LOCKED THE SMART KEY IN THE CAR

wow, quite a story. glad he had a happy ending!

unless he had the a/c on, not much need for the battery or engine to run.

mechanical key should have worked, better the a look at that

if it wasn't't a hybrid, it would have just idled until it ran out of gas. no harm, no foul

we use a 'slim jim' although, i have never seen one.

the last time i locked the key in the car, was an 90's chrysler minivan. fortunately the rear 'vent windows were open, and we were able to take a long stick and tap the door unlock button.

two fobs is always a smart idea.

 

Wait, I thought you can not lock the door if a smart key fob is inside of vehicle. How did he managed to lock the door? In old days, I have locked myself out of a car many times. It was so easy. Stop the car, forget to take a key out of cylinder, or take out but left it on a seat, hit power lock button on the door, get out of car and shut the door behind you. I called AAA service then, but many people tried and succeeded wire coat hanger trick back then.

 

strangely, it seems that if the fob is in the right spot inside the car, it will allow you to lock the doors. we have seen it reported a few times here.

 

Not very SMART after all.

 

It is smart, but the short-range radio reception and coverage inside the cabin is not perfect. 'Talented' folks have managed to find a few spots where the fob went undetected.

My spouse has a habit of leaving her fob hidden in a pack or container when we get out for a rest stop. When she leaves the car before me, and I try to lock it with my own fob in my pocket, I sometimes must go on a treasure hunt to find where she hid hers. But at least once, the car didn't alert and we later discovered her fob had been left inside.

 

Well, then maybe smart enough but not perfect all the time. What I don't understand for OP's case is that, with only single fob for the car, the car did not detect the fob being inside yet, car thought the fob was with the driver standing outside of car when he locked the car. Or Hybrid Highlander SKS system works differently? For Prius, I have to have a fob with me outside of car to lock the door using SKS.

 

I don't see anything in to OP suggesting that it was locked with SKS. My Prius can be locked without using SKS.

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On top of that, could the running Highlander have been set to auto-lock, believing the driver was with the fob inside? Thus, keeping the doors locked for protection of the occupants from outside riff-raff. I do believe that even on the Prius, once locked from the inside or by an auto-lock mechanism that has not auto-unlocked, SKS and outside fobs are disabled, the car won't listen to them.

 

I have to admit, ever since I got Prius with SKS, I have NEVER used power lock button on the door. That method of locking door still exist. LOL. Does newer Toyota auto lock function even when car is parked? I don't know about my Prius but for my older Toyota Sienna, it only engaged after car reaches certain speed like 10mph.

 

I don't recall all the options, and the Highlander may be different, especially if built for a different geography.

The auto-unlock has multiple choices. Mine defaulted to unlocking all doors when put in Park, but I had it changed to not unlock anything. Front seat passengers just pull their door lever, back seat passengers must roll their lock switch before pulling their lever or remind a front seat person to push the unlock-all button. This way, outsiders / carjackers / fuel station purse snatchers don't have a path in through an unoccupied door. Or even through an occupied door that an occupant chooses to not open.

For the running Highlander, I'm also imagining a possibility that the driver may have hit an inside lock before closing the door. Combined with a car programmed to not respond to any outside fob while the ignition is on, assuming such fobs can be valid only when the ignition is off ...

 

Weird, when my wife and I go out I can not lock her purse in the car because she has a key FOB in her purse.

Maybe as the batteries go dead the range shortens and that could allow you to lock a FOB inside?

The dealer showed us how to take an FOB with nearly dead batteries and hold it up to the Start Button to get the car to run. Evidently if you need to do that you need to get some batteries ASAP...

 

Not weird, that is how is it supposed to work. And it does work 99+% of the time, but not a perfect 100%.

That may be a factor too, but I don't believe it is the whole story. The short-range radio antenna coverage of the car interior is not perfect.

This also works with dead and even removed batteries, not just 'nearly dead' batteries. It uses a separate RFID method that doesn't use or need any battery in the fob/tag, just like retail anti-theft tags and numerous other devices.

This method also works when you turn SKS off.

 

Oh, cool!

 

Then, this must be a case of SMART key gone DUMB along with auto lock seems to be not functioning the way it should be.

 

By the description I'm going to admit that I'm not even exactly sure what happened here or what the BIG concern is outside of the fob being locked- somehow in the vehicle. Which is a big concern but...

If the vehicle is "on", without a lot of accessories or AC...then the gasoline engine is only going to run to keep the battery charged. It won't use a lot of gasoline.

I also don't quite understand-

He shouldn't have to do that.
A big part of the beauty of a regular hybrid is that it charges with "normal" usage. In some situations people force charge their HV batteries but just leaving it running? With the idea that it benefits the battery pack? I think is false.

There are precious few situations where leaving your hybrid running is something you need or want to do. Depending on where it is being parked, leaving it running can be dangerous. Carbon Monoxide kills. I would never leave a hybrid running, with the idea that the engine is benefiting the Hybrid battery by charging it, in my unattended absence.
In most cases, your hybrid should be running when it is being driven, and turned off, when it is being parked or NOT being driven.

I actually think leaving the vehicle running...is the bigger mistake or problem than accidentally leaving the fob in the vehicle.

People have died because they left their vehicles running. It's not a good practice, it can be dangerous.

 

It works for the reason your chipped credit cards don't need a battery. When SKS was an option, the Prius had a slot on the dash for the fob.

Since Tesla wants people to use their phone as the key, the key that comes with the Model 3 is just a card that needs to be held to the door. This doesn't just save on costs, but also the potential health and environmental harm having those button batteries out in wild can cause. Tesla will provide a traditional fob for those that ask for it.

Sounds like he needs to use make a copy of the mechanical key, and hide it on the car somewhere.

The car was set the Ready. The system assumes someone is in the car if it is detecting the fob at that point.

At least since the gen2, people were doing this on purpose to provide A/C for their dogs. They were just taking the mechanical key with them.

There could be a translation issue here. Planning to just be a short time,the driver could have left the car on to avoid the start up penalty. I'm sure that has been done before by others.

Ah, okay. He really doesn't need to do that for cars these days. We sometimes put less than 3000 miles on our 2001 Sable in a year, and had no issue from just starting the car up and driving off. It could sit for weeks at a time. The only extra care I took because of that was to charge up the 12 volt once a month.