Let's say i am standing outside of the car and my wife gets in and drives away without the FOB. Will the car turn off when she gets out of the range of the FOB, or will it be fine until she turns it off? Just curious. Ken
There is an oscilator inside the cab of the car and the fob must be detected by that particular oscilator or it won't start. If you do start the car with the fob in range and drive off there will be some beeping for a few seconds then the car will keep going. Once you shut down, however, you must have the fob to restart.
It will be fine until she turns it off. That assumes it was already running when she got in. If you were standing outside with the key when she attempted to start the car, it would not have started. It is smart enough to know the key is in the car when the button is pushed. If you get car-jacked, they will be able to take the car, but wherever they turn it off is where it will stay.
It's smart enough to detect that it's in the car?? What if the FOB is in my wife's purse in the corner of the back seat compared to the FOB being right outside the driver side window. In this example the FOB would be closer to my wife in the outside position rather than the purse position, but you're saying it won't start in the latter case? Interesting.
You can test when it will and won't work. There is a little red LED on the FOB that blinks when the car can be started. Mine starts blinking as soon as I cross the door threshold. I've never thrown it into the back seat or trunk for a test, and the car isn't handy at the moment. Give it a try!
3-5 feet for the exterior door oscillators, less for the inside oscillator.. A bit further maybe for sensing and I think Toyota recommends keeping it 15ft+ from the door.
Yes! The Prius is a smart car. You can try this, turn on the car (READY). Take the fob with you, step out and close the door. You'll see a yellow light on the dash. Looks like a key with exclamation sign on it.
Ken, The SKS is very very good, very very simple to use and very very convenient and safe. I strongly urge you to reactivate the system and play with it. I'd bet that even your technology phobic wife will come to love it when she learns she can open the car while her arms are full of groceries without having to unload her purse to get to the keys. I go weeks without removing my keys from the pocket of my coat sometimes. I think it's kinda sad that your salescreature didn't do a better job showing you how convenient and safe and easy to use the SKS really is. In my mind it's my single favorite 'luxury' on the Prius and I just can't imaging buying another car without it ever again. This'll be almost like an early X-mas present for your wife!
The only problem is that I'm starting to expect all locks, either on my wife's Windstar or our house, to open like that. :lol:
I just did this last night. I was installing my new mud flaps on the car and had started it to listen to the radio but also to allow the battery to recharge if it gets low. Then I went inside to change clothes and left the key in my room while I went back to my car. Then I got in and from READY I put it in drive and instead of driving the car stayed in nuetral. I couldn't put it in reverse or anything!! I rolled into the middle of our road before I realized what was going on and I had to flash my hazards and run inside to get the key to get it out of the road. So my assumption is that the car will not drive off once the key gets out of range. I'd bet that if the key isn't inside the car, since it can sense this, that the car won't get out of nuetral or park unless the key is inside the car.
There's something I haven't heard tested! I know someone said he turned his car over to his wife, and she drove it away no problem, but what you are saying is if she had put it in park she would have been out of luck. We'll have to try that!
Also, to you who may have looked at your FOB and are saying "What LED?", the location isn't visible unless it's blinking. If you hold the FOB with the buttons up and the panic button at the bottom, it is on the case to the right of the 'lock' icon. If you want to test the range, know this: The LED is only a range test -- it blinks for only 30 seconds, after which the FOB will still allow the car to be started. Also, it won't start blinking until you open the driver's door, then it will blink every 5 seconds for those 30 seconds, after which you must open the driver's door to get it to blink again. Mine works everywhere in the interior to the front side of the hatch area, although I don't think I'll be putting my key there.
I just tested this twice, and my '05 still shifts without the key in the car. It didn't notice the FOB was missing until I closed the driver's door, but as soon as I did, I got the complaint that the key wasn't in the car. However, the car still shifted into drive and reverse. Are you sure you didn't pass through neutral slowly after engaging drive, instead of just letting the shifter fall back to home by itself?
