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.

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.