Brad Enslen

Interesting. I can't think of any way that it's not an improvement. I had similar thoughts at first but now it seems totally obvious and I'd never dream of going back.

@jack I’m traveling at the moment, so when I get to my first stop, my dashboard starts warning me that the battery in my key fob needs changing. What impeccable timing. Eventually I had to look up a YouTube vid on how to change battery, buy a screwdriver, new battery and do surgery.

"do surgery" ha! Yeah, batteries have the potential to ruin things. I did learn that (at least with my cars so far) even with a dead battery, the key fob will still work if held directly against the ignition button.

Especially considering the danger of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, as described in this story.

Recently purchased my first car with this and I am on the fence about it. Most of my frustration is around the inconsistencies of when things work and when they don’t. Will the door unlock when I pull the handle this time or will it not? That kind of thing. Regardless, this is also my first car with a touch screen and they have no business being in cars. At least not with the horrible UX of most of them.

@mcg That is exactly my experience. The car manuals are as thick as a college text book. Just setting the darn clock requires flicking the wiper stalk up and down.

There might be some advantages to this keyless thingy, but I don’t really want to pull out that honking huge manual or search for YouTube videos to learn more.

I like not having to poke around my pocket for keys. My next car will have keyless entry and ignition.

my wife's keyless fob has been on the same battery for a year and I just checked. It's tivially easy to change.

I can see that scenario would be extremely annoying. Both of our cars have keyless fobs - mine is 3 years old and my wife’s is 6 years old and fortunately they’ve been trouble free. I experienced more frustration with the old key 🔑 fob batteries and the keys being fiddly in ignitions (sterling wheel lock).

The manuals are definitely large and hard to navigate. I downloaded PDFs of ours (1 file per chapter) so I can search them on my phone or laptop. And keep the AAA phone number and car maker’s phone numbers handy. So many things can go wrong and prevent a car from starting I want to be prepared.

@ronguest Keyless cars still seem to me to be a solution in need of a problem.

Touch screens and other electronic gizmos by vehicle manufacturers generally have a terrible UI and have no way to update that software when something better comes along.