Aren't steering wheel locks and security posts pointless?

[Siliconslave]

I guess its only really relevant for cars that are happy to continue to run without the keys (which would be required for the scrotes to take the car any distance) - pretty sure the Evoke isn't too worried about having a constant signal.

People add so many inconvenient bits of nonsense to deter thieves etc, but i don’t want to sacrifice my convenience for the small chance my car gets stolen. If it does, that is what insurance is for.

I've not had a car stolen, but having to get one replaced after a crash is a huge headache so I can't imagine it would be that dissimilar.

 

[xs2man]

I've not had a car stolen, but having to get one replaced after a crash is a huge headache so I can't imagine it would be that dissimilar.

Sure. It might well be a PITA. But then you're offsetting guaranteed daily inconvenience for a potential one off, albeit much larger, inconvenience. As said, insurance is there, and courtesey car will keep me mobile. So while there may well be some messing about and inconvenience, I'd rather take it at that point, than every day, several times a day.

 

[Werewolf]

I've often wondered why all modern keys don't have this 'sleep' feature whereby they stop broadcasting when they haven't moved for a while.

Doing it with the batteries is an interesting solution but you're right, if you're on a smooth journey and there isn't enough movement to trigger the batteries, presumably the key would go dead and the car would start squealing that it can't find the key.

FWIW, as I started this thread, I just had a Ghost installed.

I'm guessing because the manufacturers didn't want to pay a couple of pennies per keyfob.
The truly stupid thing is that the added cost in the keyfob is probably offset by savings in battery life by turning off the radio transmitter.

I've said it many times, the car manufacturers/marketing people forgot or ignored lessons from the 80's and 90's when there was the very similar issue with the earliest remote keyfobs that could be defeated with an allingone learning remote for IR, and some simple receivers/transmitters you could IIRC make using stuff from Maplin's for radio.

The sleep battery seems to be workaround to retrofit what should have been a keyfob standard feature and I'm guessing is being done because it's far cheaper for the car company to develop/ send out a few of these batteries than replace the keyfobs themselves for every affected car.

 

[Siliconslave]

The battries retail for about £90 a pair, but guessing JLR get them significantly cheaper than that wholesale. Sure it'd be much much cheaper to add that functionality to the fob, less than pennies on a PCB.