So I lost a spare key and was down to two of them. Decided to order a flip key. First then I did was open it up and solder a longer wire onto the antenna. Next was trying to find someone to cut it. Well no one wanted to cut it and a locksmith wanted a stupid amount of money. So I figured I have keyed lock tumblers to match keys before why not actually cut a key. About an hour to file the key and program it. Thing works great.




by lengthening the antenna by adding a piece of wire to it I increased my range substantially. My jeep is in the open garage bay on the far left.

 

I had a key like that for a while. There was a thread on here maybe 12 or 18 months ago and few of us were trying them with success. After a while of use I kind of got wore down by the dang size of the fob itself compared to the factory keys, but the real deal killer for me was one day I was coming out of a store and getting in the jeep and had hit the button to flip the blade out and somehow, no clue how, I snagged the blade on something and it bent bad. It was an "oh shit" moment. I fiddled with it a bit and carefully bent it back to straight enough for the key to fit in the ignition and turn. Being a cheap ebay key that didn't take much to bend, I was worried about breaking the blade completely trying to bend it back and being left stranded.

Lengthening the antenna is a nifty idea. ​​​​​​​

 

On any keyless entry key fob the antenna is the small silver rectangle. I just scuff it up with some 220 grit, cut a piece of wire like 18 gauge and route it in the fob and try to get the longest piece of wire I can squeeze in there. Then solder the wire to the antenna. Simple cheap and easy provided you know how to solder and it really improves the range of the remote a lot. The easiest method I found is to have solder on the wire and already on the antenna and then attach them so you don’t melt any connections on the board itself.