carkey_fob.gif Quite extraordinary that software designers in the automotive industry can be so dim.

Our car, new to us last year but pre-owned, as was all but one of the previous six Range Rovers we bought over the past 45 years, has a pair of those intelligent keys. We all know the sort now. About as secure as a snowflake falling into the caldera of an active volcano.

My dear wife had a bad experience. The battery in the key fob was flat. No prior warning. No sign of degradation just 'bang', no longer starts the car. She was canny enough to pull the mechanical key from the fob to unlock the door to get in but the engine starting system wasn't recognising the key.

Fitting a new battery in the Range Rover key fob requires trawling through a 500 page manual, a PhD in physics and a sledge hammer. Cleverly designed to defeat all but the intrepid.

So my frightened dear wife phones me (battery not flat then) and I drive out to rescue her with my spare key. Fortunately only a 50 km round trip. Safely back back home I change the battery in my wife's key fob. After half an hour fumbling and with flying shards of black plastic casing later.

The key for a Rangey sets you back around 350 Euros each. Why? They only take the Chinese a few minutes to make hundreds at a time at a cost of ten Quid or so each. And you have to sit an exam and pass a lie detector test before you (or your multi-hundred thousand Quid/Euro car) can get its hands on one. Far easier to get visitor rights to a jail and visit an incarcerated car thief and they could source you one in less than five minutes, for under ten Quid.

In any event I quickly discovered you can't leave a spare working key inside the car, then get out of the car and lock the door with the other key. It won't let you. Why? Because there is an active, working key inside the car and the WiFi system inside the car detects and recognises it and blocks, that is inhibits the attempt. A SAFETY feature!

A top end Range Rover now costs around quarter of a million Quid/Euros. About the same as a two bed semi-detached bungalow in Surbiton. Ours isn't top end I might add. Only has five refrigerated/heated cup holders.

One might have hoped that the makers, Jaguar Land Rover, might have thought to employ engineers over the mental age of a 7 year old, before letting them loose in their design office.

Meantime I have resigned myself to only keeping a spare battery for the key fob in the glove box. Along with a sledge hammer!

Mistral's commitment:
Bringing benefits of computerisation to our RAC industry - without the commonly associated problems.

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