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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."'"
I miss the days when you could open the car door with a coat hanger and hot wire the ignition.
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!
A safety ad here runs the slogan (roughly translated) "Car and Cell don't mix well". It actually promotes abstaining from using your cell while driving, but in this light, it gets a whole new meaning...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A friend of mine his dad purchased a Honda S2000 the garage was next to the kitchen. Well when they turned on the microwave it set off the alarm. The cars' keys would always have to be next to the microwave because of the "feature". When he called Honda then told him to buy a different microwave. I fould it hilarious.
~
Nissan should simply state, that the car owners only bought the right to use a specific version of the key, and that they'll have to buy a new car, if they ruin the old key.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
How about a website without a required login?
Nissan warns U.S. cellphones can disable car keys
Maybe leaving it on the microwave isn't such a good idea, either. Are they REALLY that damn sensitive? I'll take a mechanical lock anyday.
That's ok, I usually drive and use a laptop instead of a cellphone.
Join the TWIT army now!
"The car won't start and the I-Key cannot be reprogrammed."
Obviously it CAN be reprogrammed, or else they wouldn't have this problem to begin with.
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?
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.
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?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
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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This probably only occurs with GSM cell phones. These phones use a TDMA (Time Domain Multiple Access) technique, which causes them to transmit at very high powers (2W) for short (1ms) times. Depending on the efficiency of the transmitters it's common for voltages over 20Vp-p (peak-to-peak) to be generated and transmitted to other devices.
The capacitive coupling of an antenna to a key could then be quite good at the 1-2GHz frequencies (0.5pF @ 2GHz => 150Ohms). That's a low enough impedance to power up a device (through its protection diodes) and cause it to reprogram itself due to noise on the inputs. It could actually even fry the poor little silicon device, if it rectified the voltage got up high enough (>5V) for any length of time.
It's not that hard a problem to prevent (put a filter on your inputs folks!), but I doubt the automotive key entry designers are normally thinking of transmitters at that power and frequency.
Electronic controls do not give anything that a well engineered engine does not
Huh?
Show me a car engine that can meet current emissions requirements without electronic controls while running on fuel that you can buy at your local gas station. You can't, because it simply isn't possible. Even diesels have computer controls these days.
Electronic controls are an absolute requirement for gasoline engines because of the fine level of control of air/fuel mixture and ignition timing required to burn the fuel efficiently and somewhat cleanly whilst not destroying the engine in the process.
One car I owned recently (a 1995 Chevy) had an 11:1 compression ratio and ran on 87 octane fuel (that's the lowest grade of gasoline available in most of the USA). Without electronic controls such as knock sensing, O2 sensor feedback, mass airflow measurement, and the precise control of both the quantity and timing of fuel injection and the timing of the ignition by a computer, it simply would have been impossible to reach the power level that engine developed (or even to drive at all with an 11:1 CR on 87 octane fuel without knocking holes in the pistons) and at the same time producing HC and CO emissions that were a fraction of the same size (5.7L V8) engine from ten model years earlier.
An easy example of how electronic controls have improved the reliability of modern cars is the elimination of the ignition distributor. Pretty much all modern cars do not have distributors now, because they were such a common point of failure for ignition systems that they made cars break down due to things like worn out cap and rotor, or burned points (going back to before 1975 when electronic ignition became pretty much mandatory). Take a look at the tune-up intervals in a modern car's maintenance schedule. It used to be you'd have to change half the ignition system out every couple of years - now the whole thing is good for at least 100K miles in most cases.
Without modern electronic engine controls, US cities would still be blanketed photochemical smog from vehicle exhaust, and people's cars would be significantly less fuel efficient and far less reliable.
Your statement that electronic controls are not a vast improvement over the previous mechanical and vacuum controls is patently incorrect.
Putting moderation advice in your
I have noticed of late that when someone's cell phone rings in my house it's almost like a mini EMP just went off. If the phone is close to a set of speakers you can often tell before the phone even rings that there's a call incoming -- the speakers start making all sorts of noise.
I've looked into this and I'm not the only person who has speakers/electronics that respond to cell phones this way. Are they really pumping that much juice in the signal these days or is my setup wired so that EM signals somehow translate into sound on the speakers? And how do I fix that?
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
A base model Altima is high end?
What exactly is a mid range car?
I thought that was a well known danger. My father recently got a car with one of those, and it came with a warning to keep the key away from electronics like TVs. Cell phones might be more problematic since people often keep them with their keys, but if they can do it too that probably means its a rare problem (otherwise we would have heard of a lot more people getting into this kind of trouble).
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
These are not your regular key with an immobilizer chip. These are "proximity" keys. You just leave them in your pocket, purse or whatever. When you turn the ignition key, the car searches around "wirelessly" for the key. Same thing for opening the doors; you push a little black button on the door handle, and if you are in possession of the key, it unlocks. The car is surprisingly careful about where you have to be in order to accomplish these things. For example, it won't let you lock your keys in the car. I think it also detects the difference between a key in the driver's pocket vs. a key in the passenger's pocket and sets the driver's seat etc. appropriately.
Just bought a 2007 Infiniti G35S and it's a beautiful car.
8 8
Infiniti has been dealing with the problem quite well.
This is really not as big of an issue as the press is making it out to be -- it's a very isolated issue. I keep my phone next to my Blackberry all day and haven't had any problems. On the G35 forums, maybe 3-4 people have run into the issue. All owners recieved a letter about 2 weeks ago informing us of the issue and that they would have a replacement key for us within a few months.
Read more about it here: http://g35driver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1537
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.
The Model T had two different clutches, one for going forward and the other for reverse. When the forward clutch wore down and started slipping under heavy loads, one turned the car around to go up a steep hill. Or, if the brakes didn't work, you could use the reverse pedal to stop the car.
Perhaps one could say that Model Ts were so widely used because they were more reliable than horses. It's more probable that a horse would become sick and die than a Model T engine would need replacement.
I've got a new 2007 Altima. The key dongle thingy (you call it what you want, I'll call it what I want) comes apart and there's an actual normal key in there that will allow you to open the driver door and glove box. You need the electronic part of the key to start the car because it has push-button ignition. Nice to know that it's a high-end car!
Are you using the original engine or Mr. Fusion?
(The plutonium engine occurred to me also, but if plutonium passes the emissions test, the inspectors are slacking off.)
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
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?
Yep. Computer controlled (albeit fairly primitive) ignition, check. Computer controlled fuel injection (again fairly primitive), check.
If you're feeling daring, pop off the distributor cap (a huge pain on that engine when it isn't shoved sideways into a DeLorean), pull off the rotor and the dust cap. Note the lack of points. Yep, that's called an electronic ignition. If you're feeling even more daring, pop off the intake manifold (hahaha...), and look at the air flow meter. Right around there you should see a frequency valve. Yep. That's a computer controlled solenoid designed to regulate the fuel mixture in response to the oxygen sensor. Or, you know, look at the smog plate and it should mention you've got an "O2S" (oxygen sensor in EPA vernacular). If your cams aren't completely shot, you might even be able to hear the frequency valve buzzing away with the engine idling.
The revolution will be mocked
With either type of chipped key, the cost of replacing the key is very high. I am reminded of an incident I witnessed about 3-4 years ago at my Lexus dealer while I was waiting for service to be finished on my car: In comes a fellow, all excited that he had just managed to buy a nice Lexus for a ridiculously low price at a police auction. (No doubt it was a vehicle confiscated from a drug dealer or something.) Trouble was, the car he bought had no key with it. He came into the dealer with the VIN hoping to get a replacement key issued. The parts man did a lot of manual searching, and catalog thumbing and told the man the cost of a new key would be $3000+! Seems not only a new key was needed, but a complete replacement of the main computer module for the car. I don't know when I have seen someone more disappointed and frustrated as the fellow who got such a good deal on the Lexus.
[hangs head in shame]I'm sorry. I just couldn't help myself. I knew it at the time too.[/hangs head in shame]
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
People put up with it because they have little or no choice.
Products compete on price and glitz, not reliability or security.
Reliability and security were supposed to be _givens_ -- something you didn't pay attention to because they were minimum standards. Unfortunately, because most people were focusing on "glitz", "over here", software manufacturers were quickly taking money and resources from "QA" and security and putting them where they could get the best return on their money -- in "glitz".
Despite the tons of bugs in almost all software, how often do you see a company do a "bug-fix-only" release? Most people wouldn't pay for such a release -- or wouldn't pay "much". That's the problem. People don't want to pay for a bug-fix-only release, because they assume the product wouldn't be released if it was "faulty".
Unfortunately, I tend to agree. It would be painful to go back now and rewrite all existing software to be "bug free" or "fault free". Many might argue that it would bankrupt the industry -- maybe it would. But consumers have gotten used to a certain level of merchandise quality in the market.
If a product is "faulty", it gets recalled, or replaced or repaired -- at the manufacturer's expense. At least this is true for "most" consumer products. However, for whatever reason, software companies have convinced everyone that following the same standard as virtually every other product on the market place would just be "too hard". "Cost too much".
So often people complain about "cars", citing the computer industry where computers are 1000's of times faster and cheaper than 30-40 years ago and if cars had made such progress, we'd have cars getting a 1000 mpg with 0-60 acceleration or deceleration in 2-3 seconds...etc. But people usually don't think about the reverse -- if cars develop faults, people's lives may be endangered. The manufacturer, knowing they can be held liable, issues a safety recall. With software -- software manufacturers sell products, not only without warranty, but with explicit disclaimers that the software being bought is good for _no_ purpose.
Imagine buying any consumer product that not only claims it is good for "no purpose", but where the manufacturer claims it isn't a sale, but you are "leasing" the product from them and your rights concerning the product are limited --- with all the baggage that software "licenses", supposedly, limit you to. The idea of applying software "restrictions" to every and any other purchase seems laughable. Imagine your house being good for no purpose (including as shelter)...etc. Maybe airlines should start putting shrink-wrap licenses on the seat-backs. If you don't accept the seat-back license, you are free to get up and get off the plane. Otherwise, you consent to complete abrogation of your rights. Maybe it's just a matter of time...