks and then take it into the dealer to get it programmed.
As Justanothersean says: THANKS!!! your instructions worked like a charm. $300 saved! This thread got the button unstuck. The replace battery thread got the remote working again (since it took us over 24 hours to have the time to try and fix the remote. $300 saved! As my dh said, it was decent pay for the 20 minutes he worked on the problem!
And another $300 saved! Just like the post said... I inserted a knife along the physical key side to slightly crack open the case. In order to get the knife in along the edge, I found a screwdriver whose flat blade was exactly the diagonal width of the small square hole along that side, and then twisted the screwdriver inside this hole to force open the case enough to get the knife blade into the crack. After a little wiggling about, the button popped back up. New battery needed now, but that's a lot cheaper than $300... or even $100 from e-bay.
FYI, I was successful in getting my unlock button unstuck by partially removing the rubber button cover as described by CobraKid in this thread Unlock Button on Fob Stuck Down | PriusChat. The entire rubber strip has a ridge/lip that holds in onto each button hole. The black rubber cover has embedded white plastic bits that push on the actual button switches on the circuit board beneath. The white lock and unlock icons on the cover are actually the front side of these plastic bits. Go slowly and be careful. It is easy to overstretch the rubber by pulling to hard in one spot. I used needle nose pliers, after I got it started at a "Lock" corner with with a fingernail. However, with the benefit of retrospect, it would have been better to use a spudger tool (sort of like a dull plastic flathead screwdriver) to push the ridges inward just under the edge of the rubber. There was no visible glue, but it is possible it is glued in some places. It is pretty stiff to dislodge and remove. After I got about 80% of the lock button portion up, and maybe only 30% of the unlock button unsealed, the unlock button popped up and started functioning properly again (tactile button response). I then put the rubber cover back in place, kind of rolling the last corner inward a bit so the lip beneath the edge would catch properly on the hard plastic underneath. Other than a slight distortion in rubber that has the shape of my needle-nose pliers (which I think I could have avoided by being more careful), it seems to be good as new. If I have any issues with the rubber coming back out, I suppose a tiny bit of glue can fix that.
