Several of those concerns are my concerns as well…plus, I think the key thing is a scam. I pay for insurance so if my truck gets stolen (statistically very unlikely) then I’m still protected…

I’d like each of my crew members to have a key ring with a key to each of our trucks…a whole hell of a lot more convenient that passing around a couple of keys to everyone and/or paying a fortune for a dumb key that should cost $3. Super annoying.

 

When the push-button starters can cost more than $1,500 to fix, and the keys can be more than $1,000 to replace, I'd say that it's a money-making scam. Some cars only come with one key, and it needs two keys to make a new one, requiring the buyer to pay the dealer whatever the greedy dealer wants to charge for a new key. Ford Securilock is reportedly something that will eventually break, maybe not for someone who buys a new car before the warranty for the old car expires, but eventually and after there are no parts available to fix the problem. We went from a $5 key to a $500+ key, supposedly because somebody less than a professional thief could steal the car. Well, somebody could pull out a gun and demand the key, too. What's the industry's answer to that problem?

https://www.kmov.com/2022/03/10/woma...e-getting-gas/

I've hit my new "panic" button a few times, too, twice when washing my new car, twice when climbing into the back, and once when sitting down in another car. Honk, honk, honk, honk. Hey, Ford, that doesn't actually do anything except annoy everyone! If the industry was serious about "safety," the manufacturers would have a silent alarm linked to the "panic" button. If you didn't cancel the alarm within 30 seconds, an emergency operator would locate your car, attempt to call you, and dispatch assistance. An alarm that actually calls for help would be a lot more useful in a carjacking situation or a medical emergency. If the government is trying to force us to install breathalyzers in our cars that can alert the government and dispatch traffic cops to stop us for DUI, our $500+ keys could surely be made to call for help when we need help.

 

You can change the panic button to require 2 presses to activate with forscan.

 

You seem concerned with outside sources of EM radiation interfering with the ignition security system. What about the engine control computer, the body control computer, the ABS control computer, the (fill in the blank) control computer?

Ultimately it would seem that you have two main choices; buy an early 80's or older vehicle or a military surplus HUMVEE. Pretty much everything is mechanical or EM hardened on those.

 

The computerized engine and transmission components are not in proximity to the interference, nor are they reliant upon wireless signals. It has been mentioned in the printed manuals and elsewhere about how interference from RFID keys and other RF sources can cause problems. Although the companies that make these silly anti-theft schemes may consider the necessity to accommodate cellular phones, they don't usually consider what happens when atypical items are installed in the vehicle. Their answer is usually to move the interference away before starting the car, as if the likely problem is that there's someone with a second wireless key sitting in the car.

https://www.youcanic.com/wiki/causes...b-not-detected

What the companies may not consider is what happens when there is additional wiring and other metal components being installed in and around the dashboard, things that could interfere with the weak signal from the wireless key, or when the vehicle is being used in the presence of external sources of interference that can overpower the weak signals from wireless keys.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfo...ohns-1.5192844

According to a recent RepairPal article, common sources of RF interference that can disable wireless car keys include cell phones, two-way radios, transmission towers, and Wi-Fi routers.
https://repairpal.com/symptoms/key-f...te-not-working

Considering the expansion of wireless technologies that could interfere with the unlocking or the starting of cars, the simple fix would be for the car companies to stop using wireless gimmicks to unlock and start a car, and give us back the old-style keys that were cheap to replace. What we have instead is ever-increasing complexity and cost for these security schemes that can cost a fortune to fix and keys that can cost more than $500 to replace, and now even the dealership may not be able to replace the key or fix computer problems.
https://www.dodgegarage.com/news/art...-measures.html

The car thieves and the violent criminals, meanwhile, are continuing to steal cars and carjack victims in the streets. All of these passive anti-theft systems that prevent the operation of the car are useless if the criminal is willing to injure, kill, or abduct the person who has the key. We could reduce the prices of cars, reduce the risk of expensive failures of these security schemes after the warranties have expired, and eliminate potential interference problems by returning to metal keys, which is what the governments and large corporations buy when they order their fleet vehicles. A purchaser would still have the option of installing a security scheme, but the rest of us would not be burdened by something that we don't want or need. The best protection scheme to prevent a stolen car from being driven away in America remains the manual transmission, something that has been displaced by automatic transmissions that are easy for even a small child to operate. If the car companies were serious about stopping drive-away thefts, they would make the manual transmission a standard again, something that is also simpler and cheaper to fix when it wears out. The increasing complexity of cars is a way of making money from unsuspecting buyers who end up with huge repair bills when things go wrong, squeezing out independent repair shops and enabling the greedy dealerships to charge whatever they want for repair services, and eventually forcing us to buy new cars.