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Transmitter key oddities.
Last night my mom was at the gas station putting gas in my car and she called me at work and said the car wouldn't start, that the ignition knob wouldn't turn and that "KEY" kept flashing on the instrument panel. She was wondering what was wrong or what that meant and if there was something she did wrong so that the car wouldn't start since it started up fine when she left with it to come get me. (Don't have license plates yet so no parking rights). Anyway, I told her to take the knob out of the ignition and pop the key out of the transmitter to use that to see if it worked and it started no problem.
When she got to my work I turned the car off and tried it with the transmitter and it started just fine. This was really strange. So, on the way home we stopped at the same gas station again, which was now closed. I stopped at the same pump where she got gas at and turned off the car. I tried to restart it and it didn't work. I had to put in the actual key before it would turn on. I pulled forward to the next pump and tried to restart it with the transmitter and it worked just fine. for some reason when we were completely covered by the canopy the transmitter didn't work, so something was interefering with the signal. It was really strange. |
Well of course when the canopy is over your car the aliens can't keep track of it. They also run into that same problem when orbiting around Uranus...LOL j/k. :yelrotflm
That's a weird problem though, I've never run into anything like that. |
Welcome to the Twilight Zone...
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how freaky!
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Was it a mobile gas station with "Speed Pass"? (or something similar)?
That uses the same technology as the auto key in most cars (RFID). I've never heard of it interfearing before, but it is possible. |
It was a Chevron. I don't know if it has a speed pass or anything like that. In Oregon we aren't allowed to pump our own gas.
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Man I cant get over how weird that is. In real life, only I am allowed to pump my own gas.
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Oregon and New Jersey.. what an odd pair of states who can't figure out how to allow their citizens to pump their own fuel!
I think I'll stay as far away as I can. Nobody touches my car, except me. :) |
that doesnt make ANY SENSE as to why you guys cant pump your own gas! All that leads to is higher gas prices...
OMG, I can only imagine what gas prices would be like in CA if we couldn't pump our own gas!! |
there are sensors in each corner of the car and they form a "box". the car looks to see if the card is within the box . if it is the car will start. if it isnt or there is some form of interference that blurs a sde of the box ( so it cant tell the position of the card) it wont start. youll have to use the key. they must have a hot spot under there
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I'm pretty sure it is related to the Speed Pass sensors at the gas station interferring with the Intelligent Key sensors. They work off the similar technologies. Here's an interesting related article:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060504-6750.html Steal David Beckham's car with a laptop 5/4/2006 11:02:31 AM, by Nate Anderson Stealing a US$100,000 car with little more than a laptop sounds like the stuff of which long-running urban legends are made. Unfortunately for owners of US$100,000 vehicles everywhere, it's true. David Beckham, the English soccer football star now swinging his ponytail for Real Madrid, found this out the hard way when his armored BMW X5 was stolen by Spanish thieves (strangely enough, it wasn't even the first time). The thieves apparently used a laptop to pop the locks and start the vehicle's engine, then drove away while Beckham was at lunch. This isn't just a problem for people married to Posh Spice. More modestly priced cars like the Toyota Prius also use fob-based ignition systems that do not require physical keys to operate. Armed with a laptop, the proper software, and a radio transmitter, thieves can remotely unlock and then start such cars. Though such cases are still infrequent, they do happen. A Czech car thief told the Prague Post about his own lifelong experiences in the business, pointing to Nicolas Cage's Gone in 60 Seconds as an especially inspirational film. Radko Souček began his career pilfering cheap Škodas and Italian imports, which he claims could be stolen with nothing more than a pair of scissors. As cars went high-tech, Souček was forced to follow. Unfortunately for Souček, the laptop he bought and used to break into certain cars actually helped to convict him. When police finally arrested him, they found information on his laptop about the cars he had stolen. "You could delete all the data from your laptop, but that's not good for you because the more data you have, the bigger your possibilities," he says. Such stories will no doubt spur a cat-and-mouse game between car manufacturers and thieves. Before getting too worried about your Prius in the parking lot, though, it's worth remembering that the vast majority of stolen cars have mechanical locks and ignitions. The move to keyless fobs is not necessarily a move away from a secure system, but it does come with a new set of challenges. Stay tuned to this space for the inevitable report on the theft of Beckham's new Audi Q7. |
^^^^ that is crazy!
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