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Comment by AmVess | Hacker News Reader

Remote starter. They are hack jobs to install. 435 MHz is the frequency the remote uses to start the car.

What is the usecase for a remote starter? I don't really understand why someone would want this. Could even be dangerous if it's left in gear.

To heat your car when it’s cold outside, prior to your entry.

Also to cool your car when it's hot outside. Was 105F/40C today where I live. The parking lot will can significantly hotter than that in direct sun on tarmac surfaces.

Living in winter. Preheating the vehicle. (That’s what I use mine for, which is factory installed.)

Most people in the US do not drive manuals. You can get them in manuals but you have to hack some stuff, and yea, it will stall your car out if you start it in gear. In the US they are largely for convenience so you can heat or cool your car before you go out.

Ah I forgot about that. All my own cars were manuals.

And I've lived mostly in countries with pretty mild climates so there wasn't any need for this. Though even in the Netherlands this could be handy in the middle of winter or summer. Beats scraping the windows.

No manual I have ever driven will even start without the clutch engaged, so I assume a remote starter can bypass that somehow?

I always leave my manual car in gear in the opposite the direction the car would be likely to roll if the emergency brake ever failed. (If the car would roll forward, put it in reverse. If it would roll backwards put it in 1st).

There's nothing preventing the engine from turning backwards. Engage the highest gear if you are worried your handbrake will give out.

Put it in 1st to stop the car from moving. Put it in 4th to push start it.

I’ve had most success with 2nd or rear

Same, I have used 2nd gear before, and it worked perfectly fine.

Subaru Forester and XV do that. No gear in - car starts without clutch.

Mine will.

You haven’t driven a lot of manuals then. My friend’s dad once got his hyundai up the porch starting it with a gear in.

I think that modern cars have electronics that keep you from starting the car without the clutch pressed. Cars I owned in the 80s and 90s would engage the starter when you turned the keys. Cars since then won't engage the starter unless the clutch is in.

Even my 80s and 90s cars have a clutch switch (though the 87 is Japanese, can't speak for American cars in that decade). No pedal, no start.

It’s not necessarily a good thing. Imagine stalling on the train tracks and being unable to start the engine. You could still move the car using the starter motor, but not if it refuses to with the clutch engaged.

My 2004 audi a4 def didn’t have any switch like that but yeah seems like they started installing it everywhere some time in the last 10-15 years

Just to clarify for less automobile oriented people: The clutch is engaged when the pedal is not being pressed, and disengages when pressed. Starting a manual car in gear without the clutch pedal fully pressed leaves the power train connected to the motor, and so the car moves when the starter motor turns the engine.

I am the GP of the comment, and that was my mistake. Thank you for the clarification because I did not know this. I meant, "the clutch pedal fully pressed" in my GP comment.

There's plenty that do, and in fact UK driving test examiners would frequently slip a car into gear before the candidate makes their first start. If they hop the car, it's an automatic fail, before you even get out on the road.

All the cars I've owned in Europe (all manual) had no lock out whatsoever.. No need to press the clutch or brake for the starter too work.

Having said that, when I still had a car I used to drive old cars. My newest car was a 2005 Volvo S40. But this was also perfectly capable of starting in gear and with the clutch engaged.

My first car still had a choke :)

All of my vehicles were owned in the USA, and maybe that has something to do with it? Every model of car I have driven had this -- late 80s BMW, multiple Volkswagens, and a Jeep Wrangler. Hell, the John Deere farm equipment I grew up using (tractors, old lawn mowers, etc.) all had this too.

> My first car still had a choke :)

What car? Was it a Datsun by chance?

Cold weather primarily. You need the engine to warm up before driving and it’s much nicer to have the heater warm up the car and loosen ice on the windows.

You can run outside and start the car then come back, as I did growing up in a cold region, but remote start is sooo much nicer.

Makes sense yeah. Sometimes I'd do this manually but because I used a shared car park I'd need the spare key to do this safely with the main key in the ignition. I didn't consider this option. I haven't owned a car for many years and the last one was already pretty old :)

The one I installed tied into the brake light circuit, such that pressing on the brake would kill the remote starter’s completion of the “run” circuit. That’s a simple and fairly effective way to prevent a casual drive-off.

Cars built in the last 15 years usually don't need to be warned up:

But yeah, icy/foggy windows are a pain to clear.

I live in Montreal, and when I had an ICE car, most days, it was fine to just de-icing the windows, then start the motor, and slowly roll out of the alley. Admittedly, most winter days, it's not that cold.

Kind of drives me crazy, the smell and pollution from idling ICE cars :/

> Cars built in the last 15 years usually don't need to be warned up:

They don't need to be warmed up for the engine. They still might need to be warmed up for the driver, though.

Sometimes you can’t drive until the defroster is warm enough to keep your own breath from fogging the windshield.

I had wondered if the engine bit was still necessary, thank you.

> But yeah, icy/foggy windows are a pain to clear.

I've had cars with auxiliary heat just for this purpose.

It's hyper super duper useful in rough climates. Primarily when it's minus 40 outside and you have kids, it's nice to warm up the car slightly before entering it. If you get spoiled, you might then also remote start it when it's plus 40 outside and you want ac to at least start.

Also note that "if it's left in gear" is virtually irrelevant in North America, fwiw - something like under 2 percent of cars here are manual. Vast majority of vehicles and models do not have it as an option.

Thanks also, I get it now. I used to do this manually sometimes in the Netherlands to warm up the ice to make it easier to scrape off. But it involved the spare key to relock it while running and also to set the heat to full blast. We never get minus 40 though and where I live now it doesn't even freeze :)

And as we also have pretty tiny engines here, it takes a long time to heat up this way because first the cooling water needs to get warm which takes ages with the engine running stationary. So I only did this once in a while if it was really needed.

My old Volvo did have an option to open all the windows with the remote though which was great to let the heat out in summer.

Almost every car I’ve recently owned and/or rented has this option: unlock the car, then hold down the unlock button to roll all the windows down (and in some models, additionally open the sunroof).

I hate this feature with all my heart. Ive never needed it or wanted it and can easily roll down my own windows. 4-5 times ive come back to my car and windows rolled down after shopping or working as i must have accidentally activated it.

Same for the remote trunk opener. I can't count how many times people rang my doorbell at night to alert my the trunk is open.

Why on earth?

I hate it when it's operated by remote, but it's really nice to do it with the key in the lock. If you have to leave your car outside in the sun and you know it won't be raining, you can easily crack all the windows 1.5 inches or so to let the heat easily escape your car.

Note that, for emmesions, heating up the car in stationary is actually positive. It prevents driving a car with a cold engine. Cold engines cause horrible inefficiency in cars. It's one of the reasons why city driving is worse for mileage and emissions than highway driving. Shorter trips.

I am unable to find a source for this. Until now I thought heating up stationary is bad concerning all possible aspects, including emissions.

Seems to be caused by the period before the catalytic converter gets up to normal exhaust temperature.

“Vehicles fitted with catalytic converters emit most of their total pollution during the first five minutes of engine operation; for example, before the catalytic converter has warmed up sufficiently to be fully effective.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter

Sure. But otoh the car is idling for tens of minutes maybe and possibly no single part of the engine and exhaust system is gaining the needed temperatures to operate cleanly. This means more emissions, more wear and more stressed out neighbours. I'm sure about the last one at least.

There is probably a sweet spot. Certainly, you want to avoid loading a cold engine too much. But don't idle for qn hour either.

But then you cause those bad emissions in your car park while it's heating up :)

I don't there is a big benefit overall.

Spoiled? Being low tolerant to anything above 23C I find getting into these pressure cookers a very uncomfortable experience. I’m simply refusing to get a taxi when such happy summer driver arrives with windows down in 35C+. I’d better get into an ice cold car rather than that.

I live in a country where it's above 23 degrees most of the year :) I got used to it. When I first got here I used to wear T-Shirts in winter at the agony of my colleagues. But the second year was a lot tougher..

Here it's cold in the winter and it is definitely illegal to install a remote start system in a car with a manual transmission.

Before my life in tech I worked in car audio installs back in the 90s.

One day one of the senior installer techs put a remote start in his own Mazda truck which had a manual transmission. A bit of time went by and we were outside smoking one day when he must have hit the button in this pocket. Apparently the e-brake wasn't on, and the truck was in first gear, so it started and drove across the parking lot and hit the wall of a building as we all watched.

A proper remote starter for a manual transmission has sensors to ensure the vehicle is in neutral with the handbrake on.

> A proper remote starter

That's the key part. Proper :)

IIRC he just bypassed the sensor that would have been for Park on an automatic, since there were no manual transmission kits for sale as they were (and I think still are) illegal for sale where I live.

He would even refuse to do this sort of thing for other people so it was pretty funny it happened to him.

A remote start should have a slider switch and a lock for it, so you can't "push the button" by sitting on it.

My factory one on a factory fob requires 3 presses within a second to activate.

It was and add-on to a car alarm and controlled via second or third button on the fob. Also 1994.

My car is manual, and I always leave it in gear when parked in case the parking brake fails.

That's why they make remote starters with clutch lockouts. Can't remote start if in gear.

I didn't realize the percentage of manual transmissions was so low, no wonder the car culture there seems to idolize it.

In my climate, on a 45c day, inside the car's going to be more than that. It's definitely a workout for the generally imported car's A/C unit. I am guilty of turning the car on and waiting under a tree or something for the AC to bring the temperature down to at least ambient.

I'm looking at a series hybrid car. I must admit, pre-conditioning the car off the battery would be pretty luxurious.

> I didn't realize the percentage of manual transmissions was so low, no wonder the car culture there seems to idolize it.

Yeah, it's getting more and more difficult to even buy them at all over here. Rather slim pickings.

Electric A/C for car is really underrated feature. It is rarely mentioned on hybrid vehicle. Efficient idling is what I want to have at least.

I've looked at remote start systems. The specs always require an automatic transmission. The use case is simple: Today's high is 111F (44C), if the car is parked in the sun it's going to be a lot warmer than that inside. In those conditions we typically open the doors and wait a little bit before entering--using a remote start to turn the AC on a minute or two before getting in would be nice.

What an interesting coincidence, I was just watching a video on how people keep their cars warm in Yakutia, and this is the sort of thing they use.

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