Cell Phones Disable Keys for High-End Cars

Geoffrey.landis writes "Turns out if you have a top-end Nissan car, your cellphone may erase your car key. '"We discovered that if the I-Key touches a cellphone, outgoing or incoming calls have the potential to alter the electronic code inside the I-Key," Nissan spokesman Kyle Bazemore said. "The car won't start and the I-Key cannot be reprogrammed."'"

Comments

That's a crying shame...

[__aaclcg7560]

I miss the days when you could open the car door with a coat hanger and hot wire the ignition.

Re:That's a crying shame...

[maxume]

I would only ever do that if I had one pocket. Cell phones are usually made out of soft, easily scratched plastic. Keys are made out of metal. Not a good combination(I mean, obviously, but people really put their keys and cell phone in the same pocket?).

Re:That's a crying shame...

[rizzo420]

actually, i'd be willing to bet that nissan will have to fix these and possibly recall the keys. cell phones are all over. if this happens as easily as it sounds, nissan should be changing their technology and replacing the keys and/or ignition system.

Stupid New Cars

[phantomcircuit]

The amount of electronics in modern cars is ridiculous, especially when you think about how often electronics break and how easily they're broken.

My mom has a ford escape, there have been two wiring recalls and the wiring has failed on two separate occasions. They had to completely replace the main board!

I can understand that putting electronics in cars seems like a good idea, but it's not.

It's DANGEROUS!

Re:Stupid New Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's the electronics per se, but rather the attitude creeping in from the computer industry. I've noticed it in other industries as well, such as television and phone service. Faults that wouldn't have been tolerated ten years ago are suddenly cropping up everywhere. People have become desensitised to failure with electronics because of computers. Sloppy QA because of the training/expertise/staff overlap with computers.

And at the same time, another problem is preventing this from being solved. People put up with it. The way capitalism is supposed to work is that if somebody fucks up, you can go with a competitor. But now it's trendy to complain and then forget about it until next time something goes wrong. Shitty mobile phone reception? Moan about it, but don't ask for your money back. Crashing computer? Complain to your neighbourhood geek, but don't demand a refund. Evil dictator in charge of your country? Re-elect the fucker! When there's no consequences to providing a shitty service, that's exactly what people will give you.

Re:Stupid New Cars

[couchslug]

No, crappy engineering (Ford cruise control switches, having large areas of harness "hot" even with the vehicle not running...) is dangerous.

The public want blingful features, the public are no longer mechanically literate, and the public will not vocally insist on reliable vehicles. This creates tremendous pressure on makers to offer stupid shite at a competitive price.

Even good features like electronically controlled automatic transmissions are often poorly engineered and are brutally expensive to replace when they fail.

As an aside, tool prices have remained quite low, and if you are the sort of person who isn't afraid to learn you can save many thousands of dollars by doing your own work. The money you save easliy buys good equipment you can use for a lifetime.
Never has an auto repair course at the local community college been a better value. You can free yourself from ever having to buy a new car, free yourself from being at the mercy of undertrained or unethical automobile repair outfits, and know the person who worked on your car gave a shit.
If you can understand computers, it isn't a great leap to understand other technology, and as usual the internet can help.

Re:Stupid New Cars

[Hamster Of Death]

You interact with critical systems every day that rely on electronics. You probably just never sat down to think about it since they are implemented well and tested to hell and back. How often do traffic lights fail? Elevators? Medical equipment? These all have a drastically lower rate of failure than consumer electronics. The problem here isn't with electronics in cars, it's with poorly implemented electronics in cars. Manufacturers need to give their quality control teams a kick in the butt and the means for them to implement the correct solutions. However, as long as marketing runs the show we will continue to have the users as a testbed instead of technicians testing these systems before the users and time and effort will go into areas that have a bigger payoff like 'styling'.

Cannot be reprogrammed?

[ushering05401]

IF the signature can be altered by a signal why could it not be re-alligned by another? Is the frequency somehow damaging the medium that holds the signature?

If you expose magnetic media to random magnetic forces you lose data... but it does not destroy the medium itself.

OTOH if you pass a Sensormatic EAS tag through an EMF it destroys the medium.

Why would you make a key like that? What's going on here? Who's running this show?

who thought this was a good idea?

[compro01]

seriously, these chipped keys are nothing but problems and it makes the keys stupidly expensive. to get another key for the ford van we have will run you $50, and that's just for the blank! cutting it is another $15. then another $5 to get it programmed if you can't do it yourself (doing it yourself requires 2 already programmed keys)

why can't we just use a bit of properly carved metal to start the vehicle without throwing in a bunch of junk?

Re:This is precisely why...

[TrappedByMyself]

People got along for more than 100 years in cars without GPS systems telling them (in some cases incorrectly) to "turn right in 300 yards".

Perspective

People got along for thousands of years without cars, so maybe you should consider getting rid of yours.

Re:Except they do...

[LWATCDR]

Actually about twice the HP of your car. Oh and EU emission standards are lower the US standards. The US has some of the highest emission standards in the world and CA and a few other states are the at the very top. Most cars are 50 state cars so they meet those high standards.
The US is very different from the UK. The UK isn't much bigger then a good number of states. In some places in the US distances are vast and the population is low. Ever wonder why people in the US and Australia tend to drive the same types of cars?
Oh and my car? One is a Mazda 3 and the other a Dodge Intrepid. Both get pretty good milage. And my commute is only 14 miles each way and I carpool with my wife. I would say that you are the one that needs to get off your high horse. The US is different from the UK. I happen to like European style cars but I can tell you that they are not ideally suited to the US.