Replacing the battery in your Nissan Smartkey / Y62 FOB and extending the longevity

Thought I'd just share this ....

The battery in my spare Nissan Y62 Smartkey died a few weeks ago (which is the key my wife uses when she steals the car) and I thought I'm not even going to ask Nissan for a price to replace it as I had a tray of button batteries in my draw which cost me about two bucks!

So I removed the physical key (by flicking the switch underneath the FOB and pulling it out) which revealed an insertion point to nicely fit a small flat bladed screw driver. With a gentle pry and sliding the blade of the screw driver (a pocket knife blade would probably work well too, but I didn't want to score the soft plastic) around the circumference, I separated the top and bottom halves.

I noticed the battery was a flat button-style CR2025 (2.5 mm thick providing 3V @ 160mAh), but I only had the more common CR2032 (3.2mm thick providing 3V @ 225mAh). Hoping for the best I put the thicker battery into the casing and carefully snapped the two halves back together.... and it closed without an issue!

So I tested the new battery and the remote worked a treat but now I should also get 50% longer life out of it. So that probably equates to another year considering the old one would be at least two years old!

Cheers.