Utterly Stupid Idea ?

[Mark Carver]

Or is it just me ?

If I were an insurance company, I'd invalidate the policy of any customer that declared they have one !

[mm0fmf]

Insurance companies don't mind car hire companies hiring you a car with a key fob containing the car brand/model, fuel type and registration number. Well I don't know about the UK, not hired here for over 20 years but several rentals a year on mainland Europe all have such fobs.

[Mark Carver]

Do car hire companies actually have insurance ? Many large organisations with large fleets of vehicles don't, they just maintain a fund to deal with accidents (on a statistical basis) Which is all insurance ultimately is anyway ?

[Andy Burns]

And courtesy cars.

The last time I hired, I thought they were "self-covered".

[Mark Carver]

Yes, for hire/pool/courtesy cars it's unavoidable really, but would you walk about with a key ring for your own car that gave away its indentity ?

After a service etc, my key is handed back with a tag with my reg on, but I remove that before I've even walk outside

[Colin Bignell]

I would think it very useful for any company fleet where vehicles are not allocated to individual drivers. In any case, these days, wandering around pressing the open button is likely to find the car a set of keys belong to fairly quickly.

[Sam Plusnet]

Some years back, I walked out of a motorway services into a very large, full car park, and wondered:

"Where did I park - and what make/model/colour car was it anyway?" On this occasion the key fob was no help as the tag must have fallen off.

Too many work trips in too many hire cars. At least I had a fair idea of the four or five models that the hire company usually supplied.

[Rod Speed]

Insurance is actually about doing something useful with the premiums before that money needs to be paid out in claims.

[Jonathan Harston]

Oooo, no no no no no! I have one special key for my car which has a tag on it with the registration and my phone number on, specifically for the one sole task of handing to the MOT test centre when I take the car in - as I did this morning. For all other purposes, my car key is an anonymous generic key with no idenfying marks.

[Graham Harrison]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2024 20:06:42 +0000, Sam Plusnet [e-mail] wrote

In the USA many key fobs are identical to ones this side of the Atlantic with one exception - they have any extra key which, when pressed, sounds the horn of your car to help with that very problem.

[Davey]

Another exception, at least in northern States, is that it is often possible to start the engine without being in the car. This would probably break the law here in the UK, having a running engine without anybody in control of the vehicle.

[Bob Eager]

I have that on my UK car, but it just flashes the indicators.

[charles]

That only applies if the car is on the public highway,

[Davey]

True. But it would be illegal if you parked your car on the roadside.

[wasbit]

Typical knee jerk reaction. You don't like it. You don't agree with it. So it should be banned. Doesn't matter if someone else finds it useful.

[NY]

Ever since I've had a smart phone, I've taken a photo of the numberplate and body colour of any hire or garage loan car that I've had. Just in case... Before that, it was case of writing a note in my diary "Red Focus, AB12 CDE" etc.

[NY]

My garage usually attaches a cardboard label with just my name on it. I imagine that is so any thief that broke in would have to match the keys in the garage's keysafe with the cars in the yard "at random", rather than having a convenient reg number. The garage itself will be able to relate surname to car from its customer database.

I tend to leave that tag on the keys permanently, since it's the spare key rather than my own set with other car key for my wife's car, various house and garage keys. However I have written on it "remote does not work" to warn any garage that it will need to use my key the old-fashioned way, because the remote button on that spare key will not unlock the car for some reason (and, yes, I have changed the battery). If it was my only key, I'd get new electronics but that would mean a garage re-registering the new key code and immobiliser code with the car, which would all cost money.

If I happen to drop my own keys somewhere, they are anonymous and can't be related back to cars or house. Although I keep a USB pen drive on the keyring, it's only used for installation files for programs that I may install on customers' PCs, to save me having to locate the installation file on the web; there's nothing unique to me that has car or house details. Not that I've ever mislaid my keys because they always live either in the pocket of the trousers I'm wearing that day, or the door that I am locking/unlocking, or the car I'm driving - I got into the habit very early on of never putting my bunch of keys down anywhere that I might forget or from which it might get nicked. This slightly obsessive habit means that I've never yet manage to lock myself out of anywhere any leaving my keys inside. The only time I need to make sure is when I am about to slam a door with a self-locking (eg Yale) lock such as the garage - and it's a case of checking every time that I have the keys in my hand before slamming the door.

[Mark Carver]

I spent an alarming amount of time trying to get into a Honda Civic hire car in South Africa in a hotel car park, until I realised my hire car was in the next row along. It was identical, including the 'Hertz' sticker in the rear window, even the registration plate was only one digit different !

[Brian Gaff]

Don't know what it is, is it really just a number plate key fob? There are links with no text so I have no idea what they do.

Brian

[charles]

I even did that with my new car. It helped in car parks.