not meaning to be cavalier and yes, my Prius key (like ALL my car keys i have carried in the past 20 or so years) rides alone. well actually my LEAF key rides with a few charge system FOBs but no other keys. either way, i have to investigate why we have an even split of people who say we can and people who say we cant. i of course am in the correct camp who say we cant
Update: my husband retrieved my keys, and my smart key is working fine. There are no low battery warnings when the Prius starts up. He pointed out that we've noticed before that when the smart key is placed in certain areas of our back seat, we get a "Key Not Detected" message (totally forgot about this)...so it does seem that there are blind spots with the SKS (maybe this is only true with some individual cars, for who knows what reason), and I guess my keys just happened to be in one of those spots.
Glad to hear you didn't have to smash a window open to get your keys back but it would have been fun though me thinks...=)
interesting. can you describe these dead areas? would love to have a stash place to put the SO's keys. its a constant hassle every time we are together (not an issue in the LEAF) because she ALWAYS brings her purse but almost never brings it inside...
I'll pay more attention in the future when it happens to see if it's always in the same spots and where exactly they are. But my keys this time were resting right next to where the seat belt buckles for the space behind the passenger's seat.
Maybe you guys in this thread can help me...twice now I've opened my passenger side door with my hand, unlocking all doors, and placed my belongings on the passenger seat, including my keys, and shut the door to go around to the other side and get in. Twice now, the doors have automatically locked with my keys inside! I understand the automatically locking of the doors as a safety issue...but shouldn't it detect that my keys are inside? This cannot be recreated on the drivers side. It's only when opening all of the locks on the passenger side. Also, it only happens if I take longer than a minute to get around to the drivers side. So frustrating.
your keys must be sitting in one of the dead areas between sensor zones. I cant tell you how many times I could not lock the door with anything but the mechanical key because the SO had her key in her purse in the car.
In regards to the OP. You can lock one FOB in the Prius with another FOB. You must use the physical lock button on the second FOB. You cannot, however, lock a FOB in the car by using the SKS. In that case you get a long beep. I do this almost weekly in our 2012 II.
True (at least for 2012+). I found that out one day when the car kept beeping at me and failing to lock the door via using the SKS or interior lock button. After a minute or so, I figured out that my wife left her purse in the car with her key in it. She's done multiple times with the purse in the front seat and hatch area with the same effect. When this happens, I have to use the button on the fob to lock instead.
This is what I am guessing happened to OP - husband used the fob button to lock the door. I realized this just last week when my wife wanted to leave her purse in the car while we picked up ice cream. I walked around to the passenger side to get my daughter out and hit the fob button (I only have 1-door sks), door locked, I didn't give it a second thought. Came back, grabbed the driver door handle...nothing happened. I had to use the fob button to unlock it.
That doesn't seem right. With any car that's locked unlocked via some sort of fob (including the Prius), if you just unlock it, but don't open any doors, after a preset time, say 30 seconds, it relocks. This is to avoid accidental unlockings. But, if you open a door after using the fob (or hand on the handle with some Prius) to unlock, it will not subsequently relock itself. Unless?
You're right. It absolutely shouldn't happen. There should be no way it locks itself with the key fob in the car. But, it did. Twice. Two visits from AAA. Again, it won't do it when I open the drivers side door handle, just the passenger side, which unlocks all doors.
Hard to do, but possible. I think I have locked my wife's purse in the car with a key fob in the purse, but usually the car won't lock in that situation. The bad news is that you can probably get in with one of those tools the police use to open doors, but aside from that you will need the other fob or a locksmith to open the car.
