# Murder by Keyfob **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 15, 2018, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247 "2018-05-15T22:52:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/41 "2018-05-16T16:04:09Z")
I am fascinated and perplexed by **Jim’s** fixation on the perils of the attached garage. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/42 "2018-05-16T16:40:33Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > My wife’s car (a 2007 Mazda CX-7) has a remote start; it’s actually on a separate keyfob from the larger fob which acts as a keyless entry system, and contains the chip which lets you use the keyless ignition system. > > If you start it up using the remote start, and you don’t then enter the car with the keyless entry fob, the engine shuts down after ten or fifteen minutes. That should be cut down to 5 minutes, max. Does Mazda reimburse you for the wasted gas? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/43 "2018-05-16T17:01:22Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > That should be cut down to 5 minutes, max. > Does Mazda reimburse you for the wasted gas? We don’t use it frequently, and the only reason we even discovered what the shutdown time was, was getting delayed in getting to the garage when we’d used it to warm up the car on a very cold night. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/44 "2018-05-16T17:08:48Z")
I have a 2010 Lexus with keyless entry and pushbutton (but not remote) start, and the other day I got out of the car and tried to lock it, but it just kept giving me a long loud warning beep. I learned a while ago that it will do this if you try to lock it with a fob inside the car, so I was looking for my wife’s purse, to see if she had left her fob inside. (She had walked on ahead of me.) Not there. I just kept trying to lock it, and it kept refusing and beeping, and I was getting really annoyed. Finally I realized that I hadn’t shut the engine off. I was in an outdoor parking lot, and it wasn’t very noisy, but the engine was so quiet I hadn’t noticed it was still running. :smack: So here’s one data point of a car that won’t let you lock it while it’s still running. Of course, I imagine that relatively few people who park in their attached garage bother locking their cars (I don’t), so not terribly relevant to the OP or the other scenarios discussed here. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/45 "2018-05-16T17:22:44Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Fine, I skipped a step. When I leave the car and _take my keys with me,_ I have to shut the car off. Bear in mind, people are dying because push-button-start cars don’t shut off by themselves… People have been forgetting to turn off their cars and dying from CO long before the advent of push button start. It’s curious that the article doesn’t include any statistics about CO deaths where the cars left running had traditional ignition systems. Probably because there isn’t much difference. **kenobi 65** , you’re going to give **Jim Peebles** a conniption fit if you don’t come back and let us know that you open your garage door before remote starting your car in the winter. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/46 "2018-05-16T17:38:11Z")
> [@SmellMyWort](#): > > **kenobi 65** , you’re going to give **Jim Peebles** a conniption fit if you don’t come back and let us know that you open your garage door before remote starting your car in the winter. It’s a detached garage. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/47 "2018-05-16T18:25:02Z")
[Relevant XKCD](https://m.xkcd.com/1958/) Murdering people just isn’t that difficult, and keyless ignition doesn’t make it significantly easier. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/48 "2018-05-16T18:27:10Z")
The thing I was getting at about a manual transmission was that it’s not really something that could be hacked and taken over or through some weird problem like those cars had a while back of being stuck accelerating was that you could simply put the car in neutral if you had a problem, I wasn’t talking about fuel efficiency or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/49 "2018-05-16T18:38:07Z")
> [@SmellMyWort](#): > > People have been forgetting to turn off their cars and dying from CO long before the advent of push button start. It’s curious that the article doesn’t include any statistics about CO deaths where the cars left running had traditional ignition systems. Probably because there isn’t much difference. I very much doubt that the same number of people were leaving their cars running in the garage when most people had a key ignition. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_Peebles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Jim\_Peebles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_Peebles)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/50 "2018-05-16T20:34:47Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > [Relevant XKCD](https://m.xkcd.com/1958/) > > Murdering people just isn’t that difficult, and keyless ignition doesn’t make it significantly easier. It makes it a lot easier not to get caught. Who is going to suspect it wasn’t the owner’s mistake? And as for why I am interested in attached garages. I’m not. I have one. I wish it was detached. I don’t park in it. Maybe it is weird I am looking out to not get CO poisoned. This was motivated by the “solutions to problems that don’t exist thread” where someone else brought up CO poisoning via car in attached garage first. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/51 "2018-05-16T20:41:43Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#): > > Maybe it is weird I am looking out to not get CO poisoned. The chances of that happening are very low (although non-zero) and there are a few pretty easy steps to eliminate nearly all of the risk. The advantages of being able to park in a garage would seem to outweigh the small and manageable risk. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/52 "2018-05-17T03:02:21Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#): > > Oh, I thought some cars had the option of remotely starting it up for warmup or something via fob. That renders some of this thread moot. I think cars garaged in really cold climates have had engine warmers and remote starters for ages. The key fob technology is new, so that’s what I thought the discussion was about. I wonder how many people in Minnesota have gotten killed by remote starters. I suppose if you have a garage you don’t really need one. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/53 "2018-05-17T03:10:29Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > it’s a back-up in case the park pawl fails to engage or slips out. There’s no reason _not_ to use it. and lack of use can cause the mechanism to eventually start binding up so if someone does use it, good luck getting it to disengage. When I was a kid I was nearly killed by a car slipping park in a sloped parking lot. I was in the back seat and was about to get out the driver’s side. My mother told me to get out the other side (I suppose to build the habit when parked on the street.) Just as I was closing the door, thump, a car smashed right into the rear driver side door. I have no idea if that car had an automatic or manual transmission. I always set the parking brake, so the person **Jim Peebles** returned his car to had never dealt with me. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/54 "2018-05-17T13:43:22Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#): > > Maybe it is weird I am looking out to not get CO poisoned. Easy enough: just make sure you shut off the car when you park it in your garage. To fail at this requires that you be both absent-minded and hard of hearing (so you don’t hear the engine still running while you walk away from the car). And as I mentioned upthread, the fail-safe is to have a CO monitor in your house - which you should have regardless of whether you own an attached garage and park fossil-fueled cars in it. If your car is not equipped with a remote-start feature, you don’t have to worry about someone else surreptitiously starting it. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/55 "2018-05-17T13:55:08Z")
The other thing you can do to not get CO poisoned is to install a CO alarm (or more than one depending on the size of your house). In the town where my parents live, they were given away by the volunteer fire department. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/56 "2018-05-18T22:10:45Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > A passenger walking away with the key shouldn’t leave you stranded. Is that not literally the entire purpose of a key? ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/57 "2018-05-22T00:32:45Z")
I drive a 2003 Pontiac. I might be too dumb to start a modern car. > [@](#): > > The right way to park on a hill: > > 1. stop car. > 2. keep foot on driving brake. > 3. shift transmission to park. > 4. apply parking brake. > 5. release driving brake. > > This sequence assures that most/all of the gravity load is taken up by the parking brake. > > The right way to leave a hill: > > 1. keep foot on driving brake. > 2. shift transmission to drive. > 3. release parking brake. > 4. release driving brake. > 5. drive away. > > This sequence assures that the gravity load is transferred from the parking brake to the driving brake, and not to the parking pawl. Whatever happened to turning into the curb when parking on a hill? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/58 "2018-05-22T11:11:39Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#): > > Terrorists figure out how to wirelessly start cars and kill millions of people in one night via CO poisoning. All those millions of people who sleep in their garages? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247/59 "2018-05-22T12:10:11Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > All those millions of people who sleep in their garages? CO doesn’t magically know where the garage ends and the house begins. Our bedrooms are directly over the garage. I have a CO detector, which was in our bedroom that day, and **Mrs. FtG** left the car running in the garage a little extra long (with the garage door open) and the detector went off. The current lawsuit about the remote start/keyfob thing is due to the multiple deaths of people _not_ in their garage and unaware the engine was running! You really, really have to treat CO with respect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-by-keyfob/814247.md?page=2)