Tech Inquiry Regarding Ford Keyless Entry Remotes and Power Door Locks

A website visitor sent us the following inquiry:
“I have 2 key fobs for my 2000 windstar. I programmed them but the door locks act strange sometimes. The passenger front door doesn’t work with the fobs. Sometimes I hear all the locks cycle when I unlock the doors without the fob. Any advice would help. Is there a way to clear the programming so that they can be reprogrammed?”

We get inquiries such as this regularly. In general, if pressing a button on your remote has any effect with respect to your vehicle, there is no problem with the remote transmitter; the problem instead is somewhere in your vehicle. Remote transmitters send a simple coded radio transmission to the receiver in your vehicle. What happens from that point is controlled by the keyless entry system control module in your vehicle and wires, actuators and the horn/siren in your vehicle.

With respect to the website visitor’s specific problem: we know from experience that Ford vehicles of that vintage frequently have door lock actuator problems. Front door locks are used more often than rear door locks, so the problem generally shows up in one or both of the front doors. One of our employees who had an F150 truck from that era had a similar problem to the one described by the visitor. To solve his problem, he had to replace the front door lock actuators.

With respect to the visitor’s final question: when a keyless entry system is programmed to accept a new remote, it generally wipes out the programming for old remotes. That is why you should have all remotes you want to use with a vehicle present when you go through the programming process for a new remote. This is a feature to secure the vehicle when someone has lost a keyfob. We know of no simple way to deprogram all remotes for a vehicle, but we can think of no reason to do that. If a remote is not having the desired effect because some aspect of the keyless entry system in your vehicle is malfunctioning and you do not want to fix it – such as, say, a trunk lock actuator – then simply do not use the remote for that function.