Then what the hell is the “Park” button for?
I am far from a Luddite. I have a PhD in Computer Science and have been messing with electronics/computers my whole life.
These things are flat out stupid.
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Good grief, how long does it take you to use a regular key? As mentioned, what are you saving here???
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They add expense. Much costlier.
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They are more likely to break down than traditional locks. And more expensive to replace or repair. Need a new key? A couple bucks at the hardware store. Need a new fob? The dealer wants to charge you hundreds of dollars. You might be able to get one from other sources, but it’s hit or miss.
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They reduce security. Right now, for certain models you can get cheap gadgets for certain models that allow you to turn off the alarm, unlock the door and drive off. No slim jim, no screwdriver, no wire cutters like in olden times. And it won’t look suspicious at all.
It’s a craptastic solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
I forget. But I also don’t want a car that decides for itself when to lock and when to unlock. I often carry expensive camera equipment in the car, so I want it to stay locked until I say otherwise, thank you.
If it does that it’s a stupid design. But as I said, our Nissan unlocks when I hit the button on the door if the fob is in my pocket. Not just because I happen to be walking by.
Finagle - What piece of crap was that? As noted, Nissan means you never take the fob out of your pocket. The batteries are rated for a minimum of 5 years. So I will just change them when the car goes in for service at that time.
Why do technophobes keep making silly excuses?
As best I can tell it’s for those occasions where you need to park and wait for someone, like when you’re picking someone up. At least that’s about the only time I use it.
I could be terribly wrong but I assume when you hit the Off button, the computer is programmed to shut off the radio, shut off the AC, and put the tranny in park. At least when I hit Off and then get back in the car later, when it starts it’s in park mode.
Speaking of Prius odd features, that’s no worse than the “B” setting on the shifter. I don’t know anybody who uses B very often.
I like it on our car, a BMW. Neither of the problems mentioned in OP seem likely, car only unlocks if you touch the door handle, and it warns you about getting out of the car with the key when it’s still running (lest somebody else staying in the car intending to drive it can’t restart it). And it seems to have a reasonable system for getting around a dead battery, if you don’t avoid that with preventive replacement. Ours hasn’t worn out yet. I also like how it can tell if the key slipped out of your pocket if you’re about to leave it in the car.
Is it necessary? No. Does it contribute to lowest possible cost of ownership? No, but I wouldn’t have bought a BMW if I cared about that. For my car and the experience I’m looking for in it I like it, to hop in without any fumbling, lock on leaving with a brush of the finger on the door lock.
Just occurred to me-
I have never locked the doors or trunk on my '71 BMW, or my '80 Fiat, either. There is a second key on the ring, but I don’t even know if it works.
By the way, Luddite and proud of it!
Color me unimpressed. The fancy smart keys are enough of a pain. Don’t get me wrong, I like being able to unlock the car with the remote (and it’s helpful when searching for the car in a crowded lot - push the lock button and follow the horn honk).
But they’re insanely expensive to replace or get a spare of - to the point where it’s really a scam. Third parties can rarely do the job, you HAVE to go to the dealer and when we got my car, it would have been 500 bucks - seriously. I wonder why this has never been busted on anti-monopoly grounds.
The stay-in-pocket sort: how large are they? How easy are they to lose? I mean, I could clip mine on the key-clip in my purse but if a guy wanted to minimize the weight in his pockets, I’d think the extraneous keyring stuff would be the first to go - making the thing that much easier to drop without realizing it.
We once had a rental car that had the worst variant of all. The “key” was a full-sized fob with the key sticking out of it - except the “key” portion of it was this little half-inch rectangle that fit into a slot on the steering column. It never actually got knocked out when we were driving but I could see how it easily could - with potentially NASTY results.
On the rental car front and slightly off topic: I wonder how they handle the stay-in-your-pocket thing. The new smart keys are enough of a pain - rental agencies always give you both keys - WIRED TOGETHER so you can’t separate them. What’s THAT about?? Why give both then, when the second one can’t really serve as an “ohshitIlistmykey” backup.
Last year we rented an SUV, and the first thing we did was take wire cutters to that thing and we each took a key. When we returned it, we put them both on a regular split-ring key ring. 3 weeks later we rented again, happened to get the same identical car, and the keys were still on the same ring we’d given them :D.
Not on many modern cars. I lost a key for a 2000 Nissan and it had to be ordered from a dealership for some absurd cost ( which I can’t recall except that I wasn’t happy about it ) because it was chipped. That was for a car from 16 years ago ;). Maybe a new key for 1976 VW bug might be cheaply had at the hardware store, but even many regular old-style car keys will cost a small fortune these days.
So because I don’t like some feature I’m a technophobe? I don’t think so. I don’t like lots of things (I’m a crabby old lady). But I’m not a technophobe.
Ours, for a BMW 3, is slightly larger than fob/clicker alone for a regular metal key+clicker. I consists of the electronic fob itself, and a metal key with fits into the fob which is used to lock the glove box, if you want to give the fob to somebody but not give them access to the glove box or trunk (there’s a trunk locking switch inside the glove box). Then that metal key has a metal/leather thing attached to it. I find it a reasonably convenient size to put in pocket but not easily lose track of.
But I rarely lose stuff like keys anyway. And again if I was tracking every penny I wouldn’t have the car to begin with, which has plenty of other features which are eventually expensive to replace or maintain. And all cars now are full of complicated stuff, if not quite as complicated and high repair cost. It seems the debate tends to sidetrack somewhat to the classic one of people driving old cars and wondering why anyone would drive a new car, and vice versa, the simple answer being that their situations and expectations are different. Though of course the features of today’s new cars will eventually be the features of future old cars.
My mother’s 15y/o Prius has creep. Even when the car is dead silent at a stop, in drive, you still have to hold it back with the brake. So if you pull over to check a map (she wisely rejected gps) or grab a sandwich whilst staking out your ex-lover’s apartment, putting it in park is easier and safer than holding the brake. Especially if you are on a hill.
I first ran into “The Future of Auto Keys” in 1987 - a woman (young and single) had a fob (does anyone know what a “fob” was in 1980 and before?) which would unlock the door when she pushed its button.
Single women parking in a large garage have a safety issue (duh!) and the remote unlock was a really good innovation.
The car still had a steel key for ignition.
Duplicating it would cost about $3.00.
This model had two different (steel) keys - Owner’s and Valet’s. Only the Owner key worked in glove compartment and trunk.
At this level of Fob/Auto integration is great.
Wanting a ket to give the teenager in the house should NOT cost $300. Requiring any critical system to rely on a battery-driven device is just plain stupid.
My truck is very old and just about crapped out, but it DOES use a simple steel key.
I will be dragged kicking and screaming into a world wherein I am REQUIRED to report my physical location just to be able to drive.
[rant]
I believe it was the 4th District Court which recently ruled that the FBI (or some such Federal agency) COULD use your phone’s location as evidence against you. If you don’t want the Federal Government knowing where you are, and where you were at the time of the subject event, do not carry your phone.
I called this one as soon as I learned that phones now contained GPS engines.
I was also absolutely FLOORED that those tiny boxes now contained a phone, a camera (or two) AND a GPS engine.
Of course: if “they” (whoever “they” is) can put all that in there, what else is in there?
I’[m reasonably certain that, if you are a “Person of Interest” to certain groups, you just might assume your microphone and camera(s) are on or off as THEY please, not when YOU please.
Do I need to point out that the current “Hip Thing” - Selfies - are an investigator’s dream? Not only the GPS signal, but actual FRIGGIN’ PHOTOGRAPHS of the suspect and buddies - with a unique landmark in the background!
Private Investigators have to be hurting for work. Want to know what your hubby is up to? Look at his FaceBook page.
[/end rant]
Rental cars and fobs are ridiculous. They put both fobs and sets of keys on one ring you’re not supposed to separate. This is a huge blob to have in your pocket.
I’m not one of those people who say “If you’re not doing anything wrong you shouldn’t care if the government read your mail, listens to your call or goes though your garbage.” However, I do have that attitude about what “they” could learn from my GPS-enabled phone. Hell, that feature may sometime provide me with an alibi some day.
[Technical Pedant]
GPS is a red herring. The cell phone is trackable, and that tracking extractable by authorities with minimum due process, by virtue of being a cell phone and nothing else.
A 2000s dumb flip phone with no GPS or camera would be as trackable. Something to be aware of if that bothers you: “this phone doesn’t have GPS” is no help at all.
Also, none of those considerations are particularly applicable to car keyfobs. I suppose it’s just “another one of those things” in your worldview.
[/pedant]
The problem is the great proliferation of “and you can control it from your phone!” apps means that people have all that many more reasons to ALWAYS carry that tracking device.
And yes, even a dumb phone can be triangulated based on which towers received a ping from it.
It is now trivially easy for that “ping” to contain not only the phone’s unique ID, but also its current lat/long/altitude.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but the only think I dislike about mine is carrying the extra set along when I go on vacation.
Both have to be removed from the car or you can’t lock it. (BTW…I’m carrying the extra set in case I lose one not in case I lock it in the car.)
Might be model dependent. Both of my family’s cars use smart keys and with both you can lock one in the car using the other. This would be for Nissan and Suzuki.
My 2003 has a chip in the key fob, and the car won’t start without that chip. A key I can make for $2 in the hardware store won’t work. That key otherwise works exactly like a traditional key – you take it out of your pocket, shove it in the keyhole, and turn.
When I bought the car I asked if that feature could be disabled, so I could make a cheap replacement. The answer was an astonished “of course not!”. They sold it as an anti-theft feature, but it’s also a “get the dealer revenue” feature.
Anyhow, that key works fine, but the fancy new fobs aren’t all that much more expensive than that “simple” key, so that’s not an argument against them.
This.
Anyhow, I’m enough of a Luddite that I wasn’t enthusiastic about the key-less fob on my new car, but I have grown to like it. If I am carry groceries, or it is pouring rain, it is nice that the car just unlocks as I touch the handle. And it’s nice that I can start the car by pressing a button, and don’t have to fish the key out of my pocket after I sit down (since it’s hard to reach into pockets while sitting.) My car also has a nifty feature that the rear door opens if I kick underneath it with my foot while the fob is in my pocket. That’s really nice when your arms are full of groceries, or whatever.
It’s not a huge deal, and if I could save a few hundred dollars by purchasing a car with an old-fashioned simple metal key I would probably do that. But it is a little nicer. And in practice, you don’t have a choice. A new car will come with whatever sort of key it comes with, and that’s unlikely to be a major consideration when you pick a car. It certainly isn’t going to be a major consideration for me, going forward.
(Oh yeah, my fob has a little hidden metal key and has the same “touch it to the start button if the battery is dead” feature. So, while it’s a nuisance in theory to have to worry about replacing the battery from time to time, it fails in a pretty harmless way.)
The keys I dislike the most are metal keys with a giant attached fob with lots of buttons. They are too large to comfortably fit in my pocket as they don’t like flat with the other keys in the key chain. Yet they still have this big piece of metal jutting out that eats holes in pockets. My touchless fob is rounded and pocket-safe, and since I never have to take it out of my pocket, I don’t bother to put it on the keychain, I just drop it into my pocket in the morning underneath everything else and leave it there.