Today I learned, through an unfortunate chain of events, that it’s possible to start a car with the keys on the roof, have the keys stay on the roof for five miles, ask “what’s that clunk” as they fall off, continue for a further 20 miles, then find you can’t lock your car and it won’t restart.
Tragic
Never unlock/lock your car using the remote: it should stay in your pocket. Press buttons on the handle & doors, to lock & unlock. Even if remote battery's dead, the engine will start if remote is put in designated place in the car. Other big plus: no honking disturbing the neighbours.
Only time I ever do is when I'm looking for my car in the parking garage.
The white heat of technological progress! What a time to be alive
Fcuk cars mate
+ probably auto locks the handbrake / gearbox locked on so it's a git of a job to move them. Modern cars a more than a bit sh*t in many ways.
Oh no, they can cost a fortune to replace. Hope you manage to get it sorted soon.
oh man
Oops!
Oh no 😬
My keys are required to start my car - it's old fashioned but works really well
I hate these keys that aren't keys
At my dad's funeral, the chief undertaker drove us to the crematorium, then switched with the boy while he walked the cortege down the final stretch. The Mercedes dashboard was still lit up but the car wasn't going to restart until our man came back with the key. Good job we weren't in a hurry.
Ouch. That experience is enough to make a person give up car-ring altogether.
To sidetrack a bit... why can we make keys that won't let you lock yourself out of your car with the keys still inside, but the technology to alert parents they left a child in the car is beyond us?
They probably want to revisit their proximity sensing decisions if "on the roof" is close enough for ignition to work, and for the immobilizer not to activate when you're 20 miles away from your keys.
Advanced technology right there.
😱
One of the many reasons not to buy a new car. My ancient VW with keys, manual locks, and handles to roll down the windows is perfect.
Been there. I once had a Hertz rental car I booked in Dallas for driving to OKC for work. I guess I dropped fob out of the door at gas station at some point. I honestly don't know where they went. Nice Hertz tow and lost key charge.
Oh fuck. I hope you’re sorted.
Its called progress. You couldnt have done that in the 1960s.
If you leave your key fob by the entrance to your house criminals can harvest the data with an antenna and steal your car. Have a nice day. 😎
Which is why you should keep your keys in a faraday pouch. A tin works too. If you have an upstairs, that’s where car keys should live.
Except when they really want the car and letting them take it is a much better option than killing the signal and them going searching inside Just another excuse for the insurance companies to bump up prices though in reality
We’ve had teams of car thieves working locally(caught on our cameras) and police tell us most common thing is what happened here:youths used to actually do the stealing to a formula, cars taken and dumped for others to collect. Those in charge in city 30 miles away. Youths get tiny sum per car./
Youths are expendable and focus on softer targets. On the other hand, friend had (rarer)car stolen to order. They saw it,pursued the stolen car- it was taken quickly onto back of lorry under tarp,driven to a port,taken into a freight crate and onto a ship.Police aware, kept informed, but too late.
We can only do what we do. We have to look to our own security as best we can- but I agree, they can have things if it’s a choice of things or people.
I'm sure our ports could do more, especially under our new found freedom if we really wanted to, but is it financially worthwhile? While we burn money everywhere else
Need to find a way to stop the youths, who everyone knows can't get properly done, from doing this and just being pawns in the game
Need to offer them better choices and the skills to deal with the manipulation and exploitation. I was shocked at the fact that apparently they’ll steal £60/70k car and get only a few hundred themselves. This just what I’m told.
I'd get a few quid as pocket money but luckily lived in an area that that sorted me out I'm not shocked that a kid from a family in area that couldn't do that would want to work their way up And then why via a decent job
Having lived through Thatcher’s Scotland, seeing its impact on folk first hand, I get it.
oof.
John Cleese to play you in the movie?
“This is a historic moment.”?
Having your fob buried (irretrievably) in the bottom of your purse is the best preventative for this situation
You didn’t buy the car’s “Roof Key Compartment” option, did you?
All our cars are ancient and key bound. Posts like this make me grateful.
This. This is why I want an ignition key switch back (I drive an EV). I have to have the blasted fob in order to drive the car, so why not provide a purpose-designed place to put it? Talk about improvements nobody wants, making life/driving worse!
I put it in my pocket so I wont leave it in the car and I always have it when I need it. Works most of the time😬
You're a man then? Women often don't have pockets. I don't put things in my pockets 'cos they catch when sitting in my wheelchair, so I have a similar issue. I appreciate I'm in a minority, but I still don't see the advantage of keyless ignition.
Women have purses - any reason not to leave the keys in that most of the time?
It is well known that keys are impossible to find in purses.
Which is the problem wireless key fobs solve.
Put your keys on a string around your neck? I guess they're pretty bulky. Oddly, my fob has a hidden mechanical key for the door if the battery dies, which enables the ignition.
Man, if I had no pockets and I carried a purse, I would be leaving that purse behind all the time.
And this is why men have pockets.
I hate purses and only buy pants, pants that have REAL pockets. Which means I don't buy clothes very often and when I do I buy in every color/multiples.
Or tie one key on each end of a piece of elastic and thread it through your coat arms?
I usually just hook my keychain to my purse with a carabineer, tends to work real well for me ^^
I don't generally carry a purse and 65% of my clothes have zero pockets. But I'm exceedingly paranoid I'll lose the key and I can't afford to replace it so it's part of my check when I enter/exit the car. My mom left the car running once at the airport park and fly when keyless was new.
... You keep it in your pocket or purse, that's the biggest benefit of a keyless ignition.
It sure makes car theft easier, but having something to not use isn't a benefit in my book. Presumably you still have to haul it out to (un)lock the doors, so it's a limited 'benefit' surely?
The car ('22 IONIQ 5) unlocks as I walk up to it and I touch a little capacitive button on the handle to lock it when walking away. The fob stays in my pocket and authenticates via proximity.
Purses are an amazing solution for this problem. I love my fob. The whole "where are my keys" question has been eliminated from my life.
I carry a small backpack and keep the keys hooked to it. Frees up my hands when I’m out and about
Wise
My friend had a 2004 Prius with push button and a fob, but there was a little slot next to the button to slide the “key” in if desired.
My mom has the same complaint about her car. She’s never driven off without the keys, but left them in the car plenty of times, or has to dig for them in her purse. I suggested sticking a command-hook to the dash next to the “Start” button. She didn’t like that idea, but maybe you will?
I loved the bit Apple did that one time they made wireless airpods, removed the earphone jack port, then made a string to hold them around your neck because they would get lost and then added a version you could connect to the charging port in the phone
These changes aren't for customers. Machining and fitting all the moving parts of a traditional ignition costs significantly more money. It's the same reason all the mechanical buttons and switches are replaced with a touchscreen, it's way cheaper to make.
I *think* there is a security benefit to the push button start. But seems like there might be other ways to grt that benefit. I don’t like all the touch screen controls.
We just got a 2025 EV and “paired” it with my phone so my phone is the key. It’s really weird to not even need a physical key/fob.
I would worry that, if it could be paired to one phone, it could be paired to another, and that's the car gone. I've already had one stolen and still have both fobs, so they must have been cloned. Keyless isn't my friend and I suggest isn't really yours. UK info: www.which.co.uk/news/article...
Good points. I’ll install a faraday cage in my garage, and keep my fobs in the freezer.
My ev has a little compartment for charging the phone. I leave my phone in there 50% of the time. A million alarms, but not one to tell me I left my phone in the car.
Mine has a little text reminder that I ignore, along with the warning not to lock anyone in. 50% is about correct.
I get the warning to check the back seat. I haven’t seen one for checking the phone compartment
We had a loaner car from a Mercedes dealer this summer that, if you left your phone plugged in and opened the door to get out, a voice said “WAIT. YOUR PHONE IS IN THE VEHICLE” freaked me out all 39 times it happened to me.
THIS IS WHAT I NEED
Did you also know it’s possible to start a car with keys in ignition and when the motor is running, take out the keys, throw them out the window, drive for 20 miles and find you can’t lock your car and won’t restart
😱
Last year I learned that even keys you put in the ignition can have issues. I dropped my only key (s/h car never got around to getting a spare key) as I left the house, put it back together and car would not go. A tiny little thing that looks like broken plastic was the immobiliser chip lost forever
Found this out 2 y ago Also learned that while your car company brags about being able to diagnose your car remotely, and do OTA upgrades, they can't/won't start your car in this situation they engineered
And with all the other dumb alerts the cars nowadays annoy you with, you'd think, your fob is gone would be an important one as you drive away
Can't quite get my head around this. I have never felt the need to place anything on the roof of my car!
I take it that you’ve never had to put little kids in car seats before they had a chance to run away.
Ah, okay, that would make sense! And no, I've never had to wrangle small children!!
I lost an entire pizza that way once. 🤦🏻♀️
Tragedy!!
ah the variant of "doing a Cameron", I think it's called. With added clunk.
💀🔥💀🔥💀🔥
oh boy, not a good day for you :(
Mine sounds like a Stuka dive bomber going into a terminal dive if the keys aren't detected
My car is nearly 10 now and as a consequence is manual and has no dumb keyless shit. Thanks to this thread I'm going to drive it until its physically dying/I move to london.
And you didn’t even need to put your car in the ignition.
Reminds of the time I left my (own) car key on the passenger seat after I parked up half way across the country from home. Somehow, without even being touched, the blipper locked the car with the key still inside and me on the outside! 😬 Cue a long return trip by rail to fetch the spare key... 🤬
I did once load my car up for a work trip; 'lose' my keys; get the spare set of keys. Drove to an office, parked in a public CP did some work got back at the end of the day to find my 'original' car keys were sticking out of boot lock. How it didn't get nicked is a miracle.
Ah, a fellow skoda owner.
That's an exciting edge case you've got there.
The edge case concludes with me spending an hour jogging along a rural A road in the rain looking for bits of run-over key in the gutter and finding the chipboard and wondering how I’ll explain this to the rental company.
Oh man... If anyone deserved a beer...
You jogged 15 miles in an hour? You could have called me... (except I think the car here is out of action)
If Jim jogged 15 miles in an hour I'll alert the Guinness World Record people. He'll get a framed certificate.
It's better than that - 20 miles!
oh yes, you're right, I ignored the (very operative in this case) word 'further'
A bus was involved!
You were towing a bus? Even more impressive!
I can't believe you found them. Thats defying all odds.
I imagine you will explain it using the medium of currency :) Amazing you found it though!
Best of luck. I expect them to just wearily reply along the lines of "you're the fifth this week, but the first to find the keys..."
Of course it's a rental.
That's not a key. This is a key - (Thank you for providing another reason for sticking to my banger!)
😱😱😱
i had the EXACT same thing happen to me (including wondering “what’s that clunk?”) except i drove all the way across South Dakota before realizing. glad you were able to retrieve them!
Ootch
Were they also the key 🔑 for house
Don't blame me. I've voted for real, actual, physically necessary keys consistently forever now.
I have done a similar experiment several times, only it involves a cup of coffee on the roof of a car.
Me too, drove around for a few minutes, stopped at a red light, got out and retrieved my coffee from the roof, told my sister in the passenger seat that's how I cool it if it's too hot.
Pizza for me, but it was sadly unretrievable. 🙁
My teacher did that with a set of exams...
So sorry. Hopefully you found help. A colleague once drove us to a snowy parking lot in Detroit in the 90s, warning us that we should 'lock the doors, this is Detroit', and got out quickly, leaving the car running, locked, with the key in the ignition.
I have this memory of my dad doing that in the pick up line outside the train station once. I don't remember us being stuck for long, but for however long it was, so was everybody else. 😬
🤣 Sorry I know it's not funny but I guess it's just the way you told the story that made me laugh.
Does this not mean you could get your car nicked if you leave the keys too near to it??
Feature
💀
Every days a school day.
Ah, but have you ever kayaked 4 miles ON THE OCEAN. Stopped for lunch, found your cell phone on the back deck, and found that by some miracle it stayed on and still works?
That’s some smooth paddling!
I was rather pleased about that part.
This not having to insert a key is a dreadful innovation. Same with handbrakes that are just a switch
Not needing to take a key out of my pocket to unlock/lock or start my car is a massive convenience.
This is great if you’re not a scatterbrained idiot who leaves the key in the car, on the roof etc
Anything that’s not a proper physical control is dreadful. My car is oldish and should it ever fail me, I’d not replace it with something with touchscreens and such horrors
Thankfully Toyota still make many models with physical buttons. Not perfect but better than most makes.
It's possible to make a car with a physical key that screws you over: the older Rav4's lock the doors after 5 minutes even if the keys are in the car, including going through a car wash. Then again keyless cars have their own car wash problems, like can't put a car with engine off in neutral.
Most cars are set not to re-lock, if you unlock the doors and then open a door.
If
That's just all automatic cars, isn't it, unless you use that Park override button that on many cars seems to be a "one use" thing or at least, not made to be convenient (like in a manual car).
I used to frequently move my cars without starting them (to avoid the unnecessary cold start). Now that one of our vehicles is an automatic, I frequently resent it.
My car went thro a phase when it’d lock the doors with me and the key inside:) (just randomly as I drove along ) mechanics said he’d have to rip the wiring out to find out why, and I thought well, as long as I have the key and also the option to use the override on the handle, I’ll let it be :)
Many cars lock the doors as a safety mechanism when the car goes over 5mph. (Either Crime! or that it makes the doors less likely to open in an accident.)
Oh sure yes and Skodas have a setting where you can just have them lock after x minutes when someone’s driving. But mine was never set to, and this was just completely random:) and sometimes it’d stay locked, sometimes not :) made me jump the first time it happened
Good luck with that. Your search might fall into the same exercise in futility as finding a decent 'non' flat screen TV, should you want a chubby one instead.
Ah well, my faithful nearly 20 year old Fabia hasn’t let me down yet:)
Absolutely. It’s totally counter intuitive.
Burned out at least one clutch thanks to the electronic parking brake. They make hill-starts an absolute nightmare.
Oooh--I have both an electronic parking brake and a brakehold for hills. My experience with the latter w stick has been very lovely (but maybe I too am burning out the clutch??). I miss a hand parking brake a lot--there was a certainty there.
Ah - only had an EPB in place of a manual handbrake on our old C-Max and it made hill-starts TERRIFYING, and perfumed the car with the stench of worn clutch pedal.
Thanks for the tip.
Postscript: Walked along busy road, amazingly spotted a smashed set of car keys in road. Retrieved the metal emergency key. Turns out… there’s no physical ignition nowadays so even having a physical key doesn’t mean you can start an engine. Rental car now abandoned. May one person learn from this!
Jeeez! I’m always scared when given a random keyless fob. I never let them out of my pocket and I’m terrified of this kind of thing happening. Why did they fix this non broken thing?!
Because, ultimately, it costs less.
Does it? I mean yeah, it probably does in all cases like these.
Cost of manufacturing a matching physical lock and key vs. programming the digital key into the fob and the car (alongside all the other stuff that’s being programmed). Software wins every time.
Similar. Keyless ignition motorcycle. Refuel at filling station using key to pen tank. Forget key. Ride 150+ miles then discover lack of key with nil fuel left!
Walked along busy road for 20 miles? Or got lift to section of busy road where clunk was heard and (still amazingly) found?
Bus then walked three miles along verges of suspected clunk area. Thought I’d founded Excalibur and saved the day as I gathered the various smashed bits from carriageway but turns out it’s so electronic it’s just still fucked. Anyway I’m idiot, cars are stupid, hopefully someone’s amused/informed.
I last drove a car in June 2016 (to cover the Pulse nightclub massacre) and haven’t driven since. I didn’t intend to stop driving. I just got out of the way of it after leaving the US. But I increasingly worry the technology would flummox me.
I've been driving old cars (25+) for years, and recently bought a 2017 model specifically because I'm afraid of being flummoxed. I soon learned new cars beep at you almost non-stop. What's the point in that?! Very comfy though.
But sorry you had your trouble.
Sorry if you have already done this but have you tried pressing the metal emergency key against the ignition button (with clutch down) to start it? When the batteries on our keys went, we could still start the car doing that
In my (Hyundai) even if the keyfob battery is dead, holding the keyfob against the Start Button, while pressing the start button will switch the car on.
Astonishing you found them!
Worst day ever
If the RFID chip in the keys survived, you might try holding it against the ignition button. When the battery in my Jeep key fob dies, pressing the button with the fob works.
Incredible in this day and age that the car won’t warn you that the key is suddenly not within physical proximity of the vehicle. Seems an incredibly basic failsafe. Obviously it can’t just shut the car down. That would be dangerous and irresponsible but it could ping the driver a warning.
Wasn't this as episode of It's Always Sunny...?!
🙏🏼
What a wild story! Sounds like you had a real-life "keys on the roof" adventure! Leaving keys on the roof of a car can be a pretty common mistake, but it's not every day you get to experience the thrill of them staying put for miles! The "what's that clunk" moment must've been priceless.
I did the school run last year with my brand new iPhone 16 pro max using a similar methodology. I was so confused by the sliding sound along the roof…
ARRRGGGH! I knew there was a good reason why I didn't want a car with keyless ignition.
When Mrs S bought her Audi Q3 in 2016, we spec'd the base model and then added upgrades because of the higher spec bad things included. So: 1. No keyless entry (Nextdoor have it & a steering wheel lock),🤔🤯 2. No LED headlights, £1500 saved. 3. Normal, not low profile, wheels. Comfy and quiet.
Today I learned that some idiot put their car keys on the roof.
Are you sure you didn't find yourself in an episode of One Foot in the Grave without realising it?
I’ve a car key for my Nissan’s doors, but no ignition slot to start the car with. Was recently stranded at a petrol station while I went for a walk to find a fresh battery for the fob, before I could drive it away. Ingenious.
Not sure if this works for Nissans, but with a Honda push button start you can hold the dead keyfob to the start button and it can sense the RFID signature of the fob and start.
Ooh. Must try that, thank you.
Same. I always carry spare batteries in my bag and glove box now. What IS the point of this ‘innovation?’ WE JUST WANT TO BE ABLE TO GET IN AND START IT.
Why can't we just put the car key in the ignition. This is one of the top 5 worst 'improvements' in modern cars.
I like a key. OK to have remote locking from the fob, but starting and stopping the car with the key is the best way. Simple and fool proof. Switches for lights, wipers, heat/ventilation and cruise if you have it too. Anything else is worse. A lever for gear selection is best too.
Those key fobs are a terrible idea. Sometimes old tech is better. I prefer a car that has buttons and knobs instead of a touch screen. I swear they add that tech as a means to pick more money out of your pocket.
It's the opposite. Touch screens are cheaper than all the buttons. They still make more profit out of you that way though.
The buttons and knobs in my car never failed me. Touchscreens in my pocket? Many times. The buttons and knobs don’t need updates. Touchscreens do. Maybe a button or knob falls off. Can still make it work. Touchscreen on my car dies…? I’m late for work.
Fully agree with you, buttons are safer, easier to use etc etc. My preference is the same as yours! What I'm saying is, it costs the companies less to put all the functions on the touchscreen because then they don't need to make the buttons as well. That's their motivation.
That may be true. But wait until they can’t get the materials for the touchscreens. Everybody will be looking for Flintstone cars. Because they won’t be able to afford anything else. And the infrastructure needed for EVs was stopped by the current admin.
Not to mention the distraction factor inherent in those touchscreens.
Absolutely. People on cellphones while driving increases the chance of an accident. But since the techbros want all of us to die anyway, why not put all the functions in your car on a minicomputer.
The other day I learned you could open a can of Pepsi Max at the end of your road through what appears to be a similar methodology.
Done it too! Got to my parents house (3 miles) but couldn’t find the key when ready to leave. They were still on the roof! Glad it’s not just me.
