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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."'"
The only thing that surprises me about this is that it's taken this long and it's only high-end cars. Here in the UK, practically every car on the market for the last 10 years has an immobiliser chip of some sort built into the key. It's sold as a security measure, and the fact that it allows the manufacturer to charge you £70 (around $140) for a replacement key - £30 for the key, £40 to reprogram your car to recognise it - has nothing to do with it ;) Are things radically different in the US?
In any case, my understanding was that with most of these, the key leaves the factory with a fixed number, no two keys have the same number and you reprogram the car to recognise the key rather than reprogramming the key to work the car. This sounds to me like a simple case of bad engineering which was never considered when the key was designed.
The upshot is that Nissan will re-design the key so it's not affected by cell-phones, new cars will ship with the redesigned key and owners of existing cars will have to pay a small fortune to replace the keys because it's not a safety recall issue.
This is precisely why, at least where I live, the cars you most commonly see are more than 15 years old OR are less than three years old.
The relative simplicity of cars even from the early 1990's, nevermind the 60's and 70's, is what allows them to stay on the road so long. They're easier to work on (no super-expensive diagnostic equipment needed in most cases), the parts are made of stronger metals (steel and iron instead of aluminum and plastic) and the electrical systems are more independent of eachother than in today's cars.
The electrical mess that is today's cars is probably the single largest contributing factor to people's desire to replace a car instead of repairing it. Electrical gremlins are one of the hardest problems to chase down in today's cars because everything is sensor this and computer that. The systems are not redundant in most cases, and the parts and skills necessary to fix the problem once its diagnosed can be cost-prohibitive.
In an age when everyone is rightfully concerned about greenhouse gas emissions and energy efficiency, why are we building cars that are very complicated, have a high energy cost to produce and go straight to the junkyard, on average, in less than 10 years?
The worst problem is that, with the exception of some of the more advanced engine control systems allowing better fuel economy, very few of these electronic 'improvements' actually make driving safer, better or more enjoyable.
I mean, as cool as it looks to wave an electronic key and have the car start, have we gotten to the point where a mechanical lock and tumbler are too hard to turn?
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".
Even hybrid gas-electric cars are based on 80+-year-old tech. Diesel-electric submarines were built and operated with very little, and early on no computer support systems.
As with a great many things, I think it's time we take a good hard look at what we have, and attempt to simplify instead of further complicate.
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Source? My auto mechanics textbook from college has this blurb that tries to reassure you about electronics in cars by saying "80% of problems don't stem from electronic failures."
The electronics have given us more features and higher fuel efficiency. But still, there are times when it would be nice to make it all manual. Cars that you can't shift into neutral unless the battery is charged can be a pain to get off the road after an accident. If a wheel sensor goes bad, you ought to be able to turn them off and drive the car to a service station, instead of put-putting along at five MPH on the side of the parkway.
There's a race in England, the Brighton Run, in which cars dating no later than 1905 street-race for something like 100 miles. From what I understand, two-thirds make the distance. At Goodwood, they have some amazing historic cars which are seriously put to the test - flat-out on one of Britain's oldest (and probably most dangerous) racing circuits. So, no, I'm not the least bit surprised that a historic Ford could have its original engine and be put through its paces. Modern cars are complex systems, and no matter what technical manual says what, when you increase complexity you WILL reduce reliability. Modern cars are not designed with 100-year-warranties in mind - they are designed to be cheap and disposable. If you check, even the cars just off the assembly line and placed straight into show rooms will have rust spots (ie: not sealed correctly) and other signs of deterioration.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I picked up a 2006 Infiniti G35 (available without the Intelligent Key) instead of the '07 (which is not). I read the part of the manual about this key, and it looked so needlessly complex. I have enough problems without worrying about whether or not my key is going to malfunction.
On a similar note, I was getting ready to store my jumper cables in the trunk (accessible only through one of three electric pushbuttons) when I realized that if the battery dies, I won't even be able to get into my trunk! What kind of crap is that?