Late night wonderings - "Keyless" key fobs

"themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles" (themanwithsauce) 09/02/2020 at 00:35 • Filed to: None

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Watching some behind the scenes clips of TG and came across this one from the supercar test back in season 18. Its been a few years since then, and I started to wonder - am I one of the few people who doesn’t take their keyless “fob” out of their pocket when driving a keyless car? I used to hear all the time about how people feel the need to put it somewhere and then complain that it gets lost. Are we past that now? Can we all agree that you don’t need to do that and if you lose them by doing that it’s your own fault?

jminer > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 00:45

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When I drive my wife’s RAV4 with a fob it usually stays in my pocket.

On a related note, in 2010 I spent a few months working as a Valet and this was just around when these were showing up in luxury cars. There were a lot of people we had to chase down as they left the car running with the key in their pocket or purse as they walked away.

onlytwowheels > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 01:10

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I have never owned a keyless fob vehicle. Have no idea how inserting a key and turning and ignition switch became such a difficult task. There’s a certain mechanical pleasure that comes from this that you will never achieve by pushing a simple button, much like the one on your laptop.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 01:20

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“Have no idea how inserting a key and turning an ignition switch became such a difficult task”. It was never about being “difficult” it was about avoiding lawsuits -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > jminer 09/02/2020 at 01:22

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I guess I’ve never had my car valeted so I haven’t experienced this yet, but I also have only had keyless ignition on stick shift cars so I purposely don’t get them valeted.

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 01:24

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That’s one of the things I love about my FX45. It’s wireless so I can keep the fob in my pocket, push the button on the door handle to enter and start it without removing anything from my pocket, but it’s still has an actual twisty ignition cylinder. And if the fob battery dies I push a button and the key slides out of the fob and into the door/ignition. Perfect blend.

My brother in law has a 335i and has to stick the fob into the dash to start the car. My sister in law has a Golf and has to use an actual key. We were actually discussing this and clowning on each other about it at my wifes birthday party a couple of weeks ago. The FX won the discussion.

fintail > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 01:31

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I didn’t realize anyone would take the fob out of their pocket. I’ve had several MBs with keyless-go, never been tempted.

It’s something you become accustomed to fast - makes the fintail seem like a real vintage experience with its old timey key and all.

onlytwowheels > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 01:39

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Just because GM and some Fords had some poorly built switches i s not a good enough reason to go push button. Since 1949, a keyed switch served as the standard, and it has been darn good for manufacturers around the globe.

Much like that gear selector dial and electric parking brake switch, it just seems pointless. Why is the mechanical sensation of moving a gear se lector lever or pulling up the parking brake lever no longer pleasurable?

Or should the question be, why are any of these desirable?

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 02:20

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It’s really convenient to not have to retrieve something from my pocket to go from outside of my unstarted, locked car, to inside of my car and start it up and go. So there’s that. I’ve had multiple friends and relatives have their ignition barrels or keys get warped or damaged over time. I myself once owned a jetta which had the well-known ignition switch problem of its own so randomly while driving all my electrics would shut off and I’d have to drive a manual transmission jetta one-handed while keeping the ignition switch engaged so I had headlights. So no, this isn;t just “GM and some Fords”. It’s prevelant in the industry that those are known weak points on many cars.

Now, is keyless ignition foolproof and absolutely trouble free? Absolutely not, there are many minor things that need to be improved on most keyless systems right now. But don’t for one second think that the old keyed ignition system is a superior technology from a safety front. We just didn’t raise a stink back then because no one had anything better or safer. Ditto the old gear selectors with the pattern in a straight line. I’ve seen it, and you;ve seen it, where people shift from park into reverse or drive into neutral or something else they don’t mean to, and chaos ensues. I’m not arguing about feel, I’m arguing that no one sued an automaker for millions of dollars because “I can’t enjoy the feel of turning an ignition key”.

onlytwowheels > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 02:41

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Safety was never implied towards the keyed switch, and all switches fail. Many ignition switch failures are due to excessive wear caused too much weight from ridiculously heavy key rings. I’m a firm believer in the only key on the ring that holds the ignition key, is the ignition key, and I’ve done it this way for more than 40 years.

As a teen, my best friend used to have the  key ring for his 1971 Firebird maxed out with a pocket knife, bottle opener, rabbit’s foot and at least a dozen keys. Within the first year of owning that car, it was no longer necessary to turn the ignition off to pull the key out.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 02:52

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The rental car company sure seemed perturbed when I went back to the terminal the other day in Dallas... with the dumb fob still in my pocket.

These are the worst “innovation” of the last 20 years, (at least for those of us who could easily be in and out of a dozen cars in a week) but we’ll agree to disagree.

The Carbon Monoxide poisonings aren’t great news either.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > jminer 09/02/2020 at 02:53

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Ditto the rental car check-in... these are absolutely annoying- with little perceivable benefit.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 02:55

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Yeah, there’s nothing like the joy of finding the fob in your pocket after a 20 minute ride back to the Main Terminal from the Rental Car Center either.

It happens.  A lot.  The Rental Car companies hate this “innovation”.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 02:57

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“Safety” always gets thrown around a lot— With seeming obliviousness to the renewed epidemic of carbon monoxide poisoning. People pull into the garage, exit the vehicle with the fob and the car stays running. People die. It’s sad.

IN the “olden days” if you exited the car with the “key” the damn car  was OFF. Not anymore.

Again, this “innovation” is all downside.

onlytwowheels > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 09/02/2020 at 03:05

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Foot on the brake, gear lever moved to park. T he key couldn’t be removed unless the gear lever was placed in park. S ome manual transmission vehicle required the vehicle to put in reverse before the key could be removed, like my Saab Viggen for example.  

Where’s the redunda nt safety features of a fob, gear dial and push button?

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 09/02/2020 at 03:06

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I don’t see how forgetting the fob is any different than removing the key and forgetting to turn that in either. Am I missing something here? I’ve genuinely struggled with trying to understand the counter arguments since they always seem to also apply to keys, it;s just that people need to take a tiny bit of effort to relearn an old habit.

As for carbon monoxide - That’s not a new issue...Actually, modern cars often have shut-off limits for the engine idling to attempt to avoid that. Old keyed ignitions didn’t. I had this argument a few years ago where someone pointed out that very thing and when I said “Well then just make the auto-shutoff 5 minutes instead of 15 or 20" and people got mad at that too so..... I don’t know what makes people happy on this argument but apparently nothing will so whatever, I guess.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 09/02/2020 at 03:12

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“People pull into the garage, exit the vehicle with the fob and the car stays running. People die. It’s sad”

Hang on a minute - my Ford shuts off if I leave the vehicle for more than like 3 minutes with it on. ANd it SCREAMS at you if you attempt to do so. If I left my old, keyed car with the key in the ignition it didn’t give a shit. Not only that, if I leave my Ford with the ignition on it automatically shuts off after 15 minutes. Old keyed ignitions wouldn’t do that.

Maybe some cars did that at one point but don’t act like a) this is a widespread problem and b) it was safer with older cars. Carbon monoxide poisioning via car was/is a common suicide technique because of the way old cars worked. I think you;re just proving why we’re moving away from physically keyed ignition systems now. ANd why soon internal combustion engined cars won’t be allowed to idle for more than 3 minutes without a lot of confirmational presses of buttons or throttle or something.

Chariotoflove > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 07:16

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One of my keys is a credit card sized transmitter. I just leave it in my chair pouch underneath in my wallet. I never think about it anymore; I just get in my car.

The other key fob sits on the key board in the hall in case my wife needs it.

SiennaMan > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 07:36

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I always thought these things had more to do with being cheaper to manufacture, “more secure” since there can be more different combinations and in the case of gear selectors and parking brakes , saving weight.

Saving weight and lowering manufacturing costs I thought was also why they started supplying a can of tire inflator instead of a proper spare tire..

SiennaMan > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 09/02/2020 at 07:42

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I hate how when I roll up some place where I want to be insured that the car is locked that there’s basically no way to lock the doors on one of these. On the bright side, that was only a problem I had renting cars to drive to meetings and conferences and that sort of thing won’t happen until at least spring of '22 if even then..

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > SiennaMan 09/02/2020 at 08:26

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I think the gear selector and parking brake are more to do with packaging. You free up space in the center console with the knob selector and electric park brake and they can be put pretty much anywhere.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > SiennaMan 09/02/2020 at 09:03

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I was led to understand that, like electric power steering systems, it was also to “prepare for the age of driverless cars” or “automated driver assist” or something like that...  So, anything “mechanically controlled” was being phased out.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 09:04

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There are none.  The “START” button was always in that category for me... “Why is this any better?”

CobraJoe > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 09:50

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There’s a certain mechanical pleasure that comes from this that you will never achieve by pushing a simple button, much like the one on your laptop.

I’ve owned and driven cars with push buttons, without push buttons, with key fobs that are used as “keys”, with old metal keys in old metal tumblers....

And, w ell, I don’t really care how the car starts.

Sure, a mechanical tumbler might feel  more tactile than just stabbing a button, but that is just the smallest piece in the “driving sensations” puzzle for me.  I’m far more interested in everything after it’s running.  

SiennaMan > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 09/02/2020 at 10:20

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 That explanation would make a lot of sense too..

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > SiennaMan 09/02/2020 at 10:34

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BMW’s kind of led the charge.

I rent a lot of cars and I find it refreshing to actually get a physical key instead of some golfball sized lump I’ll throw into my bag and forget until I get to the gate— or my plane change at O’Hare.

I’m serious.  The rental car companies HATE this “innovation”.  Every single check-in clerk grumbles if you bring it up.  Especially since the fob (in my bag===  about to go to the terminal) keeps the fuel gauge and mileage live.  In the old days you needed the key for that stuff.

onlytwowheels > SiennaMan 09/02/2020 at 11:25

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The weight savings theory can be debunked just by the fact that cars are bigger and heavier, and growing. They get more weight added with all the screens, speakers, electric assist motors, glass panels, etc.

I’m sure it is easier to produce a vehicle with a switch, connect it to a harness that activates a servo, versus levers with linkage and/or cables.

SiennaMan > onlytwowheels 09/02/2020 at 17:39

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Easier to produce (read cheaper to produce) seems to me to be a tidy highly plausible explanation.