2nd copy of car keys and fob?

How many of you carry a 2nd copy of your car keys and fob, when you're in town?

When you go out of town?

Before I had a fob, I carried a second car key for 10 or 20 years, but I stopped a while ago. I have a spare housekey and carkey buried in my yard somewhere, but I've never trusted magnetic keyholders for cars. I thought either it would fall off or someone would find it, since there are so few good places to put it. So I carried the dupe in my pocket.

Reply to
micky
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Never carry a dupe. If travelling with my wife, she has a second key. Trusted neighboer has key to the house to get spare key if required.

Don't need a fob - but the car has keyless entry so IF we lock the keys in, the code opens the door. The truck is a different story. No electric locks. The only time I've locked the keys in the truck other than on my driveway at home (second key redilly available) I luckily left the cab back widow unlatched and was able to get in by unbolting the cap from the box and reaching in through that back window. Luckily I had tools in the back of the truck. Midnight, miles from nowhere - sell phone as a flashlight

Reply to
clare

I think it is impossiable to lock the keys in the car I have. To lock it (you have to have the FOB near the car) just touch a spot on the door handle. To open, just grab the handle. Trunk the same way to unlock it,just press a button o the trunk. The fob has a key in it,but it is sort of an electronic key so difficult to duplicate even if I wanted to.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

Well, I've got a 2004 Chrysler car and even for my previous 2000, it was expensive to make dupes. The price has gone down a lot and finding them has gotten much easier.. It was $16 for 2 keys, and $6 apiece to cut them. I asked about programming then and he said "It's expensive. $30 apiece" but with the directions it was free.

The fobs were $11 a piece, also free to program.

Only took me about 3 tries with each. If they want to test old codgers for mental ability (before selling them long term care insurance) making them program their key or their fob would be a great test.

The time to do this was now, because you have to have 2 keys and one good fob to make these copies yourself and that's exactly what the car came with**. If I lost anything, I'd have to use the locksmith. **Plus one key w/o a chip.

I haven't lost my keys much, but anything is too much if I'm not prepared. Once when I was changing clothes to go tubing, I left them in my pants and locked them in the trunk. At the end of the day, I had to get a ride home and back, 30 or 40 miles total.

Another time when I was 100 miles from home, I dropped a set in my trunk and couldn't find them. I had spare car keys but had to call a friend to leave my house key at my house (because I'd failed to replace the one that is supposed to be buried) I don't get it but I never did find the set I dropped in the trunk!

Reply to
micky

My car has a keyed door lock and no ignition rfid or resistor so I had a key made for $1 and wired it up under the car. Yah, I have gotten dirty crawling under the car to find and unwire the key but it is in a safe place.

Reply to
Paul in Houston TX

Better than ruining a duplicate key just to make it thinner, you should make a copy of it on a non-chip-key blank They are flat, not bulbous and cost no more than a duplicate house key and can be made almost anywhere.

Then you make a good point that you could enter the car, turn the ignition to Run, use the button to unlock the trunk (on those cars that have that, as mine does) and get a real chip key out of the trunk, where you have hidden it. Perhaps if car theft is a verrrry serious risk in an 8 oz can of waterless handcleaner

Not only could you do that but I could do that. It seems like a good idea.

You can also make copies of most keys out of plastic, or that are part of a credit-card size piece of plastic, so they fit in a wallet better.

The only time you should ruin a chip key is if you wish to hide it above the ignition key slot so that a remote starter will start the car. But you can just as easily place a complete key there. Then fwiw no one will need a chip key. My owners manual, 2004 Sebring, says that I can't use a remote starter, but I suspect they are wrong.

Reply to
micky

That's a good idea too.

I'm already dirty.

Reply to
micky

By this, I don't mean to chop off the bulbous parts of the key. I mean to cut the key in half where the metal part meets the plastic part. Then you can conceal the plastic, chip-key part near the ignition switch so remote starters will work. But then the metal part won't be long enough even to open the door, so don't damage the key at all.

Reply to
micky

Really burns me up that the duplicate keya are so expensive. With all the inexpensive electronic gear out that is much more complicated someone is making a killing on the duplicate car keys.

I just bought a new 2017 Toyota (would have gotten the 18, but they are butt ugly). It has the keyless start where you just push a button, and even the doors will lock and unlock with just a touch of your hand if you have the FOB with you.

The key fits inside the fob. It is a flat piece of metal and there are some notchies on the side. I have not had time to check it out,but think that key has some kind of electronics in it also. That way you can use the key if the battery in the fob goes bad. The book says the fob battery will only last about 2 years. I guess it is sending out a signal all the time. The push button to unlock the doors on the other car and truck fobs are 10 years old and still work.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

I use a magnetic key holder for the door. Mostly, I hide it so good that people can't find it. There's not much point in sticking a key fob in there.

Reply to
dsi1

After my Dad first locked himself out of his '69 Pontiac, he always put a spare set in the air breather outside of the air filter. (In those days, one did not need to release the hood from inside the car.)

Things went okay until my brother locked himself out of the car one day, and used the spare set, but by mistake put it back in the air breather inside of the air filter.

A few weeks later, my Dad was driving the whole family on a sinuous gravel road, and an impatient lead-foot in a pickup truck was tailing us way too close because we were going too slow for him I guess. When we got to the next fairly long strait stretch, my Dad slowed down and pulled to the right to let him go by. But instead of just pulling to the left and advancing ahead of us in a reasonable manner, the pickup gunned it, presumably to make us eat more of his dust than necessary and shower our windshield with a few pounds of road gravel.

I'm not sure of the exact displacement of our Pontiac, (389""" IIRC), but it did have a 4-barrel V-8. And there was still enough room on the straitaway for my Dad to go by the pickup truck and shower him with a few pounds of road gravel.

However, flooring the gas pedal had the effect of causing the spare keys to fall into the open throttle, effectively blocking it wide open. My Dad had the time to *try* to lift up the linkage rod under the pedal (to no avail), but with the straightaway coming to an end had to start controlling the engine power by turning the ignition off and on repeatedly. Of course, he could have simply turned it off completely, but he did not want to 'lose face' with the stranger driving the pickup truck.

Every time he turned the ignition 'on', there was a huge flaming explosion as the unburned fuel-air mix was ignited, until we were far enough ahead of the pickup and luckily had reached the place where the new road made a sharp turn, but the old road leading nowhere was still passable.

In case little kids might be reading this, I won't repeat here what was said to my brother when my Dad found the cause of the carburator malfunction.

Reply to
Mike_Duffy

Yes, they are. Looks like the grafted part of the ugly Lexus grill on the front of it.

Sounds like the same setup I have on my Genesis. I don't think the key has electronics. I've had the car for 22 months and just put the second battery in the fob. My wife has never used hers and I just put the first battery in that one.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

I remember.

I only had one of those, a '58 Ford... well it was my mother's and the salesman told her it was used by the state police.

ROTFLWTIME

So after you stopped the car, I presume you could get the keys out and it was normal again?

Reply to
micky

Yes. Normal except my Mom didn't speak to my Dad the rest of the way home. I suppose that for her, the safety of the kids was more important than a masculine expression of roadway etiquette. Us kids were not worried, because that was was the first car we had with seat belts, and we always buckled-up, even on twisty low-speed gravel.

A week later, you could still see black patches where the explosions had blown away the loose gravel from the hardpacked sections.

Reply to
Mike_Duffy

My recent model upscale ride has keyless ignition and proximity sensors. With the fob in my pocket, locked front doors open when I grab either handle and the trunk opens when I touch its hidden sensor.

Reply to
Wade Garrett

Maybe things have become more complicated and more expensive recently, but it's my understanding that I can program a new key for our '02 Chrysler with some kind of "key-dance" routine as long as we still have one already-programed key.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

Having keyless ignition without proximity sensors seems annoyingly useless. You have the key in your hand to open the door, but where do you put it then if not in the handy storage slot? Drop it on the floor? Put it in a nonexistent pocket? On the seat where it can drop down into the memory hole between the seats? In my purse where I have to spend time finding it when I have to lock the car when I leave?

Friend's Lexus has the prox sensors, but you have to push a button on the key to lock it when you leave. The side mirrors obligingly fold down when it's locked so you know that it's locked.

One more useless thing that will probably immobilize the car when Something Goes Wrong.

I do like having a modern key, though. Although I thought it was kind of dumb before I had it, just pushing a button (sometimes exactly the wrong one) to open things is nice.

Speaking of infinity holes... My husband's wallet fell out of his suit pocket and into the memory hole, where we didn't find it for two years. We thought it was stolen out of the house and caused major nuisance.

Reply to
The Real Bev

micky posted for all of us...

It depends on the car regarding keys and fobs.

I would not hide it behind a license plate. If they want to steal the car they will switch plates and find the key.

I have newer cars and keyless start with fobs. I haven't really thought about losing the key/fob. You just gave me agita worrying about it.

Reply to
Tekkie®

My Genesis can be locked by touching a button on the handle. One touch, all doors lock. You can open the trunk just by standing in back of the car for 3 seconds. I've found that to be very handy at times.

The Lexus doors should lock with the handle too. Maybe that model does not or your friend does not know how to do it.

With all the technology in cars, it is very possible to not know of some features. Or dual function buttons that do different thing in different modes.

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Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

He probably does, he just told me how to do it when I went to his car to get something. He calls my Corolla the cheap Lexus.

The Lexus was a nice car to drive. If my mom had asked my advice I would have told her to get one instead of the POS 88 Caddy which replaced the POS 78 Caddy. Not as much fun to drive as the S2000, though, even if I botched half the shifts.

Reply to
The Real Bev

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