Hacker News Reader

Comment by josefx | Hacker News Reader

As far as I understand even physical car keys tended to be on the low end. With a decent chance that you could find a different car by the same manufacturer that you could at least unlock with your key.

View on HN

I used to drive a Nissan whose doors would unlock when you closed a door - I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. But I found I could also trigger the unlocking mechanism by punching the outside of the door at just the right spot. Very useful for when ice would get in the locks.

It was intentional. It's so you can't lock your keys inside.

I had a Mazda with this feature, apparently very common among Japanese cars in the early 90s. At first I thought it was broken, until I started looking into how to fix it and found you just have to pull the handle as you're closing the door to stop it from popping up. It's supposed to make you think about grabbing your keys but after a while it sort of became automatic.

I've got an early 80s SAAB that handled this in a more straightforward way. The driver's door lock plunger will not go down while the door is open, forcing you to lock it with the key (or reach around from another door, and then lock that.)

When I was an auto mechanic back in the days before key fobs, I'd driven the wrong car into the bay...twice, that I recall. I even changed the oil on one of those cars, when it was in for a brake job. It was the other blue '85 Chevy Malibu that needed the oil change.

Long ago, I unlocked the wrong VW Rabbit, and was briefly surprised when I couldn't start it. More recently (last dozen or so years) the NY Times Sunday Magazine had a short piece, something like "Dude, Where's Your Car", about a woman actually driving off with the wrong car, and having to arrange its return to the owner.

Yeah a friend of mine had that. Almost drove away in the wrong car, luckily he noticed "weird CDs" lying around.

Old Subaru by any chance…?

Literally any vehicle with a worn out ignition cylinder from 100k of keys hanging off of it.

Barely on topic, but I accidentally stole a bike due to this issue. Somebody parked their bike in the same rack, same model, same color, same brand of lock, and my key popped it right open. About half way home I finally realized why the seat felt funny. Drove back and swapped it with my own, I hope nobody noticed.

Fun-fact: you can lock any Ford with a 6-sided key (not sure what those are called) of your Ford...

Funner-fact: you can lock any car that's unlocked by opening up the door and locking it.

Many older cars require you to hold the handle up while you close the door to prevent you from accidentally locking yourself out.

Not my Bolt. Even if the key is nowhere on your person or in the car, it steadfastly refuses to let you lock the door that way. If you push the lock button while the door is open, it immediately unlocks it for you.

It would make sense to do that if it detected the fob inside the car. But it does it no matter what.

If you lose your keys, you can't lock the car up and come back with the spare?

That's not a feature.

I agree, but realistically the car is already locked when you lose your keys, assuming you lock your car when you leave it. An exception would be, say, dropping your keys down a storm drain after getting out and before walking away, but even this is becoming unusual as more cars have push-to-start and capacitive exterior touch areas such that your key is always in your pocket.

I agree, it's not a feature. It's annoying.

Your spare would be your cell phone app.

My '82 Honda didn't work that way (it would pop the lock open again when the door was closed), I'd be surprised if anything modern still worked in such a manner (nothing I own does).

most modern cars will not let you do this as to prevent accidental car-on-while-locked or locked-keys scenarios.

Why bother with a key?

> To lock all doors, with the driver door closed, press and hold 7•8 and 9•0 at the same time. You do not need to enter the keypad code first.

https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/keys-and-locks/securico...

Someone once drove my car away from the SJ airport lot as a favor for his friend, who was quite surprised to be picked up in someone else's blue Camry.

The key from a 2001 GMC Savannah opened the doors of our 2002 Chevy Express (same van model, different badges). Though the Express key could not open the Savannah. Either key did not work in each others ignition lock.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com