Locked Out Of Car !

[AWOL66]

I came to get in my 2009 Rav this morning and the remote would not work. At first i thought that the Battery may have gone, but its only 3 months old so it should have been ok. I removed the key from the side of the remote and attempted to open the door with this. This did not open the door either although i could here the motor. I got my replacement key and tried that and manage to open the door with the key only to set off the alarm. A long press of the remote stop the noise. Now the remote original works ok again. I have not changed the Battery (but will get a spare just in case).

What puzzles me is

1. Why did the remote stop working and then work again?

2. Why wouldn't the key open the door first time. The second key did.

3. Why did the key set off the alarm.

Anybody else had this before or any ideas?

Thanks

[Joylove]

Where you parked near a high value BMW? Thieves are using radio jammers to disable the auto-locking prior to stealing them without the keys. Although I understand the BMW uses 833MHz rather than the more common 433MHz.

[three5]

Hi Andy,

Joylove has a good point about extraneous radio signals interfering with the operation of the remote locking system. Some time ago I was parked in a local school alongside a Saab 95. When the owner and I tried to enter our cars niether would open. Eventually ( mine is keyless ) I found a particularly sensitive spot near the door pillar where I held the fob, this allowed me to open the door. The guy with the Saab had to leave his car there overnight! Next morning - no trouble parked in exactly the same spot. The only difference was that the school's radio linked burglar alarm was switched off at this point!

The batteries in my key fob seem to last a reasonable time - about 18 months, but it occurs to me that if the key is in your pocket in such a position that the button keeps getting pressed whilst you walk or maybe sit at your desk etc, the Battery life might be shortened considerably. I'm no expert in this area though I did get quite heavily involved in Electromagnetic Compatibility testing several years ago. The guy who could really commentate authoritively is SHCM and it may be worth a PM to him if you can't resolve the issue.

[anchorman]

If you lock the car with the remote then open it with the key it will set off the alarm - normal.

I the Battery is getting low they sometimes play up. The Battery replacement is in the pinned section. My guess is it will be OK after replacement.

[junebug1701]

A TSB has been issued by Toyota US concerning the Smart Key:

T-SB-0122-08 R1/Smart Key Battery Diagnostics/06-30-2008

Introduction: Some customers may experience limited Battery life in their Smart Keys. The Smart Key “wakes up” by receiving a “ping” or electronic noise. Many electronic devices emit a “ping” or electronic noise, therefore the Smart Key(s) could wake up when in the presence of these items resulting in reduced Battery life.

If the Smart Key(s) is stored near any of the following components, battery life may be reduced:

• TVs or computer monitors

• DVD or VCR units

• Desktop PCs or notebooks

• Cordless phones or cell phones

• Microwave ovens or other electronic cooking appliances

• Modems

• Certain lighting fixtures

Download: http://www.rav4world.com/tsb/2008/T-SB-0122-08.pdf

[AWOL66]

Thanks guys. I am going to get a new Battery today. What i did wonder was could it be my wireless house alarm. I was parked nearer to the house yesterday and had this issue. The car was fine all day yesterday while i was out and about so i parked further down the drive last night and all was well this morning. Maybe as three5 says maybe the house alarm was causing some electronic interference.

Thanks for all your help

[shcm]

Where you parked near a high value BMW? Thieves are using radio jammers to disable the auto-locking prior to stealing them without the keys. Although I understand the BMW uses 833MHz rather than the more common 433MHz.

Being pendantic (although, homologation people wouldn't consider it pedantic), the other allocation is actually @ 868MHz not 833MHz (slip of keyboard?). Easy way to remember is it is 2nd harmonic of 434MHz (433 x 2 = 868) and certainly in the past most key transmissions were centred on 433.92MHz (effectively 434MHz).

315MHz in the US (or at least it used to be).

If the BMW thing is accurate, the jammer is only being used in the hope that people don't notice the car hasn't locked.

Then, if to be believed, their system allows keys to be added without the need for an existing key. I do find this

very surprising, as, certainly in the past, a great deal of thought has gone into their systems.

I expect it a case of customers sckweeaming and sckweeaming until they are sick, about the cost of a complete new system when they lose their keys. Personally, i'd prefer the VM not to leave "back-doors" in their security. If you lose your keys and haven't bothered with a spare - tough!

Although, from a theft point of view, even with requiring an existing key, something like a crooked person programming in extra keys at a dealership and nicking the car later, is not that easy to prevent.

Maybe as three5 says maybe the house alarm was causing some electronic interference.

It's a likely candidate. I could bore you with a great long list, but won't.

[Joylove]

Where you parked near a high value BMW? Thieves are using radio jammers to disable the auto-locking prior to stealing them without the keys. Although I understand the BMW uses 833MHz rather than the more common 433MHz.

Being pendantic (although, homologation people wouldn't consider it pedantic), the other allocation is actually @ 868MHz not 833MHz (slip of keyboard?). Easy way to remember is it is 2nd harmonic of 434MHz (433 x 2 = 868) and certainly in the past most key transmissions were centred on 433.92MHz (effectively 434MHz).

315MHz in the US (or at least it used to be).

If the BMW thing is accurate, the jammer is only being used in the hope that people don't notice the car hasn't locked.

Then, if to be believed, their system allows keys to be added without the need for an existing key. I do find this

very surprising, as, certainly in the past, a great deal of thought has gone into their systems.

I expect it a case of customers sckweeaming and sckweeaming until they are sick, about the cost of a complete new system when they lose their keys. Personally, i'd prefer the VM not to leave "back-doors" in their security. If you lose your keys and haven't bothered with a spare - tough!

Although, from a theft point of view, even with requiring an existing key, something like a crooked person programming in extra keys at a dealership and nicking the car later, is not that easy to prevent.

Maybe as three5 says maybe the house alarm was causing some electronic interference.

It's a likely candidate. I could bore you with a great long list, but won't.

Yes probably 868MHz. I thought the TV and GSM had that band all to themselves, I was surprised to see that there is some unlicensed spectrum up there.

On the BMW thing, there are a few ways cars are broken into, picking locks with a classic lock pick, smashing windows, jamming auto-locking. Depends on the quailty of the car and the thief.

The black X5/X6 go to RHD countries like South Africa in containers complete. These cars are targetted, with surveillance like you see in the movies, and the paperwork is ready for the export before the car is taken. I assume the 1Ms, M3's M5's and other high end stuff is similar.

By far the most stolen is the 320d M sport, which is broken for parts within hours and the Shell crushed by your backstreet scallys who can't or don't need to organise an export. A car is often worth more in nicely untraceable bits than the legal purchase price, let alone the value of a stolen one.

As for the keys, they just plug in a device and code a new key. This is enabled my new laws that say any key place should be able to add a new key to the car. For some reason a valid key does not need to be present at this time.

There was a fix that went out 8 months ago, and it was quickly bypassed. One assumes they have deeper access to the EEPROM for the immobiliser than was originally envisioned.

There is a long thread about it on PistonHeads, with stories such as 6 1M's going in one month, one of only 6 RHD Alpina B5s wagons going, a spanking new F10 5 series stolen on the same night the owner brought it home for the first time, X5 going, replacement sourced via insurance by the following Friday and that being immediately stolen, one guy losing his car in Chelsea and the insurance assessor saying "yeah this is my third BMW theft-without-keys this week. I don't envy those folks come renewal time. Epidemic of theft is a good word for it.

This Daily Wail article has some bogus facts in it but it has some stills taken from one of the two videos of this sort of incident.

Also if you Youtube for BMW lock pick you can see the 600E gun that picks the lock to open the car. It was never the improvements to lock technology that stopped people breaking into cars, it was that they couldn't start them afterwards.

All BMWs without a proper key are vulnerable. Merc sprinters are also vulnerable, but I think that requires swapping in an ECU under the bonnet.

One assumes it's a Bosch, Continental or Siemens or similar system, and VAG and Merc probably use the same supplier, so I'm surprised there isn't a simple fix for it.

After all, all the Olympics "special" cars and all the armed Police cars are all BMWs with MP5's locked in the boot. They apparently have cut out all their OBD2 ports.

[webleymk3]

This is an interesting one. I replaced the batteries in both my Smart Keys a few months ago. One morning i got into the car to drive to sheffieldshire. At about newcastle, the dash displayed "no key detected". I moved the key from being attached to my belt into the drink holder in the centre console and it cleared. Stopped at Washington and the auto unlock didn't work when we tried to get back into the car. i pressed the unlock buttone and after a few attempts it opened.

With the key in the drinks holder we carried on down the road and after a few miles the "no key detected" warning came back. this time there was no clearing it. i even held the remote over the start/stop button but to no avail. Once i arrived at my destination the key was completely dead and i had to lock the car using the physical key (thanks Anchs). To start her again i had to hold the key at the start button for a few seconds until it beeped and the green light came on. I then got a few seconds to start it before the green light goes off.

Once i got home i tested the second key and it worked fine. i swapped the batteries and the dead one now worked and the second one was dead... so it was the Battery... i got four months out of a brand new Battery and the rate it faded at over the course of the day was staggering.

So i've now bought a couple of spare CR1632 batteries which will live in the car for such a time as this!

Weblers

I add, Mr T charged me some £5 per Battery. I just bought 2 Energizer batteries on Amazon for less than £4.

[shcm]

Webbers,

A few points, that might prolong your (sorry I mean your key's) Battery life. :).

The system works by the car constantly trying to "ping" the key (more on that below). If the key "hears" it will respond. Have you not noticed how it brings the interior lights up before you even touch the car? That's partly how it's doing it. (OK, if it's not been used for a week or two, the car will give up "pinging" and then you have to press the unlock button on the fob).

The first point is, if you leave the key somewhere that is close-ish to the car, the key will keep getting "pinged" and woken-up from a lower power state and also probably transmit. Hence the Battery will drain faster. By close-ish, I mean a few meters. For example If my RAV gets put in the garage and I leave the key for a few mins on the hall table, I will see the LED flashing every so often on the fob, as the car and fob communicate. There's a wall inbetween the RAV and the table.

Didn't you tell me your degree was in elec eng? You should understand the next bit ;). The car "pings" @ something like 125kHz, while the key transmits at 434MHz.

So, the car's "pings" are on an induction field. The "ping" range drops off as inverse cubed rather than inverse square law of the fob transmissions. (go solve your Maxwell's equations or have a cup of coffee :) ).

So, that's partly why you can unlock at greater range by just pressing the fob button, while if you walk up to the car, the key only gets detected when you are relatively close, as, due to the inverse cube, the key only hears the car's pings close up.

Secondly though, the 125kHz wake up for the key is probably not very selective. There's a good chance that being close to a switched mode power supply or some other elecy devices, this will wake up the key (but probably will not make it transmit), again shortening the Battery life. This is why they tell you to try to keep it a little way away from other gizmos.

As for the key not detected - if I sit in the car with a laptop on my, er, lap and with the key in my pocket, that will sometimes block the key's transmission and I will get the "key not detected" message.

However, as the battery naturally weakens through use, you should get a "battery low" warning on the instrument pack, long before the "key not detected" message. I wonder if your key in this instance, was close to some other gadget in your car which pushed it over the edge and to discharge much more rapidly that would be normal. Was it perhaps in the same pocket as your phone for example?

EDIT: OK, sorry, you said the key was in the drinks holder. Was anything else in there (apart from a drink!)?

Of couse it could just have been a fairly crap battery with an odd rapid step change voltage drop off.

[anchorman]

In my day all you needed was anything that fitted in the keyhole and a piece of wire from the Battery to the coil. A hill for bump starting was helpful but not absolutely necessary!

[junebug1701]

In my day all you needed was anything that fitted in the keyhole and a piece of wire from the battery to the coil. A hill for bump starting was helpful but not absolutely necessary!

Yep, and in those days you could discourage thieves by swapping the coil wire on the distributor with one of the plug wires. It would sound like it was trying to start, but only fire once in a while. A cursory examination of the engine would show nothing out of the ordinary.

[bitman]

replacing one of the rav 4 key as the plastic housing was broken i had to cut it so i went to mr timpsons next to sainsbury's for a fiver.

had a chat with the bloke and he told me that he could also make a brand new coded key if i needed.

so he showed me how; he just put the key in a small box connected to a computer. it detected the code and showed it on the screen (hex code) ready to copy to create a new key! i was shocked how easy that was done!

so you 'borrow' (pickpocket) some ones key put it the machine copy the code and give back the key saying he i found your key on the floor you lost...

scary and weak systems imho... that also questions the question why do i have that 4 digit metal key code?

[AWOL66]

It happened again this morning (not for a while) but finally got in after hundreds of presses. Was parked nearer the house again so it must be my wireless alarm as suspected.

Also found something else out. If the deadlocks are on then the metal key inside the fob will not open the door. If the car is locked without applying the deadlocks then the metal key opens the door. Should the key open the doors with the deadlocks applied? If their a special way to open the door with the key if the deadlocks are applied?

I tried the doors again once i arrived at work. Made sure (as far as i could see) that nothing was interfering (mobile phone etc). Key fob worked fine, but i have the same issue with the metal key. Car just locked, metal key works, apply deadlocks metal key does not work.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[anchorman]

So this has got keyless locking?

This is the trouble when profiles are not filled in - tut tut tut.

If a stray signal blocks your remote, you can overcome it by placing your remote right next to the receiver as shown in the attached bulletin;

4.3 interferance of door lock due to radio signals.pdf

If it becomes a proper PITA, you can disable it altogether like so;

4.3 disable smart entry.pdf

[AWOL66]

Sorry Anchorman, profile updated. Thanks for the info.