I had a '61 Falcon the would have been easy as pie to hotwire, but it had a manual choke, and a manual transmission, with the shifter harness in backwards, because it had been moved from the column to the floor (cutting a hole in the floor and patching in an aftermarket cover and homemade shifter was easier than replacing the whole steering column), so all the gears were not where you would expect them (reverse was where first should be, and first was where third should be), and that was for people who could drive a stick in the first place. I never worried about it being stolen.
To hotwire a modern car, you have to break into it in the first place. Most cars have an automatic shutdown if they are broken into-- that is, if they are locked with the infrared device, then unlocked manually. So if you lose the key, you better have OnStar or something, because anymore, if you have a locksmith get in, the car won’t start. We learned this when the battery died in our infrared device for our Subaru, and we tried unlocking the car manually. We called a mechanic, figured out what was going on, and walked to a Best Buy for a battery, and solved the problem.
Some cars won’t start without the actual key-- not even a duplicate key-- because it has a computer chip and battery, or something in it, and if you want to copy it, you need to get it copied by a registered seller for that car make, who has the special blank, and go through some rigamarole to program it before you can use it, which is another protection against hotwiring.
If you have a chip key, make sure you have a duplicate. You will probably pay about $40. If you lose the key, and have no duplicate, you’re screwed. You need to involve the dealer and I don’t know how they access your car and whether it would have to be towed. It would be a hassle and big bucks.
While I can’t understand all of this because it’s so poorly written and punctuated, I can see a mix-up going on. The ignition SWITCH is an electrical part with several wires or wire terminals. It has nothing to do with keys. The ignition LOCK CYLINDER is turned with a key, to operate the switch that abuts to it.
If you rewrite your post with proper spelling, punctuation, and using the proper terms, we’ll try to help you. I really don’t mean to be a jerk here; I honestly can’t make sense of what you wrote.
On an automotive board I read about a guy who was worried about his old school 50s pickup being a target for an easy hotwire while on vacation or whatever. So he got creative. “Back in the day” an easy quick method of deterence was to take the coil to distributor cap wire with you, as it will not start without it, and a thief will not likely have one with him. He went one better, and installed a length of black rubber hose in its place, to confuse anyone with time on their hands as it looks practically identical. Well he gets home and has to move the truck and forgets about his handiwork.
It starts right up! Apparently the carbon in the black rubber made a good enough conductor and so his anti-theft device really wasn’t.
Keys, and locks, and the rest of it really only keep honest people honest. A determined thief can steal just about anything and have been known to use tow trucks and trailers and the like too. All the anti-theft jiggery-pokery adds complexity and not inconsiderable expense to a vehicle, and can be maddening to diagnose, troubleshoot and very expensive to repair when they fail.
Some vehicles can be “problematic” as the physical key itself becomes obsolete, if the battery dies there’s no practical way to easily get inside. Thieves sure cause a lot of trouble and expense.
I suspect this is the real reason. My car’s manual says that to create a 3rd key the first two keys are required. If I can’t produce them, I have to get the dealer to make the keys. So I took my two keys down to the locksmith-who mostly does car keys these days-and bought a 3rd key. She didn’t need the two keys, one was quite enough. After she was finished, all three keys worked-we checked them together.
I think he means he swapped out the original ignition lock cylinder and switch for a replacement part from eBay. Which came with new keys that mechanically fit the new lock.
Now he needs to program the car’s computer to recognize the new keys’ transponders. The locksmith he hired tried and failed to do this.
The last I knew, the FBI said that about one-third of all stolen cars had the keys left in the ignition. That probably accounts for most of the newest cars on the list.
Key security used to be so bad that with one marque (Ford) all you needed was one Ford key from about the right time (80s) and you could pretty much open any other Ford, just by jiggling it around. Security was entirely gestural.
Now it is so good that it has created unintentional consequences. In my jurisdiction (Queensland) most people have metal keys to their houses, and very few have electronic security.
So car thieves defeat the security in cars by driving around till they see a car parked at a house but no-one seems to be home (this is common enough in multi car families). Then they break into the house, steal the car keys from their inevitable bowl/hook near the front door, take what they can while they are there, and drive off in fancy secure car unimpeded. The car is even more black marketable because the keys go with it. There’s not even the need to repair entry and other damage.
Infuriatingly, increased car security is leading to an uptick in the greater crime of housebreaking.
I did something very similar on my pride and joy when I was a student. It was great till one day I arranged for my girlfriend at the time to collect my car from somewhere. I was out of contact. I forgot to tell her about the kill switch. She and a mechanic spent hours trying to figure out what was wrong.
I was once victimized by sort of the same thing in reverse.
The thieves’ MO was to drive around neighborhoods in the wee hours looking for unlocked cars. Then rummage through the open car for a garage door remote control, followed by snagging any valuable tools, golf clubs, etc., from the now-open garage. Then moving on to the next house. Luckily my perps were arrested shortly after. With about 10 garages-worth of loot.
Security is truly only as strong as the weakest publicly-available link.
Motorcycles are now incorporating anti-theft technology similar to cars. I don’t know how widespread it is, but I know BMW has had it on their bikes since about 2005. Early in the advent of this technology, there was a frequent problem wherein the antenna on the bike would fail to recognize the key, and the computer would refuse to start the bike. Apparently when this happened there was no recourse but to get the bike to a dealer to have the antenna and key replaced - and AIUI, this process commonly took several days (the needed parts typically weren’t stocked). I know of many riders whose vacations were totally ruined when this failure happened in the middle of nowhere, requiring them to get the bike towed to the nearest BMW motorcycle dealer (sometimes hundred$$$ of miles away) and then hole up in a hotel for a few days waiting for the repair to get done.
