Can anyone give what their solutions are to having a back-up plan for using the SmartKey fob and mechanical key? Since there are two of us using the car the chances of losing a key/fob increases.Also a good place to hide a key on the car? H00kern has a great thread going about cutting keys BTW: Laser cut key cutter - Options? | PriusChat
Okay good! So the scenario is: Go to grocery store and leave key/fob inside of Ben & Jerry's frozen food display. Can't find.. In the meantime the Academy Awards ceremony is madly texting me to arrive and pick-up my award or Carrot Top will do it for me. I go to to my car and get my Hide A Key with the mechanical key from the exterior. Open the door. Get the Altoids box and open it to retrieve the fob. Pop an Altoid into my maw and I arrive in time with great breath! Question is: where to hide the Hide-A-Key on the exterior?
That's something we don't discuss here on PC... Just kidding, you have to be a bit creative with this one...
Nut cap, indeed. The tin foil hat amplifies my connection to my home world and is fashion statement to boot.
I've found that I'm much less likely to lose my key fob because it never leaves my pocket. If it falls out while I'm in the car, the car won't let me lock it in. Just sayin'
I just posted on the "Newbie" forum regarding my concern about leaving my purse in the car with the fob and then touch locking the car. Then, with the fob in my purse, couldn't someone open the door and take car and purse?! Or, would I be locked out? I'm in the habit (to be broken quickly) of leaving my purse my old Camry and locking it while running a short errand.
The car will not lock with the key inside the car. I tested it with someone inside just in case. I get an error buzz. We trained ourselves to hang the keys by the front door so they are easily accessible by anyone about to leave. Every month or so, one of us (usually me) forgets where we left our key. We use the 2nd one hanging by the door until we locate the first one. It's usually found a day later stuck in a seat cushion somewhere. Here's a tip, if you are driving or are switching drivers make sure you have a visual on the key before you shift to D. I dropped my wife off at the front door of our destination and proceeded to park the car far, far away. Hence, why I dropped her off and the kids. As I drove away the car said no key detected because it was in her purse. By then, it was too late. I parked the car and ran to the front door and ran back to the car to lock it. I am OCD about locking things and manually locking the door will cause me anxiety that I locked the key inside despite facts.
This was recently discussed in another forum. On my 2013, you cannot lock the car if a fob is inside with either the remote or door buttons. You CAN lock the car with a fob inside if you use the mechanical key. If a fob is inside the car, it can then only be unlocked with the mechanical key. So if you do this, make sure you don't lose the mechanical key!
Same here. When I am leaving the house, the FOB alone goes straight into my pocket to stay until I get home. Any other keys get chucked into the Prius cupholder.
Thanks for the tips and reassurances. I did not get a mechanical key - the second key looks just like my electronic key. Am I missing something?
The mechanical key is part of the fob. The end of the mechanical key is the ring that attaches to the keyring. There is a button on the side you press to release it from the electronic part. SCH-I535
You can lock a keyfob in the car with another keyfob. The car has to be OFF, and the door handle button is disabled. But the LOCK button on the keyfob works. I suspect that a keyfob inside a locked car is going to be chattering with the locking system, which can't be good for battery life of the keyfob.
Do beware that this no-lockout feature is not perfect. A few readers have found a few spots inside the car where the key system cannot detect a fob, and can thus lock it inside. But these spots are few, generally towards the back. And if no other fob is in the car, it ought to give other warning signs, such as refusing to start because no key is detected, or giving a warning chirp if the fob is moved out of detection range after the car is started.
Each morning, I take the fob out of yesterday's shirt and put it in the lower right pocket of today's shirt, along with my leatherman flair. It never needs to leave that pocket.
I just tried locking a keyfob inside a 2006 Prius and a 2012 Lexus CT200h. If the car is turned ON, I could lock a keyfob inside the car with the mechanical key. If the car is turned OFF, I locked a keyfob inside the car with the mechanical key AND with the LOCK button on another keyfob. The keyfob inside the car wasn't hidden, in fact it had been detected to the degree that the door handle LOCK button is refused with a long beep.
