I'm not bashing it, calm down. I'm just not sold on it being "worth while".

What is the great gain by implimenting this system?

Better Performance? Better Convenience? More Secure? Significant Weight Savings?

I don't know that it does any of the above or anything else.

It seems like it could be more complicated just for the sake of being more complicated.


Plus...................... haven't you bashed the 2005 Mustang for the color-changing dash lights on more than one occasion? I think that I can at least say that that does serve a function to a point. Some people really liek Pontiac's red dash lighting as easier on the eyes... other despise it. With the Mustang, you can now choose.

What does the keyless start offer as a benifit?

 

okay, so what happens when the above is encountered? Does the door re-open again to allow you to retrieve the fob??? or do you have to do the "manual steps" to open the door, via the manual release in the trunk.

 

I would assume it doesn't lock at all, since the fob never went out of range...

 

it would be even easier to wait until someone pulls out their keys to get into a regular car and club them over the head. then one could just take those keys and steal the car without breaking in as well. if someone wants the car, they will most likely get it.

besides, wouldn't the keyless fobs used in the cars today (the ones used to unlock doors and set alarms) transmit the signal much farther than the ones used in the new vette? the new vette fob will unlock/start the car when you are near it right? the other units can unlock doors 100' away. wouldn't those be easier to intercept the signal on? how often is that done?

 

actually.. if they do it right, a virtual lock would be very very hard to break... Like if they used a highbit PGP encryption, with public and private keys.. except the public key really wouldn't be "public". like 128 bits.. Then that would a huge pain to crack. MUCH harder than a "cd key"

It is VERY hard to crack a if the keys are large enough.... If you even replay the last transmisson, you still would have to figure out the fob's private key, and the car's public key's for a successful acknoledgemnt then..

But this would require the key fobs to be a bit more complicated inside, sinc it would take more power to decode/encode these messages..


But in the end, yes, it would be easier just to club someone over the head and steal their fob.

 

There is a holder in the glove box...you place the fob in the holder and it reads it.......thus, allowing you to start the car.

 

OK...not an electrical engineer...(and never will be....) so I can't go into the number of combinations...and how difficult it would be to duplicate the signal..but I'm told it's very very very hard to do. (so I'll believe the guy who told me that 'cause he's a great engineer and I trust him.......)

there was a lot of discussion on this feature. (and no, there is no key cylinder in the dash to manually start the car) Was it the right thing to do? The market will tell us. It was clinic'd and was very well received.

Is it hard to remember how to use? Not at all. The biggest drawback to me is the fact that I hate to leave keys in my pocket....(I have a bunch of keys on my keyring in addition to the fob.....) so....where do you put 'em? I put 'em on the seat one night...got home...got a bunch of stuff out of the back cargo area and stuff from the passenger seat...went back to shut the car off....and damn if I couldn't find the keys! It was dark.....couldn't remember if I had picked up the keys or not...wasn't sure if I should shut the car off or not...but did...it started right back up, so I knew they had to be within a few feet of the car or IN the car. Seems they slid off the passenger seat and onto the floor. (not that I would EVER accelerate fast...yeah, right....) then they then slid under the passenger seat. I now put 'em in the cupholder...or the console. If you forget to grab them, the "three horn blasts" will remind you.

those that look at the car are fascinated by the system.

 

I think the system is cool as hell....Lexus who? Good to see GM near the front of the pack for a change...instead of showing up 3 years late the prom saying "me too!"

As for you skeptics....think way back 50 some years ago when power windows were a new-fangled contraption...imagine the how skeptical people were of 'em (although, most current or former 4th gen owners are probably quite skeptical of power windows to this day...)

Anyhoo....I see this as being a huge success... I think keys will end upgoing the way of Enron...

 

could we see this as an option on other future vehicles?

I know I like my remote start for my Maxx. Good idea to have that as an option.

 

I read in our vast archives at work last night that the car will also warn you for a few WEEKS in advance that the fob battery is dying, and if you don't change it out, Dave Hill himself said "you're on your own". Didn't mention the reader in the glove box.

We were talking about this at work last night. While all of these electronic do-dads are fun to play with, you just can't help but have some concern about too much electronic "funny business" going on w/ the car. Look at the steering lock issue w/ the C5's...all but one of the C5's in our office have had that bite them in the ****...go out at midnight, start the car, and see SERVICE STEERING COLUMN or whatever the msg was on the DIC. Not much you can do w/ it at midnight, except bum a ride home from someone. And it's caused by an electronic gremlin of some sort, not a mechanical linkage. But obviously it renders the car dead in the water. Its the things like that that kind of scare me about keyless ignition, That you're there, you have your keys, youve got gas and a new battery, ready to go, and then zzzit...SERVICE KEYLESS IGNITION. I've seen it 3 times at work, and the owners are not happy when it happens.

Don't get me wrong, it's cool and all, but for me, it's just pushing the envelope a bit towards the how much is too much argument regarding electronic "features". I can't really believe that the press and public would think any less of the car if it had a key to start it.

Another funny thing we saw last night...in the Corvette Black Book, I think in MY2000, Corvette switched to active keyless entry, replacing passive keyless entry that had been used since '93. The reason given that some owners were "confused" about how the system worked, so they replaced it w/ the more conventional active KE. But now w/ C6, they've gone back to it, and added keyless ignition to boot. I wonder how they will overcome the "confusion" this time around?

I imagine a BIG part of these electronics is driven by the XLR, and it's keyless entry, ignition, electronic door latches, and power top....a unit cost situation that it shares w/ Corvette.