Weird Gen 4 Key FOB Stories...Duh?

Someone posted - not sure whether Gen 3 or 4 - that they drove to work, spouse swapped to driver's seat and drove home. Only to realise that their spouse still had the keys in his pocket. It continued to work without them. Can't remember the end of the story.

 

The car won't stop when it loses the signal from the fob. it will carry on until you shutdown. However you won't be able to start the car again, or maybe get in the car.

It has to work like this because the battery in the fob could run down while you're driving the car and it would be unsafe for the car to just stop.

My wife did this on her Miata and she didn't notice until she came back to her car and found she couldn't start it. Then she had to call me to rescue her with the spare key - we never found the key so it cost $400 to get a new one :-(

kevin

 

13 years and 5 toyota hybrids, never had a weird fob story. but we keep the fobs on our person.

 

Well, I would say I never had an odd story with my 4th Gen but my brother used to have an 08 Camry hybrid with the key fob and several times, we would go river tubing and have to leave the Key FOB with the car and take the dumb key with us and the car used to beep and sqawk at us and if someone knew how to open the trunk, they could have grabbed his key and gone. Since I keep by FOB in my pocket, it would be hard for me to leave it on top of the car. I can confirm, as long as the car is started (ready) and not shut off, you could drive the car till it runs out of gas without the FOB being in the car. I included how to disable the FOB in case one needs to leave the FOB in the car or the trunk.

 

not with a fob but with a full brita water pitcher on a road trip one time. we were getting weird looks pulling out of the motel car park and people were madly gesticulating to us but were we're waving them off saying "yeah yeah we know we know. there's a huge sideswipe on our passenger side" (cos we were in a wreck the night before. ) we got a few blocks down the road trying to figure out the sound before it suddenly hit me "s--t! slow down gently and pull to the side" i couldn't reveal all to the driver for fear that it would shock him into jamming brakes and watching our pitcher take off right in front of us ...good times


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I worry about losing the $$ fob every work day. I have three jobs plus outdoor activities and change clothes numerous times. Always juggling the key, wallet, work stuff etc from pocket to jacket to . . . . One day I lost the key fob at one of my jobs. freak out! I contacted HR and put the APB. After hours of posting notices, searches, et al my key was found in the woman's restroom. I am a male school teacher. Very odd. Got my fob back, but never figured what happened.

I wish the need for a fob/key could be eliminated altogether. Why not use a fingerprint sensor, or retinal scan, or something so we wouldn't have to carry a key?

 

It's coming. Most likely next I sort-of think is something like a FOB APP on your smart phone, one less thing to worry about - except your phone battery.

In a TV episode talking about connected houses, it envisioned you just walk from the house to your car, and depending on how you've programmed it, it can lock your house as your car unlocks. Your car recognizes your SmartPhone like it does a FOB. As you drive out, the roller-door closes automatically, the gate locks. Reverse it all for coming home - you don't touch a key ever more. And your A/C, lights and other functions tie into the programming.

 

Except for the car/fob part, I've got that capability in my house today.

 

One approach would be to make multiple mechanical key copies that you carry with you. Take the battery out of a fob, and leave it inside the car. Use a mechanical key to lock/unlock the door, and hold the batteryless fob next to the POWER button to start the car. Not as convenient a just keeping a fob in your pocket, but safer if you keep losing the fob...

 

I do this with my second fob - it's in a plastic bag in the rear boot with the battery removed. The mechanical key is taped to the body somewhere, I won't tell you where. If the main fob were ever lost I'm not stranded.

 

I checked out that capability for my home - but it hasn't really reached "affordable" here - I've deferred it for a year or 2. Who knows - smartphones may be extinct by then - a chip in your wedding ring, an implanted chip - or in false teeth!!!

 

It does seem that the new trend is for smart wearables, either in the fabric of clothes or heel of the shoes. I'm sure I read something about shoes that generate small voltages whenever impacting the floor so as to produce a charge for miniature devices being developed.

Me, I still prefer steam!

 

I read somewhere on here that there's a way to disable the fob without removing the battery and re-enable it just by pushing a button. It's on page 178 of the 2016 owner's manual. This would be easier and have the same effect as removing the battery.

 

The advantage of removing the battery is that it can't go dead and corrode everything around it. Hopefully a batteryless emergency fob is something you'll never have to use. It will just stay hidden and ignored. But that also means that you wont even know when the battery goes bad and needs to be replaced. Ignore a battery for too long and it spills its guts all over the expensive electronics...