Homelink range is weak/spotty

[Sotto Voce]

I have had on-again, off-again issues with my M3 Homelink. I never had these issues with a previous MS Homelink interface, FWIIW.

I have a consistent issue with the M3 Homelink range. It is often not enough to open my door from the end of my 75 foot driveway. My wife's Homelink in her two year old Toyota RAV4, however, will open the door from several hundred feet down the street with ease and consistently. Any ideas how to boost the signal from the car since I obviously don't need to boost the reception at the opener?

 

[HighZ]

I had the frunk and front bumper fascia off for a repair, so was able to get a picture of where the homelink transmitter is on the car.

I'm don't know if your transmitter could be defective or it just has a weak signal. I don't have nearly as long as a driveway, and I set it to open/close at 30 feet. 75 feet may be a stretch?

 

[Sotto Voce]

Thanks for the photo. Good to know exactly where it is!

Perhaps I am at the end of the intended/possible range with the transmitter under the body. Just seems odd that wife's Toyo has so much greater range. Her transmitter is in the front of the rear view mirror, though, so perhaps her car just has a clearer path from transmitter to receiver with no metal in between.

 

[ewoodrick]

Does your door not open fully in the amount of time that it takes to drive the distance.

 

[Knightshade]

FWIW mine works 99.9% of the time approaching my garage door (ie front facing the door).

And very near 0% of the time leaving the garage (I back in- so leaving the rear of the car faces the door)

There's about a 0.5 inch window just as my rear tires clear the safety light beam that if I manually hit it, it closes. Otherwise it never does, so if I miss that tiny window I end up having to turn around to point front of car toward garage, hit button to close, then turn back around to leave

 

[PoitNarf]

I had issues too at first with garage door range. Turns out it was the pretty old LED bulbs that were in my opener. Older LED bulbs can emit a good amount of interference in the same frequencies that garage door opener remotes transmit. I swapped them out for newer bulbs and that fixed it. Granted this was only an issue when the garage door lights were on, so I was having issues with sending close signals. Open signals worked fine since the bulbs in the opener were not on.

Another thing to check is make sure that the antenna on the opener is fully extended. It’s usually just a flexible wire antenna but if it’s bunched up inside the opener it won’t be as good at receiving signals from the transmitter.

 

[Aellinsar]

I have mine set to 30 feet and I would say it doesn't open 1 our of 10-20 times. My garage door opener is 18-19 years old, so perhaps that is part of the problem.

 

[Sotto Voce]

Ewoodrick - I get the chime as expected, but many times the door does not open, seemingly either because the opener did not get the signal or the signal was not long enough for it to open. But to properly answer your question, when it works the door opens within the time it takes me to drive up to it from the sounding of the beep.

I have modified my opening distance to something shorter to see if this remedies the inconsistencies. If it does, I will need to drive more slowly to the door and wait for it to open all the way before driving inside.

 

[derotam]

This is an interesting issue with me...So for me, I will have a lot of problems leaving my garage(I back in). One thing I have found though is that if I stay in the safety beam and hit the homelink, causing the garage door opener to flash, and then leave and press it again, it will work probably >95% of the time. Leaving my garage fully and then hitting it, it's more like a 50-70% chance it works first time.

 

[HighZ]

My door will open 100% of the time when I pull in, but as I have the range to open fairly short, I am only 20 feet from my door when it opens and I am driving slow enough that I don't have to stop.

Backing out, with the front-facing the door, I normally get 100% closure at the same distance, but there were a few occasions that if I backed out fast and was maybe 40 ft from the garage when it sent the signal, the door would not close. I could press the Homelink icon and it would work. Never tested it more, but just figured the signal was weaker coming out of the car.

 

[Navak]

I had the frunk and front bumper fascia off for a repair, so was able to get a picture of where the homelink transmitter is on the car.

I'm don't know if your transmitter could be defective or it just has a weak signal. I don't have nearly as long as a driveway, and I set it to open/close at 30 feet. 75 feet may be a stretch?

View attachment 508684

 

[Casmium]

FWIW mine works 99.9% of the time approaching my garage door (ie front facing the door).

And very near 0% of the time leaving the garage (I back in- so leaving the rear of the car faces the door)

There's about a 0.5 inch window just as my rear tires clear the safety light beam that if I manually hit it, it closes. Otherwise it never does, so if I miss that tiny window I end up having to turn around to point front of car toward garage, hit button to close, then turn back around to leave

Same issue only I've found its its the direction but the amount of time the car has been awake, if I'm leaving and just hop in and hit the homelink then no luck, if I press the unlock on my phone then get my shoes and coat, walk to the garage and drive off homelink works everytime, it's almost as something hasn't finished booting

 

[HighZ]

@Navak Thank you for correcting my image! I had a doubt when I was looking at my photo but I remember it was clearly marked. I should not have assumed and now that I look again, that makes more sense.