How to key into the car when the fob is dead. A drama in 2 acts. Featured

As you noted, the computer/chip keys on many of these veh's do not use a battery for ID'ing ("mating") with the car, so yes, if you have a remote (which _does_ need a battery) it'll still work manually.

eyup.

Similary, you can cut an _uncoded_ key which you then place in a magnetic "hide-a-key" holder hidden under your car.

This lets you open the car door you accidentally locked with your key still inside...

I'm sure there are variations. Most fobs do have a mechanical key. Sometimes the keyhole is hidden so always good to read the manual at some point so you know where to look.

On my last few cars they tell you to hod the fob nest to the start button and it will start.

In addition, I have an app on my phone, Digital Key, that allows me to use the car with no fob. It had to be setup in the car initially for security.

Passive RFID.

For my recent new car purchase - the salesman handed me the " valet key " .. I had _no clue_ what it was for -

- in my 50 odd years of driving, I've never had a valet park my car. .. I guess I'm too low-class .. but not ashamed.

" Some cars come with an additional key, known as a valet key, that starts the ignition and opens the driver's side door, but prevents the valet from gaining access to valuables that are located in the trunk or the glove box. "

ps : this new car was very base model - steel wheels with hubcaps - but it still had numerous < annoying > high-tech safety features. Many of which I managed to disable. Unfortunately - the engine Stop-Start can't be disabled - except by pressing the disable button after each start-up. I'm getting better at remembering .. after 6 weeks.. pps : another thing that I'd never heard of - 0W-20 oil. it calls for 0W-20 <synthetic> engine oil .. John T. < the Luddite >

Those have been around for a long time without the fancy name.

Hers did, but she seemed to deny it. Though she knew about it, I had trouble getting her to take it out

I've only been one place in all these years that had a valet. I had a date with a woman who had dated my 7-year older brother in high school, still very pretty, but her ex-husband was head of some national organization, so she was used to nice stuff.

(She herself was used to nice stuff. Growing up in the same small city my brother and I did, her parents owned a large low-end clothing store, but her family had too much money to shop at their own store. But they couldn't shop at the high-end competitor beccause it would look bad if people saw them shoppiung there. So she, and her mother too I'm sure, had to go 50 miles to the nearest big city to buy clothes, where no one would see them. LOL.)

I guess I could live like she did too if I were willing to spend all my money. But I couldn't bring myself to let someone else drive my car, so I parked it myself. (Partly because the 84 Chrysler Lebaron had doors that fell off, and I din't trust anyone else not to lean on the door, break it***, but I wouldn't know until weeks later. I also had an 88 and 95 and I don't know if they would have broken or not but I was taking no chances. I had to pay a guy to weld the door hinge back on and if he weren't talented, it woudln't have gone well.

One car I bougbt had that, but becasue I bought it used, I never got one, and I wanted one, even though I never let anyone else drive the car. I like gadgets. . I think I finally foudn out that for this make, the cut was the same but the blank was different so the valet key would not enter the glove box or trunk keyholes. But then I coudln't find the blank.

Good. About 2 years ago I finally found the buzzer for when my seatbelt is not on, and I crushed it to death. That buzzing was bad but it was even worse when I was working on something, not driving, and I had to have the driver's door open. Constant buzzing. Now everything is quiet.

??

If it's OW, I guess it just disappears in the winter, right?

Don't worry, with climate change, soon there will be no more W.

The engine shuts off at stop signs, stop lights, apparently to save fuel and emissions .. it's a PITA. There is a push-button to disable the feature after the car is started ; but it can't be set to "disabled" as the normal default condition. John T.

Oh, yeah. I think I had a rental car like that for a while.

Same thing, but no push button. I had to go onto the video screen and go a couple steps in to disable it, each time.

In the heavy traffic where I was sometimes, it sort of felt unsafe

I've had a valet park my car a double handful of times. I don't really like it. I'm a control freak. I want to know where my car is and have the key in my possession.

My SUV has a valet key. Seems kind of pointless. I'm not even sure the glove compartment has a lock.

Either most people want those features, or automakers know people will pay for them without squawking.

Out of curiosity, why do you want to disable it?

Certainly not a new technology. My 2010 Prius engine has always worked that way. Even after 14 years of use, the shut off and startup is so quiet and so smooth that it's undetectable inside the passenger cabin and almost undetectable standing next to the front of the car. When I purchased the car I was worried how long the starter would last given that almost all my driving is in urban/suburban areas with perpetual stop and go driving conditions. Surprisingly, I have yet to need to replace the starter. The current conventional engines that turn off/turn on are as loud when they restart as conventional engines have always sounded but I still flinch when I'm a pedestrian near them because I don't expect to hear that sound from any vehicle not at the curb. I wonder how long their starters will last?

The starter is nothing like the traditional one used for decades. It is a different system and very rugged.

When VCRs first came out, there was a price range, with an impressive number of features in the expensive ones.

But when they were getting less popular, the last few years, you couldn't even find an espensive one, but some of the features that had marked a more expensive model were now found on all of them. I think slow speed and/or pause were features like that, that is, if they weren't present on the cheap ones at the start.

IOW, like you say, they settled on the features they knew people wanted most.

I don't follow other products as closely but examples for cars are power steering, brakes, and windows. And AC, but not automatic AC. And decades before that, radio/heater/wsw.

My first VCR was a Kenwood, expensive, and instead of setting the timer until it turned off for only times of 30, 60, 120 minutes, you coud set it for 1:13 minutes or anything. I liked that but no one had it later on. And you could put index marks (which were also created when you started recording) wherever you were at the moment and you could have it FF or Rew to an index mark. (And you could eraas an index mark.) It broke after quite a few years. The recording was stop and go, and I took it to one of the few VCR repairmen in town. He made very racist remarks and it seemed like a betrayal to let him fix it, but 2 minutes later I laarned from him that he couldn't find a replacement motor anyhow, the main motor with the record and play heads on it. So I took it back, put it in the trunk of my car, and never saw it again. Maybe I brought it in the house when I got home, but I've looked, and this was

Are you referring to the very quiet starters in the Prius or the noisy starters that crank the non-hybrid cars that turn off/on every time those vehicles start from a complete stop?

The engine stop-start is an annoyance and, for most of my driving conditions, a useless and unnecessary feature. Once - when I forgot to disable it - I was at a traffic circle and didn't realize that the engine had shut off - - so when I goosed it to enter the circle, there was a slight delay for the engine to start and it feels, for a brief moment, like the car will stall - uncomfortable experience. For my driving conditions, I doubt that I'd save any measureable amount of fuel and therefore emissions ditto. John T.

This very-base model 2024 Subaru Forester came with lane-wandering warning ; several collision avoidance features - front and rear ; back-up camera ; headlights that turn when the car is turning ; adaptive cruise control < one of the things I disabled >

heated front seats ; ... etc these are just the ones I remember off hand. I bought the base model to avoid the powered drivers seat and I certainly don't miss any of the other options that a higher model might have. John T.

I hear engines wear most on startup as oil is pumped to the top. I would imagine engines with this feature do not last as long nor do the starters. It is probably a zero sum savings of energy.

Fair enough. I do the majority of my driving on roads with a 45-mph speed limit and well-timed stop lights.

Years ago I decided that if 4^ before top dead center was good, 6 was better and maybe 8 was better yet. Or maybe I just set it wrong, but I kept breaking the case on my starter motors, where it went close to the flywheel. I vaguely remember having to change one underneath an xway in NYC, but that's hard to believe. I wonder what really happened that day.

I was going to do this but I couldn't fild a place to attach it magnetically that I was sure I could rely on. Then I'd be overly confident and careless with my main key, lose it, and the key under the car wouldn't be there anyhow.

I also found that hide-a-keys were now made of plastic, and though I don't understand the miracle of magnetism, it seemed to me a metal hide-a-key box would hold tighter. So I held off until I found one.

Earlier, for 15 years, I carried two keys.