Smartkey Key FOB

Your friend either made that up or his dealer is a liar. There is no charging that takes place in there. (why would you put something in place to recharge a battery that costs less then $2 and only needs replaced once every 3 - 5 years)

 

Well stated. Nothing is recharged and you get 2 key fobs. What may be good to know since it sounds like you are new to the Fob for the Prius, is that there is:
a) A manual key built into the fob that you can get into your vehicle should it not work or the battery is low
b) If you hold the drained battery fob to the START button you can still start your car...They were thinking for sure!

Enjoy and hope this advice proves useful....

Bob

 

Dealers are often a wealth of misinformation.

Tom

 

OK, now I'm confused. Put the fob in where? I understand that there is no slot in the 2010-- so you would have no choice.

 

On the 2010, you hold the fob up to the dash by the button. The manual shows the exact location.

Tom

 

You don't even have to do that unless the battery is dead. Right?

Again, I found the OP's comment confusing because the comment seemed to assume that there is an optional slot.

 

Right. The fob operates in two modes: 1) Active mode, where it uses its internal battery to power a small transmitter, and 2) Passive mode, where it acts like an RFID transponder. In active mode the fob has a fairly long range. As a passive device, it has to get close to the antenna as it is powered by the transmission from the car.

The Gen II had the slot. This is because the Gen II was available with the Smart Key System and with a normal, dumb fob. With the dumb fob, you always had to insert the fob, so it made sense to have a slot. All of the new Gen IIIs come with a Smart Key, so the slot is a bit redundant. You only need the passive system if you have a dead fob battery.

Tom

 

I hardly ever take my fob out of my purse. The best part is that if I leave my purse in the car and touch the door sensor the car does this long beep and won't let me lock the doors. How cool is that?

 

Just don't leave your purse in and try to lock the passenger door. It will let you! (I haven't done it yet with this one, but my Jeep did the same thing with the key in the ignition and I locked the keys in there using the passenger door - oops!)

Robbin

 

You misunderstood dsviv's post.

You have a Prius II, which has the 1 door SKS. She has a prius IV, which has the 3 door SKS. She said the SKS sensor on the passenger door won't lock the car when her purse, containing the key fob, is inside the car.

Since you have a Prius II, you locked the passenger door using the lock button on the inside of the door. That button overrides the SKS system. In other words, you can always lock any of the doors using the button on the inside of the door, regardless of the location of the key fob.

 

The dealers and salesmen are woefully undereducated about the cars they are selling. I was given the instructions for disabling the back-up beep when I purchased my 2010. They don't work for this model. Last night I attended the dealer dinner and I was able to answer more questions as a 2 time owner than the dealer/service people were able to do.