Silly SE/SS question

I too had this question before I got mine. To lock the doors there are these cool little rubber buttons on the door handles and trunk. You simply exit the car and press the button on the door or trunk and the car is locked. You never have to touch your keys or fob. It's great.

 

Hi: I wondered the same thing myself. No, the SE/SS does not automatically lock the doors when you leave. If, however, you touch the door handle as if you were getting into the car, but do not open the door, the SE/SS will re-lock the car after about 30 seconds.
There is a small gray square button on each front door and one on the trunk. Touch one of these when you leave and all doors will be locked. You'll hear a single chime and the parking lights will blink once. The doors with the little squares are "smart". If you touch the handles on either the passenger door or the trunk, the SE/SS will unlock ALL the doors. If, however, you approach the driver's door and touch its handle, only that door will unlock and all the others remain locked. This is a safety feature for (I presume) single women in parking garages, so that the car becomes locked and secure as soon as they enter and lock the driver door.
Have fun, it's a fabulous car.
HUMU

 

You can program the smart entry to open all doors or just the driver door.
I programmed mine to open all doors. But I'm not a single women.

 

Yes. That's usually the way I do it when I'm with someone in my car. I'll just touch their door handle (or the hatch, if it's more convenient) and all doors will be unlocked.

 

Does that work? I've tried locking the doors before when the fob is out of range and it didn't do anything.

Dave.

 

Check the manual, but right after I got the car I remember changing the lock pattern. It was set to unlock only the driver side door when I touched the door handle. Since I am often hauling kids, I reset it to open all doors when I touch the handle. That way we can all get in together.

 

What it'll do if you try to lock the doors via the square button on the doors or hatch, and either a door is still ajar, or your keyfob is in the car (SS/SE only!), it'll beep at you three times, with longer beeps (instead of a quick, short chirp confirming the lock).

-m.

 

The aluminum foil would only work if it were tied to a earth ground, making a Faraday cage.. :idea:

 

There's no way to turn the fob off other than removing the battery from it - the best alternative is to disable the SE/SS system temporarily by pressing the small black button underneath the steering wheel.

Then you can leave the purse inside the car and just manually lock/unlock the car with the remaining remote.

The system can be re-enabled by pressing the button again.

Dave

 

An alternative is to forget about SE on such occasions: You can lock the car from the outside with the regular key even when the fob is in the car. Then you use the same regular key to get back into the car. I did this in order to leave the car running to warm the cab when it was thirty degrees below zero here. (Actually, anything colder than about 15 below.)

 

Well ... that is what I thought as well, but when leaving on a recent trip my son wanted to test this theory (he's 6).

So I currently am driving around with a fob wrapped in a big ball of foil! I'm glad to have the spare key hidden in the car, because I've had to drive SF to LA and back twice in the past two weeks, and I'll be going again this weekend. Because of the stressful circumstances surrounding these trips, I'm afraid I could lose my regular fob entirely. I don't want to deal with that -- at least this way if AAA/Toyota roadside assistance gets me in then I'll be able to drive away ...

Do you think the foil has done the trick? Obviously things are working (the SE/SS functions as normal and expected). Maybe I just picked a dead spot for the fob, and the car would detect it if I put it in the front seat?

 

Guess what? The foil does work!

I had to use my spare key the other morning -- couldn't figure out where I put my keys in the house & was running really late. So I went and grabbed it from the back hatch, where I was keeping it, wrapped in tinfoil.

I had assumed after our discussion here that the SE/SS system didn't see the key because it was in a "blind spot" in the back hatch area. As it turns out, the foil, for whatever reason, really does work.

Sitting in the driver's seat with the fob still in the ball of foil, I couldn't start the car. I unwrapped the fob and started the car immediately. Then to be sure I tried it again (turned the car off, rewrapped, repeated the results). Later, when I found the regular key I verified a 3rd time, in a different location - I rewrapped the fob but had it sitting on the passenger seat and was able to lock the car.

Huh! Surprising but convenient. I have to admit to feeling a bit silly for posting about this (again) but maybe it'll come in handy for someone else.

 

Yes, indeed: you have demonstrated that a Faraday cage does not have to be grounded to function. It merely has to be sufficiently conductive and continuous at the frequencies of interest.

 

delrey, I have something else for you to try. According to Toyota, there are three places you can place the SE/SS fob in the car and not be able to start it:

- In the glovebox
- On top of the instrument panel
- In the box at the bottom of the center stack.

I'm curious if the car is totally blind to a fob in these three locations. If it prevents the car from starting, maybe it would also allow you to lock the doors with the fob inside the car. Obviously the top of the instrument panel wouldn't be a good choice, but maybe you can put the fob in one of the other two places without wrapping it in foil.

 

So you don't think I should keep my extra fob in a ball of foil, huh? ;-)

I did worry that it would get thrown away, so I stashed it in a ziplock bag labelled "Important! Do no throw away!", an put it in the storage cubby in the back. Then it occurred to me that it wouldn't be much fun to climb back there after entering the car with the spare dumb key.

I did experiment based on your comments as soon as I read your posts on Wednesday, but haven't have time to post (or read PC!) until now. Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried the glovebox (various spots) and the car detected the fob there every time. Out of curiousity I tried on top of the instrument panel with the same results.

I emptied my ginger altoids tin and tried popping the fob in there. Perfect! So altoids tins work as Faraday cages - who would have guessed? Oh, Evan would have, right ... now I just need a place to keep my displaced altoids. Maybe in the "Important! Do not throw away!" zip lock bag?