I know how to determine if it is causing a problem. Do you have a hammer?

 

Jon, that green light shaped like a key means you DO have an immobilizer.

It's a radio-frequency ID(RFID) chip just like your company fob.Try putting your company badge in the trunk & see if that makes a difference. The antenna for those RFID chips has a VERY short range, ie. you can't unlock the door at work from 8 feet away.

No, Tony, I didn't know about that when we bought the car new, but it has becomea pretty popular question over at saabnet.

 

You could just save the money by not losing the key.
If your daughter is responsible, she shouldnt lose it.
I am 19 and my Accord is my fist car and I have had it a little more than 3 years and have not lost it. I also have an alarm system (Aftermarket) that wont let the car start unless it is unarmed, so I need both the key and the fob. If your daughter loses her key, it should be her responsibility to replace it. If she loses things, that will teach her to be a little more careful.

If you are buying a new car it is actually easy to get a free spare key. Right before you close the deal, simply claim I want another key w/o the price changing or im walking. Easy.

 

That is exactly what I thought. Hmmmm.....maybe I'll be taking my fob off my keychain now.....

 

^ good point. Kids don't learn anything if mommy and daddy fix everything for them. I totaled my car, got nothing from insurance and had to buy a new car within a week. I did the research on the cars I was looking at, I went looking for a loan, my name is on the loan and I'm responsible for the monthly payments. That's coming from another 19 year old.

There were so many girls in high school that daddy bought them brand new Audis and VWs for their sweet 16. I even know one girl who was actually trying to total her 6th gen coupe because she hated it so much so her parents would buy her a new car. It's ridiculous, these kids are going to be taking care of this country's population some day and I know I would not trust the majority of my peers.

 

And to answer the OP's question, yes, the world has gone crazy!

 

My daughter is 40 years old and has owned cars for years. Her 91 Toyota Celica was recentlyrear-ended in an intersection by a distracted pick-up driver. The resulting damage was enough for the insurance company to "total" her car. You can imagine what the insurance company paid out for the car.

No, I don't doubt her ability to not lose her keys. What I DO doubt is the ability of the manufacturer ofany newcar and the manufacturer of any ofthese fancy keys to produce something that will function reliablyfor as long asthe key for our 92, or her 91,has lasted. In fact, I would doubt very much if those fancykeys or the receiving devices in the cars of todayare going to reliably last for evenHALF as long and even that is probably optimistic.

Of course today's 19-year-olds would not onlynot expect anything to last that long, they probably don't realize that it can, AND SHOULD, be designed to do just that.

BTW, what powers those keys - a small nuclear power plant? Please don't tell me it's a battery....please.

 

From Wikipedia:

Passive RFID tags have no internal power supply. The minute electrical current induced in the antenna by the incoming radio frequency signal provides just enough power for the CMOS integrated circuit in the tag to power up and transmit a response. Most passive tags signal by backscattering the carrier wave from the reader. This means that the antenna has to be designed both to collect power from the incoming signal and also to transmit the outbound backscatter signal.

 

yea, its mad expensive but if you have a friend that works at the dealership, you save a whole lot. My buddy works at honda and i had a key made for about 4 bucks but the retail price would be 40 bucks roughly. dealers mark up the price a lot.

 

the way RFID works is there is two parts, a tag and a reciever. the reciever broadcasts a signal. The tag (part in the key) recieves that signal, modifies it, then "bounces" it back to the reciever. It gets all the power it needs from the original signal. the reciever knows the "code" on the "chip" in your key from the signal that was bounced off the tag.