Where's my keyfob?!? It finally happened.

12678 Views 21 Replies 9 Participants Last post by generaltso, Jan 19, 2017

dmann33

Discussion Starter · Jan 16, 2017

I've been dreading this scenario for years going back to the acquisition of my 2015 Ody. I drove off without the keyfob and turned off the van!

Of course, I could start the van with the app and could turn the steering fine, but any attempt to put it in gear would kill the engine. I was stuck. I called Chrysler Assist (or whatever it is called) hoping that they had a means to "override" the drive away feature so that I could return to get my keyfob, but alas they could not. I was stuck.

I had not gone too far, but I was outside of my own town and dropped off my wife (and keyfob) and ran another errand across town (15 minutes away). She ended up using an Uber to bring her (and the fob) to me and the van. I know there are alerts when driving w/o the keyfob, and a chime when she walked out of the car, but there are chimes all the time for the open door or blindspot, etc so when you are in a parking lot stopped, you tend to tune them all out all too easily. This is one chime I would welcome to be more annoying.

It was suggested by my dealer to stash an extra fob (ie. the keysense one) in the back somewhere. It would be too far away for anyone to start the car with it and may not be a bad idea. I have not tested it yet, but with the Ody, you could NOT lock the van with a fob inside no matter what. I think it is possible in the Pacifica.

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Razorbackfan

· #3 · Jan 16, 2017

My corvette would ask me if I wanted to shut the car off if it didn't detect my key fob when I hit the push button.
Did the Pacifica just shut off without this? I haven't tested it.

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Razorbackfan

· #12 · Jan 17, 2017

dmann33 said:
Here's an idea Chrysler Cares.... if the keyfob is absent and you want to kill the car, maybe they could require you to push it twice, essentially asking you if you REALLY want to shut it down in absence of the fob. That could save someone's bacon.

This is what the corvette does. When the fob is absent and you hit the kill switch it asks "fob not detected do you want to continue?" And if you hit it again it will shut the car off.
They started this in at least 2005 but keyless entry goes back to '96. So for at least 12 years they have been doing it.

So I went out and did the test on both my truck and the van and both of them act the same way. On the center of the info screen it says fob has left the vehicle and a constant chime but will shut off with one push. I agree with you they should do a program update to allow two pushes of the switch without the fob present.

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