That works as long as there isn't a power failure, unless of course your GDO has a battery back-up. Electronic door locks don't have power failure issues as long as you keep decent batteries installed. With most electronic door locks, it's hard not to, unless you ignore the warnings for a long, long time.
I have a key hidden in the garage too and a code pad. Better yet, I put in a new slider door in the family room. Unlike the old door, I cannot slam it shut to lock. I have to use a key to lock it and it save some accidental ooops!
Better than ruining a duplicate key just to make it thinner, you should make a copy of it on a non-chip-key blank They are flat, not bulbous and cost no more than a duplicate house key and can be made almost anywhere.
Then you make a good point that you could enter the car, turn the ignition to Run, use the button to unlock the trunk (on those cars that have that, as mine does) and get a real chip key out of the trunk, where you have hidden it. Perhaps if car theft is a verrrry serious risk in an 8 oz can of waterless handcleaner
Not only could you do that but I could do that. It seems like a good idea.
You can also make copies of most keys out of plastic, or that are part of a credit-card size piece of plastic, so they fit in a wallet better.
The only time you should ruin a chip key is if you wish to hide it above the ignition key slot so that a remote starter will start the car. But you can just as easily place a complete key there. Then fwiw no one will need a chip key. My owners manual, 2004 Sebring, says that I can't use a remote starter, but I suspect they are wrong.
Is your wife fun to travel with? Maybe she could travel with me and carry a spare key?
That's a good idea. (I read this after I read the one below it.)
That's a pretty good idea. I'll use the left side.
BTW, my non-chip key and my not-yet programmed chip keys will start the car, but it stalls after a few seconds.
That's a good idea too.
I'm already dirty.
By this, I don't mean to chop off the bulbous parts of the key. I mean to cut the key in half where the metal part meets the plastic part. Then you can conceal the plastic, chip-key part near the ignition switch so remote starters will work. But then the metal part won't be long enough even to open the door, so don't damage the key at all.
Really burns me up that the duplicate keya are so expensive. With all the inexpensive electronic gear out that is much more complicated someone is making a killing on the duplicate car keys.
I just bought a new 2017 Toyota (would have gotten the 18, but they are butt ugly). It has the keyless start where you just push a button, and even the doors will lock and unlock with just a touch of your hand if you have the FOB with you.
The key fits inside the fob. It is a flat piece of metal and there are some notchies on the side. I have not had time to check it out,but think that key has some kind of electronics in it also. That way you can use the key if the battery in the fob goes bad. The book says the fob battery will only last about 2 years. I guess it is sending out a signal all the time. The push button to unlock the doors on the other car and truck fobs are 10 years old and still work.
After my Dad first locked himself out of his '69 Pontiac, he always put a spare set in the air breather outside of the air filter. (In those days, one did not need to release the hood from inside the car.)
Things went okay until my brother locked himself out of the car one day, and used the spare set, but by mistake put it back in the air breather inside of the air filter.
A few weeks later, my Dad was driving the whole family on a sinuous gravel road, and an impatient lead-foot in a pickup truck was tailing us way too close because we were going too slow for him I guess. When we got to the next fairly long strait stretch, my Dad slowed down and pulled to the right to let him go by. But instead of just pulling to the left and advancing ahead of us in a reasonable manner, the pickup gunned it, presumably to make us eat more of his dust than necessary and shower our windshield with a few pounds of road gravel.
I'm not sure of the exact displacement of our Pontiac, (389""" IIRC), but it did have a 4-barrel V-8. And there was still enough room on the straitaway for my Dad to go by the pickup truck and shower him with a few pounds of road gravel.
However, flooring the gas pedal had the effect of causing the spare keys to fall into the open throttle, effectively blocking it wide open. My Dad had the time to *try* to lift up the linkage rod under the pedal (to no avail), but with the straightaway coming to an end had to start controlling the engine power by turning the ignition off and on repeatedly. Of course, he could have simply turned it off completely, but he did not want to 'lose face' with the stranger driving the pickup truck.
Every time he turned the ignition 'on', there was a huge flaming explosion as the unburned fuel-air mix was ignited, until we were far enough ahead of the pickup and luckily had reached the place where the new road made a sharp turn, but the old road leading nowhere was still passable.
In case little kids might be reading this, I won't repeat here what was said to my brother when my Dad found the cause of the carburator malfunction.
Yes, they are. Looks like the grafted part of the ugly Lexus grill on the front of it.
Sounds like the same setup I have on my Genesis. I don't think the key has electronics. I've had the car for 22 months and just put the second battery in the fob. My wife has never used hers and I just put the first battery in that one.
I remember.
I only had one of those, a '58 Ford... well it was my mother's and the salesman told her it was used by the state police.
ROTFLWTIME
So after you stopped the car, I presume you could get the keys out and it was normal again?
Yes. Normal except my Mom didn't speak to my Dad the rest of the way home. I suppose that for her, the safety of the kids was more important than a masculine expression of roadway etiquette. Us kids were not worried, because that was was the first car we had with seat belts, and we always buckled-up, even on twisty low-speed gravel.
A week later, you could still see black patches where the explosions had blown away the loose gravel from the hardpacked sections.
My recent model upscale ride has keyless ignition and proximity sensors. With the fob in my pocket, locked front doors open when I grab either handle and the trunk opens when I touch its hidden sensor.
Having keyless ignition without proximity sensors seems annoyingly useless. You have the key in your hand to open the door, but where do you put it then if not in the handy storage slot? Drop it on the floor? Put it in a nonexistent pocket? On the seat where it can drop down into the memory hole between the seats? In my purse where I have to spend time finding it when I have to lock the car when I leave?
Friend's Lexus has the prox sensors, but you have to push a button on the key to lock it when you leave. The side mirrors obligingly fold down when it's locked so you know that it's locked.
One more useless thing that will probably immobilize the car when Something Goes Wrong.
I do like having a modern key, though. Although I thought it was kind of dumb before I had it, just pushing a button (sometimes exactly the wrong one) to open things is nice.
Speaking of infinity holes... My husband's wallet fell out of his suit pocket and into the memory hole, where we didn't find it for two years. We thought it was stolen out of the house and caused major nuisance.
micky posted for all of us...
It depends on the car regarding keys and fobs.
I would not hide it behind a license plate. If they want to steal the car they will switch plates and find the key.
I have newer cars and keyless start with fobs. I haven't really thought about losing the key/fob. You just gave me agita worrying about it.
My Genesis can be locked by touching a button on the handle. One touch, all doors lock. You can open the trunk just by standing in back of the car for 3 seconds. I've found that to be very handy at times.
The Lexus doors should lock with the handle too. Maybe that model does not or your friend does not know how to do it.
With all the technology in cars, it is very possible to not know of some features. Or dual function buttons that do different thing in different modes.
>DerbyDad03 posted for all of us...
On my cars one cannot lock the transponder in the car. It does not have a conventional metal key. I don't know how to handle it.
I had an issue with the sensor for the rear hatch always sensing "door open" even when it was closed AND locked. Any attempt to lock a different door would result in the computer unlocking all the doors to 'remind' you that a door is open. Presumably this is to help prevent someone from accidentally locking the keys in the car.
In order to lock all doors, I needed to either:
(1) Roll down the driver window, and enter the code to lock all doors.
(2) Turn everything off by removing the key from the switch, then pressing the interior 'lock all doors' button.
In your case, since you need to be outside of the car after it is locked, I would opt for (1), except put the window up first.
If that does not work, try wrapping aluminum foil around the transponder. (It is not clear if having a transponder in the car causes your problem.)
He probably does, he just told me how to do it when I went to his car to get something. He calls my Corolla the cheap Lexus.
The Lexus was a nice car to drive. If my mom had asked my advice I would have told her to get one instead of the POS 88 Caddy which replaced the POS 78 Caddy. Not as much fun to drive as the S2000, though, even if I botched half the shifts.
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