Kias and Hyundais Keep Getting Stolen by the Thousands and Cities Are Suing | Hacker News Reader

Kias and Hyundais Keep Getting Stolen by the Thousands and Cities Are Suing

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28 pointsthunderbong21 comments

Here is a recent letter written by Cem Hatipoglu, NHTSA's acting associate director for enforcement [1] in response to a letter from the California Attorney General requesting that the NHTSA to institute a recall of Kia and Hyundai vehicles [2].

> At this time, NHTSA has not determined that this issue constitutes either a safety defect or noncompliance requiring a recall under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, 49 U.S.C. Chapter 301. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard identified in your letter, FMVSS No. 114, does not require an engine immobilizer. See 49 C.F.R. § 571.114. Also, the test procedure specified in that standard does not contemplate actions taken by criminal actors to break open or remove part of the steering column and take out the ignition lock to start a vehicle. See id. § 571.114, S6. Here, the safety risk arises from unsafe use of a motor vehicle by an unauthorized person after taking significant destructive actions to parts of the vehicle.

[1]: http://web.archive.org/web/20230828221636/https://pdfhost.io...

[2]: http://web.archive.org/web/20230828221808/https://pdfhost.io...

Easier than prosecuting car thieves or getting their DAs to actually do their jobs

Honest question, what is the purpose of being so soft on crime for these DAs? I really don’t understand it.

Jail is expensive and cities are cash strapped.

Isn’t it still a net loss of revenue if everyone moves out of your city and refuses to visit because of your soft on crime reputation?

It sounds like that could be Someone Else's Problem from the perspective of a District Attorney. It plausibly looks good to somebody that the DA is minimizing prison costs regardless of second-order effects of policies which minimize prison costs.

DA has a bully pulpit they could use to petition for building more jail space, but no direct control of that. Also it takes years to build more jail space. Prisons/jails are incredibly expensive to build and operate.

It's the unintended consequences of good intentions. The belief is that the criminal justice system has been historically racist against certain minority groups. Once you've been to prison, it becomes dramatically harder to get a job and rent. So by being soft on crime they are righting a "wrong".

Noble intentions but it ultimate creates injustice for victims of the crime. It also promotes petty and organized crime. It also creates a cycle. Soft on crime cause a crime wave caused by social justice DAs. Voters get pissed and then only vote for Tough on Crime candidates. Tough on Crime candidates crack down on crime creating a sense of injustice. The sense of injustice pisses off Voters and they vote for Social Justice candidates who are soft on crime and the cycle repeats.

> Since the beginning of the year, Seattle, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Columbus have all sued Kia and Hyundai, which are owned by the same parent company, for selling cars without engine immobilizers, a technology that has served as a major contributor to the plummeting rate of stolen vehicles in the U.S. As the rest of the industry adopted immobilizers, Kia and Hyundai didn’t, with only 26 percent of their cars including them in 2015, compared to 96 percent for other manufacturers.

Kia and Hyundai are not doing their due diligence and being both incredibly lazy and incredibly cheap here. They should be strong-armed into catching up with the rest of the industry.

> Kia and Hyundai are not doing their due diligence and being both incredibly lazy and incredibly cheap here

And if they had, people would be on here complaining about evil corporate greed because it costs $300 to duplicate and program a transponder key.

Why not both? I’ve programmed a transponder key the dealer wanted 400+ dollars to program. The key fob (an OE part) cost $40 online from another dealer — I’m assuming they sold me the key fob at a profit and not out of charity.

The programming procedure using a scan tool took 5 minutes.

> And if they had, people would be on here complaining about evil corporate greed because it costs $300 to duplicate and program a transponder key.

Has this changed? It cost zero dollars to program a transponder key last time I did (20ish years ago), since the instructions for doing so were in the car manual. It was some weird dance where you need two already-programmed keys and turn them in the ignition to specific positions in a specific order.

The problem is you are usually wanting to program a key when you’ve already lost one.

Yes.

Some cars (notably Hondas) do not let you self-program keys; rather it must be done with a scan tool.

The era of push-button start has ushered in crazy-expensive key fobs.

As the other poster pointed out, vehicles that do allow self-programming generally require two known keys present to program a third. Most people don't realize this until they've lost one of the two OEM keys.

> Kia and Hyundai are not doing their due diligence and being both incredibly lazy and incredibly cheap here. They should be strong-armed into catching up with the rest of the industry.

Could we say the same about the police not capturing and putting those stealing cars away?

Why is it Kia’s fault people are choosing to break the law?

Um, yea, this is just factual. There is exactly 1 Kia and 1 Hyundai to go after.

Meanwhile there are a near unlimited number of potential car thieves. Throwing one in jail does just about nothing for the next person in line willing to steal the car.

Wait, still?

I thought they rolled out firmware updates already: the alarm system has to be deactivated by the fob button before the physical key (or any other twisting device) will work.

> Both companies also offer a free software patch that they say removes the threat of theft, which requires visiting a dealer.

How does that software update work for the cars that have no immobilizer hardware?

IANACarMechanic, but I think the difference is that a "real" immobilizer would work regardless of whether the car doors are locked and regardless of whether the alarm-system is on, it is always looking for a "proper key", and will trigger the alarm if it detects anything else is being used on the steering-column.

In contrast, this new firmware workaround is exclusively based on a "digital fob layer" of security: It takes effect when the user locks/alarms the car with the fob, and only goes away when the fob's unlock button is used. The car still cannot distinguish a correct key from a fake-key/screwdriver/usb-plug.

Two scenarios might help illustrate the difference:

1. You park the car, open the door to step outside, lock the doors by using the in-door button (no fob usage!) and close the door before leaving. That car is still just as vulnerable as before, an attacker could smash through the window and use screwdriver/pliers to drive off because there's no immobilizer to recognize a key is fake.

2. You sit inside the car, lock+arm it with the fob, wait 90 seconds, and then insert and turn the legitimate key. The car will refuse to start and the alarm will go off, because the fob-status is still armed and there's no immobilizer to recognize your key is real.

[0] https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/3768

It’s like 6 month wait to get the update.

I went retro with “the club”.

Huh, I must have just got lucky back in mid-May, either in terms of Hyundai's priority-list for different models, or else in terms of service-appointment scheduling. (Depending on what blocker you're referring to.)

> I went retro with “the club”.

I'm still keeping "the club" though: I mean, I've already got it, and it may help deter someone from breaking my window before they realize it won't start for them.

At one point I was drawing up plans to install a hidden kill-switch against the ignition/starter system, including buying a cheap radio-controlled switch with its own little fob.

I also considered a kill-switch on the fuel pump instead, however that seems riskier since any mistakes could cause problems while driving, as opposed to just problems starting.

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