How far can you drive without a key fob?

2010 is the same.

David (aka Blind Guy)

 

as long as you can stand that beeping

 

To play around with the concept and not get stranded, start the
car and then wrap the fob up completely in tinfoil. Then drive
away, go shopping, turn the car off, try to turn it back on,
etc.
.
_H*

 

I think the car should have a user-option setting to loose power (and possibly "alarm") after "N" minutes (or miles) without the fob.

But, might a query to the fob every N minutes drain the fob's battery too much?

 

A good "valet" setting perhaps, via a user-set password, would be
to enable only 2 (or N) miles of driving, even with the fob.

As it is, there is no special "valet" mode, right?

 

I have a pretty funny story about this. About two years ago, I was driving my old prius, and I was out with my best friend, his girlfriend and my wife. The girls decided to call it a night, so I dropped them off at my house and we proceeded to the French Quarter. When we got there, I parked the car and we hung out in the French Quarter for about 4 hours. When we got back into the car, I pressed the brake and pushed the power button. Nothing. I couldn't believe it, but the key was in my wife's purse when we dropped her off, and there was no way to start the car. Even worse, we were in a pay by the hour lot. I had to call her about 15 times before she finally woke up. She had no car at the time, so my dad (who live 20 miles from my house) had to wake up and go pick her up and then drive another 10 miles to bring me the key. Moral of the story: Make sure you have the key before you drive off.

 

Hobbit,
Does the tinfoil negate the sensor in the fob?I'm
thinking of hiding my extra fob in the car after I have an
extra key made at the locksmith to carry in my wallet.Thus,
if I lose my main fob,I can get into the car and retrieve my other
fob.

P.S. I'm out of tinfoil as of this post

 

YES!!!

that is really the only practical way to keep an "extra key" on the vehicle in case of emergency.

it's unfortunate that the SKS Fob is so expensive to duplicate (i.e. approx. published retail replacement price = $180 part + $90 programming), otherwise we would all have several duplicates made...

 

i had a 66 chevelle that worked the same way. in fact, back in MI, i started the car on a winters morning and did what i normally did, ran back into the house, but the door was locked, so went back out to car, pulled key out of ignition, ran into house, did what i normally did and ran out with keys sitting on table. jumped in took off, realized what i had done when i got all the way into town, turned around and of course, being 17 and as prepared as most 17 year olds, ran out of gas, half way home. (i had a job as busboy and was paid tips daily... back then two dollars a day for gas was plenty, even in car that only got 12 miles per gallon)

only thing i got out of the experience was that it really sucked to have to walk 3 miles in December!!

 

I think my dealer said that they charge $750 for a replacement fob.

 

$249... 170 for fob, 79 to program or vise versa

 

nineinchnail, you're lucky! After 4 hours in the French Quarter, you probably shouldn't have been driving anyway.

 

Lol. It wasn't one of "those" kind of nights. Cabs are too cheap for me to risk my life.

 

, but not cheap enough to keep me from waking up my wife and mother in the early morning hours.

but seriously, I just arrived at work 32 miles from home turned off my car and then could not find the key. Apparently, after I warmed up the car and defogged the windows, and then when I decided to go check www.tripcheck.com to see what traffic was looking like, I must have laid the key down my my Home PC. Have a call in to the wife to look and confirm the key is there, but she is not calling back, so I am about to go scour the parking lot.

Think I'll start a pole, How many people have been stranded more than walking distance away from their car, and share story if you like.

 

Re: How far can you drive without a key fob?

About 45,000 miles so far in my 09 Sierra...

There's a spare key fob in a 'key vault' for my G3---for which I have no key, so if my fob ever gets lost/stolen/dropped in a storm drain---etc, then....if it is not already in run mode, my G3 becomes a 3200 pound paper weight until one of the folks from Fleet Ops comes and rescues me. I'll get paid for it, so....no harm no foul.

IF I ever decide to become a Prius owner instead of an operator, my intentions are to get a third "smart" key programmed for the car before I agree to take delivery (along with a promise to muffle the reverse beeper to single beep mode.) I'll place the third key fobby thingy inside the car with the battery removed, and tie wrap the metal keylet to an undisclosed exterior fitting.
Quite frankly, I'd pay more for the car if I could delete the "smart" key feature altogether, and stick to the 'transponder-in-a-key' feature that I currently enjoy in both of my other cars and on my Harley.

Interestingly enough...my dumb old $16,000 Harley has a somewhat smarter "smart key" fob, which can be overridden by entering a 5-digit passcode into the ECU via the blinker switches. It also has an a feature that will disable the motor if the bike tips over or becomes inverted (something else I wish my G3 had, juuuuust in case I encounter a roll-over crash!)

Ain't technology grand?

 

I love that feature on the Harley! But, like idiots, most of us probably don't know the 5 digit passcode, either. In fact, my buddy left his keyfob in his bedroom above his garage one night when we went for a ride. He called his wife to bring him the keyfob after it wouldn't start when we went to head back, and neither of us thought to use the passcode. :doh:

 

I (re)set the pass code into my ECU the day after I bought my bike...and I have a paper copy of how to enter the code with my paperwork under the seat (minus the actual code of course! )
I also have a copy of the metal key inside one of my rear blinkers...for those rare times that I lock the forks.
Ride safe!