 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| pam w wrote: |
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Keep the spare in a faraday bag otherwise you could still drive off leaving a key behind!!!
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 I won't need to be mucking about with a Faraday bag! |
We often take both (proximity) keys with us, but unless the 'spare' is in a Faraday bag we have to remember to always remove both from the car at every rest stop. The car wont lock if it detects there is a key inside!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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What a total faff! And this is supposed to be progress?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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What a faff!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| ecureuil wrote: |
| pam w wrote: |
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Keep the spare in a faraday bag otherwise you could still drive off leaving a key behind!!!
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I won't need to be mucking about with a Faraday bag! |
We often take both (proximity) keys with us, but unless the 'spare' is in a Faraday bag we have to remember to always remove both from the car at every rest stop. The car wont lock if it detects there is a key inside! |
Which is a good thing, as it prevents you locking a key in. Surely you'd automatically want to take both keys with you? Sadly, my car allows me to lock with keys in the boot - I've not done it yet, but I'm sure I will one day.
For people who only take one set of car keys with you, don't you find it annoying to keep having to pass them back and forwards to whoever needs them? Surely it's easier to have a set each?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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When I was in Ireland driving with a friend last year we had a car key each as we were sometimes shopping, or walking, separately. They were separately identifiable so we'd have known whose fault it was if one got lost!! But with two drivers when OH and I shared driving down to the Alps - no, we didn't find it remotely annoying having to "pass them backwards and forwards". Whoever was driving stuck the key in the ignition. We were sitting side by side. It wasn't a series of tedious transactions.
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@pam w, but you don't just need the key when you're driving. It's useful to have to pop back to the car to grab something, etc. I guess if you're never separated from the other people in the car it's less of an issue but we're not joined at the hip.
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I guess if you're never separated from the other people in the car it's less of an issue but we're not joined at the hip.
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that's why my friend and I had a car key each in Ireland, as we were often separated. Sharing the driving on a trip to the Alps, not so much. Short breaks for coffee and a pee, straight back in the car and off. It all depends, but I've never experienced any great problem sorting out car keys and never found I'd driven my car somewhere without a key! Because my car won't go anywhere without a key right there.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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One shouldn’t leave any valuables in a car in case it gets broken into! No credit cards, spare keys to allow it to be stolen, info. with home address on. First place offenders look is the glove box.
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@Cinsha, security 101...
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Reminds me of when I travelled a lot. I used to keep my main passport I’m my
Jeans and my spare in my bag in case I dropped on on the plane.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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We had a customer a few years ago who's keyless system let them drive up to us in Guildford from Brighton without the key in the car. She had to get hubby to drive up in their other car with the key so she could start it again after her ski lesson to get home...
Give me a real key any day. Glad the OP had a reasonable outcome, not the sort of stress you wanty at the start of a holiday.
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I will stick to my vehicles with car keys that go in the ignition barrel.
The only reason I can think of why someone invented this proximity car key thing, is so someone with reduced mobility in their hand/wrist that can’t turn the ignition key to start the engine can start it. Maybe that is why?
If that’s the case though there might be other things about driving that might be difficult too.
Glad BMW paid for the taxi.
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You know it makes sense.
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The only reason I can think of why someone invented this proximity car key thing, is so someone with reduced mobility in their hand/wrist that can’t turn the ignition key to start the engine can start it.
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No, the reason is very simple. If you never have to take the key out of your pocket to put it in the ignition, it would never be left inside the car. Never mind being locked inside the car.
When your hands are full of packages, it’s rather a convenience to be able to open the car door without fuss.
I hate to say this. All those “justification” of not having a proximity key from people who never had such keys is… just ignorance!
There’s no great advantage of having it, nor great disadvantage of having it either. Different manufacturers do it differently too. You quickly learn how to use it to its advantage and avoid the disadvantage.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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One shouldn’t leave any valuables in a car in case it gets broken into! No credit cards, spare keys to allow it to be stolen
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Well, they have to go somewhere. I have never had a car stolen or broken into (never had house broken into either). Yes, I know there's a first time. But I HAVE left bags places (including on a Metro in Paris once - bag with passport, money etc. Fortunately the man I'd been sitting next to spotted it and jumped up with it shouting "Madame!!" just in time for me to grab it.
Life is a series of risks. Leaving a spare credit card and £20 in the car is not one of my bigger ones.
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There’s no great advantage of having it, nor great disadvantage of having it either
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Several significant disadvantages in the tiny sample of this thread.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I like not having to carry any keys or a wallet. Hate stuffing things in to my pockets, so having my phone do much of the work of the usual pocket litter is a nice use of the technology that most of us now carry as a matter of routine. When I have my hands full of groceries or ski kit, which happens pretty much every week, it’s nice to have the car automatically unlock itself as I approach and open the boot with a spoken command if necessary. No messing around with putting bags in the floor, potentially getting wet, while I fish around for a key to unlock the car. No fiddling around behind the wheel to insert the key, just click the car into drive and off I go.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@VolklAttivaS5, back in the day when I used to drive a Muggle car I locked the key in to it at least three times, IIRC. Jane was mightily peeved at having to come rescue me from my stupidity. As she was when I’ve lost my keys, also at least three times over the years including once when it left me in a hazardous and frightening situation. An expensive mistake to put right, requiring replacement car keys and lock changes at home.
And yes I could take a shopping trolley, which aren’t available when you’re carrying ski kit, but why bother? The technology for me is a better solution, more convenient, more redundancy, better all round.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@rob@rar, it sounds like you need the technology with that reputation
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@rob@rar, yes you’re right, if something makes my life easier and reduces the chances of problems I'm happy to have it/use it but if I’m alright without then there’s no need to bother.
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AirTags (or other tagging system of choice) are the future. We realised this a few weeks ago when someone* manage to lose all their keys while ski testing at Stubai. An hour of frantic revisiting of stop points managed to locate the house keys, which had been handed in at the info desk, but no sign of the car key (they are separate). Luckily, I was carrying the spare, so we could get home without fuss, but a new key cost 300€ 
Both car keys and any house keys prone to loss now have AirTags on them. This would also have helped in the OP's case, as there is a proximity warning if you leave the item behind (you can exclude locations so that it doesn't warn you every time you leave the item at home), and you can see its last known or current location, depending on connectivity. They can also beep.
*absolutely no names mentioned, but it wasn't me. If anyone does happen upon a VW car key at Stubai (no other identifying features, other than by now its probably been run over by a piste basher), we'll have it back, thanks.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Scarlet wrote: |
| AirTags (or other tagging system of choice) are the future. |
I waited for a long time for Apple to release their AirTags, and bought a bunch of them on the daythey were released to attach to various things. Ironically, the tags are now mostly unused as I no longer carry keys or a wallet as a matter of routine. Now the only time the tags get an excursion is when I have luggage or my camera bag with me. They sit forlornly in the Faraday box on the hall table, chirping disconsolately when I lift the lid as if to say “take me, take me”.
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@Scarlet, the Air Tags are fantastic yes!
Great for a young child's favourite cuddly toy (can do a bit of surgery to put the Air Tag in its bum  and sew it up again)
Also great for luggage! You know where it is so no waiting hours at a baggage carousel when it turns out it wasn’t loaded in the first place!
The batteries last quite a long time too.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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How much do Air Tags cost? Do they go on for ages? I love the idea of a teddy with an air tag in its bum.
I like my phone and try to remember to take it with me when I go out. But I wouldn't want my life to come to a halt if I lost it. Several people I know have lost a phone in the past year. And plenty more have run out of charge.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| pam w wrote: |
| How much do Air Tags cost? Do they go on for ages? I love the idea of a teddy with an air tag in its bum. |
£25 per tag if you buy a bag of 4, otherwise £29 each. They take standard CR2302 batteries which are very inexpensive and available everywhere. Battery life of 12 months I'd guess.
| pam w wrote: |
| I like my phone and try to remember to take it with me when I go out. But I wouldn't want my life to come to a halt if I lost it. Several people I know have lost a phone in the past year. And plenty more have run out of charge. |
Owned a mobile phone for probably 30 years, never lost one and I don't think I've ever run out of battery in that time. In that time I've lost keys and wallets on a few occasions. These days if my phone is out of commission my watch does pretty much the same thing in terms of contactless payment and allowing me to drive my car.
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| pam w wrote: |
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Am I missing something here?
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I ask myself the same question. What on earth is the point?
We once had an accident (motorcycle came round a bend on our side of the road and hit us head on) and my OH, who was driving, got a tiny injury on his bare knee where a dangling key jabbed him. I suppose a keyless car would avoid that possibility. |
Saabs used always have the ignition slot down by the handbrake and gear lever, and I think that was their reasoning, less chance of injury in an accident.
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You know it makes sense.
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| VolklAttivaS5 wrote: |
| How can anyone lock their car key (ignition style) inside the car? You need the key out of the ignition and yourself to be able to lock the doors. The only way you can lock the ignition key inside is if you get the spare key and lock the doors with that. In which case you can unlock them again too. |
Lots of cars allow you to activate the central locking using the remote, while the doors are still open, then it locks/immobilises only when you shut them. And some have a boot closure without a separate locking mechanism, i.e. like a Yale door lock to close it is to lock it. I think my wife did this once, but fortunately the car doors were still open so she was able to open the boot from inside.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Also, many cars automatically lock after a few mins once the doors have been shut. The other one did this once after sending me a proud photo showing how many bits of 2x4 he could load into the new estate car at B&Q. You could see the car key next to it all It's possible that was the first car we had that auto-locked.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
| Quote: |
One shouldn’t leave any valuables in a car in case it gets broken into! No credit cards, spare keys to allow it to be stolen
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... Life is a series of risks. Leaving a spare credit card and £20 in the car is not one of my bigger ones. |
Risks - fair enough.
When I lived in Toxteth I was in a team of 12, and after about 6 months there I was the only one whose car hadn't been broken into. The reason was simple - my car was a hatchback and you could tell from the outside it had nothing at all in it. No radio, nothing at all you could steal and sell. My team mates were all posh, they didn't know the value of their stuff.
For snow sports, Vancouver is notorious for car crime - if you try to park a rental car with snowboards in it in a parking lot, the security guys / local cops will go out of their way to stop you. Seriously. Once you work it out, you just have to leave snowboards etc with some hotel's concierge, then the security guys will let you park.
Car keys? Either in the slot or in my pocket, no other locations make sense. I have the Samsung tags which sound similar to the Apple stuff, not sure what to do with them mind. I vaguely considered mounting one inside my snowboard binding, but locking the board seems a better approach (if people know the tag's there they'd remove or neutralize it; if they don't, it's not a deterrent).
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Lots of cars allow you to activate the central locking using the remote, while the doors are still open, then it locks/immobilises only when you shut them
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many cars automatically lock after a few mins once the doors have been shut
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May the Good Lord preserve me from bossy cars. Our old Volvo estate "beeped" very bossily to warn you if you had left the key in the ignition and had the driver's door open. My husband, harassed after a very hot and sweaty school run one day, just slammed the door to make it stop. Fortunately he had got the kids out first......it was 34 in the shade. 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I know these are all generally very trivial concerns. But I'd be really worried with an "automatically locking" kind of set up after an accident. I know that in theory these clever cars unlock themselves in that event, but if I was unconscious in a burning car and a nice fireman was trying to get me out, I'd be glad if he could be sure of opening the door without taking an axe to it.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Took me an hour with 2 wire coat hangers joined together to hook the inner handle on the opposite door
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you must have got cold in that time, @brianatab! I don't know whether my present car (a Skoda Fabia) can be accidentally locked - I must try, with the spare key in my pocket!
I can just imagine adoring couple - she gets in the car to drive to work and he, reluctant to part with her, kisses her tenderly on the cheek before she climbs in and drives off. When she gets to her destination she realises that it was the phone in his pocket (or even the one in his car, parked side by side on the drive) which had persuaded the car to move.....
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Excellent result! Especially from BMW for footing the bill, hopefully that includes the replacement key as they kind of admitted liability in the first place?
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Can’t say it’s ever happened to me.
The doors will re-lock if you press the button to unlock then don’t open the door(s) within a very short period of time to get in or access the boot etc
So I’ve never had the key on the inside when that happens as I have the other key in the house to unlock the doors (even if it did)
I can understand how a cock up occurred if you removed the battery.
But every time I get out of my vehicle I’ve also removed the ignition key.
Only time I might leave the engine running is on a freezing cold morning but then the doors don’t lock on their own with the engine running, not unless you drive off or you press the ‘lock doors’ button. Not on my vehicle anyway.
It’s a mystery to me maybe I’ve just been lucky.
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I use my phone a lot for Apple Pay but always have a small purse with a couple of other cards in as well.
If your phone gets dropped, stolen, lost or suddenly malfunctions in some way then you can’t pay for anything.
Stuck without being able to buy diesel or something else important, no thanks.
Technology is great but I always have a back up plan, it’s less stress especially as I travel alone a lot.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I think keyless entry/start is like many tech features on cars now. I was never excited by it as an option and would've happily carried on using a key fob. But now I've got it, I'd never want to go back. It is minor, but it is more convenient. Same with remote climate, heated seats, heated steering wheel, reverse/surround cameras etc.
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@rob@rar, how do you manage to lose other things multiple times and not lose your phone? I tend not to lose things but I did once drop my phone without realising it.
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FAQ
It's a car key - not a 23kg suitcase! 
