Keyless fobs. Why?

Author
Discussion

mph1977

12,467 posts

168 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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ashleyman said:
I have a Golf with keyless.

I don't need the keys to open the car or start the car. Even if the fob's battery died there's no hole for the key to go into.

I still have key in my fob. Want to swap keys?
sure there;s no key hole ? i had access to a Nissan with 'no key hole' through work , if you looked in the manual it told you to pop part of the the front door handle off to reveal a key hole ...

V88Dicky

7,305 posts

183 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
RS Grant said:
Totally agree... it's not for me.

But what's worse is cars which haven't had keyless entry/locking specified, but also don't have an ignition key/card slot. So you have to get the key out to unlock the car, get in and either throw the key in the door card, cubby or a cup holder then push a button to start and again to stop, pick up the key, get out the car and then lock the car with it.

It's a first world problem, but it's irritating and more hassle than the traditional key/ignition was IMO.


Cheers,
Grant
Were you the previous owner of my car? hehe

The first owner ticked the box for 'Luxury Performance (Aluminium)' interior (£2500), 20" alloys (£1000+), Adaptive Headlights etc, but didn't bother with the £200 Keyless Entry! rolleyes

LuS1fer

Original Poster:

41,135 posts

245 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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GetCarter said:
Next you'll discover a 'computer'.
Sci-fi pie-in-the-sky, matey.

MikeTFSI

5,004 posts

102 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
Nothing fake about this luddite haha. Maybe it is awesome, but I still want somewhere specific to put my key. I hate driving with things in my pocket too. Maybe I am just odd.

13m

26,280 posts

222 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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LuS1fer said:
I have a Fiesta ST and find the while keyless thing totally pointless.
I know where the key is when I have an ignition and otherwise have to try and remember where it is and still have to find it, to lock the car.
Given most fold, what exactly is the point?
Pointless technology?
Yup, pointless and not secure.

Willy Nilly

12,511 posts

167 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
mph1977 said:
ashleyman said:
I have a Golf with keyless.

I don't need the keys to open the car or start the car. Even if the fob's battery died there's no hole for the key to go into.

I still have key in my fob. Want to swap keys?
sure there;s no key hole ? i had access to a Nissan with 'no key hole' through work , if you looked in the manual it told you to pop part of the the front door handle off to reveal a key hole ...
Is that how you get in when there is an electrical failure?

mph1977

12,467 posts

168 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
Willy Nilly said:
mph1977 said:
ashleyman said:
I have a Golf with keyless.

I don't need the keys to open the car or start the car. Even if the fob's battery died there's no hole for the key to go into.

I still have key in my fob. Want to swap keys?
sure there;s no key hole ? i had access to a Nissan with 'no key hole' through work , if you looked in the manual it told you to pop part of the the front door handle off to reveal a key hole ...
Is that how you get in when there is an electrical failure?
yep or if it had a flat battery ( some what irrelevant as this vehicle had a shoreline and batt conditioner as well as a secondary battery for warning devices and medical fit )

johnnnnnnyy

231 posts

190 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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I find the one on the wife's new shape Mini kinda pointless. It's not keyless entry but has no key for the ignition, a start button.
Why not go the whole hog and make it keyless entry too, makes no sense? Means we have to fumble around to find the key remote, open the car, then back in pocket. Same to lock it.

Tickle

4,919 posts

204 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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The family car has this new fangled keyless mumbojumbo. Not for me, never had an issue using a key.

poing

8,743 posts

200 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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Muddle238 said:
I have keyless entry and I find it overall, a much better system than having a physical key. The car unlocks when my fingers contact the touch pad inside any of the door handles, and will lock when I brush the outer edge of the door handle. This means that I don't need to fumble around in my pocket looking for the key, or trying to separate a smaller key from a bunch of keys. The next benefit is that once inside the car, I don't need to find an ignition slot. I can leave the key in my pocket and just push the START button, and off I go.
Surely that's worse?

Senses your hand on the handle and opens, that is a good bit and makes sense.

You have to stroke the handle as you leave to lock it?
My hands are full of phone, bag, jacket various other things I can't carry but am trying to juggle because it's pissing it down and I only want to make one journey to the house. So which hand rubs the door, ideally the one without the scratchy stuff in it I guess? Something is likely going to end up on the floor.

How is that better than just legging it to the house and pressing lock on the remote from my dry house? Not to mention I'll have to start cleaning the damn thing if I'm going to be rubbing it all the time. I don't want to touch the car to lock it, a backwards step if ever there was one.

stanglish

255 posts

113 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
I don't get what the actual issue is.

So you have your keys in your pocket, and you don't have to get them out to open the car - cool.

So you get in your car and you have keyless go as well so you just tap the button and off you go - cool.

So you stop, and tap the button again to turn the engine off - cool.

So you get out of the car and presumably if you go out of range it'll lock again, but that's obviously a little odd so you might want to manually lock it. So you get the key out of your pocket, blip it to lock, then walk away - cool.

What about this do I not understand? Have never used these systems before and have a more povvo spec Fiesta. Is it really all about not wanting to drive with something in your pocket and needing somewhere to put the keys as you drive? If so this is mental.

Patrick Bateman

12,183 posts

174 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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Pointless as far as I'm concerned.

Poisson96

2,098 posts

131 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
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MikeTFSI said:
Nothing fake about this luddite haha. Maybe it is awesome, but I still want somewhere specific to put my key. I hate driving with things in my pocket too. Maybe I am just odd.
Always empty pockets before driving, just find it uncomfy otherwise

Sheepshanks

32,757 posts

119 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
RS Grant said:
But what's worse is cars which haven't had keyless entry/locking specified, but also don't have an ignition key/card slot. So you have to get the key out to unlock the car, get in and either throw the key in the door card, cubby or a cup holder then push a button to start and again to stop, pick up the key, get out the car and then lock the car with it.
The Passat Alltracks in the recent lease glitch are like that. I thought they had keyless entry but apparently not, it's just keyless start.

ashleyman

6,986 posts

99 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
stanglish said:
I don't get what the actual issue is.

So you have your keys in your pocket, and you don't have to get them out to open the car - cool.

So you get in your car and you have keyless go as well so you just tap the button and off you go - cool.

So you stop, and tap the button again to turn the engine off - cool.

So you get out of the car and presumably if you go out of range it'll lock again, but that's obviously a little odd so you might want to manually lock it. So you get the key out of your pocket, blip it to lock, then walk away - cool.

What about this do I not understand? Have never used these systems before and have a more povvo spec Fiesta. Is it really all about not wanting to drive with something in your pocket and needing somewhere to put the keys as you drive? If so this is mental.
I think it's more about a mismatch of systems. Some keys having what I would call Half Keyless. Others having a key on the fob when its kinda pointless.

It's a great idea. Very handy when its convenient. But if you've got one of those cars that doesn't require you to press the fob to open the door but DOES require a key to start the ignition - half keyless so your stuck with using the fob as you might as well keep it handy because you need it to start the car.

Or with mine, everything about the car can be done without a physical key but my key fob has a key thats useless as it's all keyless and button starts.

KungFuPanda

4,332 posts

170 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
Works quite well on my A8. Walk up to the car, put my hand behind the handle and it unlocks a fraction before I pull to open. Press stop/start button to start engine and same button to stop. Lock the car by touching the little square pad on the handle. All while the key stays in my pocket. Also, the car won't lock when it knows the keys are inside the car.

I left my lights on last weekend and got into the car using the key blade which is stored inside the key/ Opened both the boot and driver's door using the traditional keyhole.


stanglish

255 posts

113 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
ashleyman said:
I think it's more about a mismatch of systems. Some keys having what I would call Half Keyless. Others having a key on the fob when its kinda pointless.

It's a great idea. Very handy when its convenient. But if you've got one of those cars that doesn't require you to press the fob to open the door but DOES require a key to start the ignition - half keyless so your stuck with using the fob as you might as well keep it handy because you need it to start the car.

Or with mine, everything about the car can be done without a physical key but my key fob has a key thats useless as it's all keyless and button starts.
Half-keyless - gotcha. That is pointless. Presumably though like others have said you still have a key in your fob because there will bey a lock still (hidden) as a backup.

Full-keyless (entry & start) sounds very useful to me!

rxe

6,700 posts

103 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
stanglish said:
I don't get what the actual issue is.

So you have your keys in your pocket, and you don't have to get them out to open the car - cool.

So you get in your car and you have keyless go as well so you just tap the button and off you go - cool.

So you stop, and tap the button again to turn the engine off - cool.

So you get out of the car and presumably if you go out of range it'll lock again, but that's obviously a little odd so you might want to manually lock it. So you get the key out of your pocket, blip it to lock, then walk away - cool.

What about this do I not understand? Have never used these systems before and have a more povvo spec Fiesta. Is it really all about not wanting to drive with something in your pocket and needing somewhere to put the keys as you drive? If so this is mental.
Problem is when it goes wrong - then it gets really annoying. This example happened to a mum at school....

1) Family pile out of the house, mum forgets key
2) Small child runs back to get key, they're all in a hurry, the class is off on a trip
3) Distracted mum forgets to get key off child, and drives off (can you see where this is going yet?)
4) They all get to school, mum waves off little johnny and returns to car...
5)...which now is a dead lump of metal until the school trip is over.

Variants include "car starts when one person is driving it, but the key is actually with the person saying goodbye next to the car, car doesn't restart at destination".

Similar problems happen at the MOT bay - I've showed up recently only to be told the whole garage is knackered because someone drove their car onto the ramps, wandered off with it running, and now they can't move the car.

The standard approach of sticking something in a slot (be it a key or some token) is very safe indeed - the key is under the control of the driver, and the driver has to take physical action to ensure that the car is off or starting or whatever. This seems to be a technology in search of a problem to solve - I've never noticed that "manual" key fobs are a problem. Back in the day when you had to manually lock all the doors of a car, it was a pain, but now, just pressing a button is not hard.

poing

8,743 posts

200 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
KungFuPanda said:
Works quite well on my A8. Walk up to the car, put my hand behind the handle and it unlocks a fraction before I pull to open. Press stop/start button to start engine and same button to stop. Lock the car by touching the little square pad on the handle. All while the key stays in my pocket. Also, the car won't lock when it knows the keys are inside the car.

I left my lights on last weekend and got into the car using the key blade which is stored inside the key/ Opened both the boot and driver's door using the traditional keyhole.
So all that clever locking stuff and it doesn't have a lights-on warning buzzer?

Although manufacturers are strange sometimes. The Fiesta turns off the lights when you lock the car, excellent because that just means you can leave them turned on safe that they will turn off when you press lock. Still has to have a warning sound to alert you that you've left them on, what's the point in that!

turbotim43

103 posts

219 months

Monday 23rd May 2016
quotequote all
mph1977 said:
Willy Nilly said:
mph1977 said:
ashleyman said:
I have a Golf with keyless.

I don't need the keys to open the car or start the car. Even if the fob's battery died there's no hole for the key to go into.

I still have key in my fob. Want to swap keys?
sure there;s no key hole ? i had access to a Nissan with 'no key hole' through work , if you looked in the manual it told you to pop part of the the front door handle off to reveal a key hole ...
Is that how you get in when there is an electrical failure?
yep or if it had a flat battery ( some what irrelevant as this vehicle had a shoreline and batt conditioner as well as a secondary battery for warning devices and medical fit )
On the golf if you look under the drivers door handle on the fixed part there is a small slot, you put your key in there and lever a plastic cover off revealing a normal key slot, I had to do this a while ago, the remote on my Mk7 golf got confused and wouldn't let me in, unlocked it manually, started it (mine starts with a normal key slot on the column) and it's behaved since