Disabling a Key Fob Could Prevent Car Theft

Disabling a Fob

We came across a video some time ago from Now You Know – linked here – where a Toyota guy highlighted a Toyota key fob feature: Disabling a Key Fob. Press and hold the lock button, and while doing so, press the unlock button twice. This disables the proximity access feature of the fob.

We then verified it on a Toyota as well and it works! See the video below.

Now, not to worry, a simple press of the unlock button not only gets you in the car, it also restores the proximity feature.

But we’re not Toyota guys, so we set out to test as many cars as we could get our hands on. But before we get there, why is this even important?

The proximity feature of a fob only works within about 18 inches of a lock. But the fact is, clever thieves can tap into the signal from a live fob even though its seemingly not in use. Likely as not you’ve had the experience of using an unlock or lock button from 50 ft or even more. I can lock/unlock my car from a good 70 ft.

This is the signal that can be tapped from a live fob, essentially duplicated on a computer and your car is gone. The video is from CNN is right here.

And it can be done while you’re at home and the car is in you’re driveway! This is the value of the disabled fob feature.

What of Other Manufacturers

So who else? We tried a Nissan, but no dice. Actually, it turns that two Nissan models we tested do not lock or unlock with a touch of the door handle, so disabling is unnecessary. We tried a Dodge, which again did not work.

We then tested a Lexus, which is a Toyota product, it did work. It did not work on an Audi, a Volvo, a Polestar, an Acura, a Volkswagen or a BMW.

So, this is a call to all manufacturers to implement the feature, and to you the owner of any Toyota and Lexus models to use the feature. And if you have a model from a manufacturer that we didn’t test, try it and let us know in the comments if it worked – or not.

We did a video on the subject, linked below.

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