entering car without a key, stealing the signal

We have had a rash of break-ins and thefts from locked vehicles in my neighborhood, all the vehicles were newer cars with keyless start.

One person had doorbell video of it going on. We now have a nice leather wrapped Faraday cage at the front door that my wife's keys are stored in when she is home.

That's why my wife and I both still use anti-theft steering wheel bars. Every time and every place we park. Thieves are generally not willing to take the time to pick the locks on the bars or try to saw through them and will move to an easier target. Takes only about 5 seconds for us to unlock the bar and put it on the floor behind the passenger seat.

Must be the second one. I'm glad now I have the first one.

Thanks.

So it sounds like these things are transmitting all the time!! Another problem seems to me to be, How long does their battery last?

In this area they are more likely to steal anything of value left in the car then steal it, anti-theft bars are good but won't keep your belongings safe when they can pop the locks.

Mind you I can't understand people who leave anything of value overnight in their cars when parked in open driveways.

No idea, we haven't owned the car for over a year yet, the car will announce you need a new battery when it's time.

My Toyota manual says from one to two years. I change the batteries in my 'key' every year when I get it inspected. Makes it easy to keep up with that way.

They are conflating two different attacks. Both are very effective.

Cars are easy to steal. You can put a fancier lock on your car, and the car thieves will just come by with a tow truck and tow it away.

You can put an expensive alarm on your car, but car alarms go off all the time, frequently enough that people ignore them.

It's easier just to get a car that isn't popular with thieves.

--scott

Only the car itself transmits its relatively weak signal continuously, looking for a nearby fob. If the fob is far enough away from the car or in a "Faraday" bag/box, it won't "hear" the car, and does not respond.

Changed mine after two years. That seems OK for me.

My 2016 Toyo is has the original battery in the keyless fob. It works fine.

micky snipped-for-privacy@fmguy.com wrote

Yes he is.

Nope, the car is, but if it cant see the fob because its in a faraday cage, it obviously wont unlock the car.

Not if you have a strong enough transmitter, but you will be next to the car if your want to unlock and loot it anyway.

That mangles the real story utterly.

Nope.

Scott Dorsey snipped-for-privacy@panix.com wrote

Not possible where I park my car at home.

I don’t ignore them when my neighbour's house or car alarms go off.

Years ago they stole my wife's 10 year old Mazda. It was found in the city up on blocks and everything under the hood was gone. They stole it for parts taking everything but the radio. Tires were new.

Thief opened the unlocked 94 Integra and carefully removed the cheap ($35) aftermarket radio without damaging anything. Middle of the day, parked on a busy street. Replacement radio was $15 from Ebay. Hard to see why anybody would bother -- as long as you steal something worth less than $1K (per day, not $total) it's the equivalent of a traffic ticket.

A friend had two Austin Healey 3000's stolen in Boston. After the second one he bought a Volvo sedan. Who would steal a Volvo? Someone did but at least he got that one back.

I had an old Dodge pickup that was a real beater. I left it in the parking lot at work and never drove it too much. It had a Radio Shack cassette player that could be removed by pressing a tab and pulling it out. One day I got in and the mount was dangling by a couple of screws but the player was still there. Apparently the subgenius couldn't figure out the mount.

Another day I jumped in and turned on the wipers because is was raining. The wiper arms were gone.

The final shot was when I sold it for $100. Some old fart wanted the entire pedigree of the truck and carefully inspected it. He crawled under to find 2 transmission bolts laying on the ground. I guess the beer ran out before they could steal the tranny.

Said old fart kept asking questions to the point where I said 'It's a $100 pickup. Take it or leave it, I don't give a shit but we're done.' He took it. I really, really hate selling stuff.

I have a 2016 Kia Sorento, bought new in September 2015, and a 2017 Toyota Tacoma, bought new in July 2017. Both key fobs died in April 2020 within a few weeks of each other. Fortunately, both used the standard CR2032 so I was able to use a 2-pack of batteries to fix both fobs.

I guess it's safe to say that I don't change batteries proactively, since there doesn't seem to be much point. Both fobs have a physical key that can be used to unlock the doors and the engine can be started by pushing the start button with the dead fob. As a test, I completely removed the batteries and they still worked fine. I only lost the wireless convenience until I replaced the batteries.