[Holyghost]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Yeah, right. Glad we cleared that up. I was not careless, just old!
Jeroen

I have done it twice. Once at my apartment and the security was kind enough to alert me while I was walking away. Second time, at a roadside parking when I had to hurry to pick some things up and came back after an hour to find the engine was running. I am not old and this happened more than 7 years ago when I was younger .

In my previous cars, I had drained the battery 3 times by leaving the head light on at night twice and by leaving the illuminated glove box open.

Call me careless or whatever you want, but people do forget and miss some very obvious things when they are distracted.

[V.Narayan]

What advantage if any does a 'push button' start offer over 'insert the key and turn'. The latter seems, in my view, automation for its own sake. Sorry to hear of the deaths of these innocent people.

[Nitrous Power]

Originally Posted by GTO

Also wondering if the "remote engine starting" feature that is becoming popular (even Venue & Hector have it) has caused any such problems in USA. What if someone remotely starts the car in their garage & then forgets about it?

AFAIK, Remote start is not a problem. All my cars have remote start and we have been using it very often, mostly in winters. They have mechanism in built where the car shuts off on its own if Engine On/off push button is not used after predefined time. Time varies for different manufactures but it's not long enough to cause any unwarranted situation. However, one still has to be careful. We have installed carbon monoxide detectors in garage as well that are directly linked to internal detectors to keep everyone aware.

[landcruiser123]

Shocking that this has happened to a lot of people. :O Wondering why cars don't shut the engine automatically after locking? Everybody locks their cars right?

Originally Posted by Turbohead

The problem becomes worse for older people as their hearing abilities would've reduced.

Makes sense.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

What advantage if any does a 'push button' start offer over 'insert the key and turn'. The latter seems, in my view, automation for its own sake. Sorry to hear of the deaths of these innocent people.

Yeah. I've never understood too. Turning the key takes hardly any effort.

[Latheesh]

Me too! I am so dumb and careless and people like me should not drive car with these kind of modern features!

One day night parked our Cherokee in a shopping center parking lot and walked away without locking the car just like these owners did. When I came back after few hours all windows were fogged up due to A/C and fuel was almost empty (It was already low). Drove it to nearby gas station and to my horror my credit card did not work due to some technical issue. Somehow drove it to the next shell station and filled the gas. That was one crazy night!

[asingh1977]

I think it is a kind of "muscle - forgetting", it happens to me, since I swap out an i20 (2011 model) and Creta quite frequently.

1. Sit in the Creta: I push the key-fob on the right side of the steering wheel, then realize there is no key-hole.
2. Switch off the Creta: and if I do some work in the car (read a mail, hunt for a thingy), reach onto the right side for a key. Oh..no key.
3. Reversing: Groaan. Many times I have slotted into 6th (on the Creta) thinking reverse is there. This was dangerous: While driving the i20 I pulled into reverse -- hunting for a 6th gear but luckily did not release the clutch, and quickly pushed back up to 5th.

Now I make it a point to think while reversing and 6th'ing on both my cars. People drive intuitively after a certain point and multitask else where. Easy to get distracted and forget the basics, specially when it has changed drastically vs. the original procedure. Yes, risky, but can be controlled. For elderly, this would get magnified much more.

[Prowler]

Forget the start button induced engine running issues.

It happened to me in a normal 'dumb' car because of dumber me. A few moons ago, I got down from the car near a traffic signal in a hurry to pay a roadside vendor. In my hurry, without thinking, I pulled the door lock with the engine running. Just as the door clicked shut, I realized I messed up big time. Home, where the duplicate key is some 5 km away. As I was frantically searching for an auto, a cop looked at the car with the running engine and came near to peer into the car.
I told him the sob story. He laughed and said we can push the car to the side away from the main stream of traffic. I was not sure what it will do if starts moving. I told him to leave it well alone until I come back.
I returned back to find the cop near`the car with curious onlookers. Luckily I got away with no further incident on that evening.

[Kosfactor]

The only advantage I see for push start +automatic transmission is remote start, in cold and unbelievably warm places this is very useful.

However a cut off is must, else the carbon monoxide poisoning is a very real threat, not to mention overheated cat con setting dry grass on fire etc etc. Running a car engine idle for a long time without care is pure negligence, it can cause a lot of damage.

An idiot salesman was running a JTP with AC on and sitting inside last Sunday in Orion Mall. I happen to be seated nearby and found myself unable to breath properly after a while.

Originally Posted by NaXal

It's hard for people like me from a hot country like India to understand the need to keep a car/pickup running at idle or how it's a life saving thing but from this below video, it seems manufacturers are actively testing & expect their vehicle engines to run/idle 24/7.

Our force traveler folks sleep inside their vehicles with AC on when they are out of station. I think engines with oil coolers can run idle for long periods of time.

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by GTO

I thought this was more of a "smartkey not in car" warning, but now I know the real reason.

Irrespective, car makers should put a sort of a timer. Say, an MID prompt after 30 minutes of idling. If you don't press "OK", the engine switches off.

Ford already has this present in their EcoSport and the car does not lock if the engine is running, also in case you forget to turn off from accessory mode as well, the car honks twice to remind you to turn off the car completely. If the engine is idling for > 30 min, the engine turns off.

[Ravi Parwan]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

For being such an advanced nation architecturally, American homes are poorly designed/built to begin with. These irrelevant issues won't exist to begin with if all homes :
1) Had garages with a tilted fibre-panel ventilation window running vertically across the length of the garage, or if the shutter doors had an open grille running across its width on the top....
2) If there were no door leading to the home from within the garage, i....
Aod.

I would not go so far. They have such things due to the weather conditions they face.
They have heated garages connected to the house so that the driver and passengers do not experience the harsh cold weather while getting into the car. the illness you can catch from getting out of a heated home, (where sweaters are not needed) to the outside, (-20/ -30 degree) and back into a car that is heated.
Also it prevents the engine from being frozen (yes they have that amount of cold) Ice formation on the windshield...
a 30 min shutdown w/o key and constant beeping for unlocked car with engine running and key outside should help in preventing such mishaps.

[rulerofsun]

Originally Posted by jithin23

Ford already has this present in their EcoSport and the car does not lock if the engine is running, also in case you forget to turn off from accessory mode as well, the car honks twice to remind you to turn off the car completely. If the engine is idling for > 30 min, the engine turns off.

So true My Ecosport AT does not lock if the engine is on and also honks. Which I think is better than beeps, as the beeps are not heard when distracted.

Also a point to note in my Skoda is that if you leave the windows open and lock the car all windows roll up automatically after a few minutes same with lights and accessories. I think these features should be compulsory in all modern cars.

[bharatbits]

Never really understood automation for the heck of it. Found many ppl both on and off T Bhp who said things like "I am considering spending 15 lakhs on the car and what the hell - It does not even have start/ stop push button. What were the guys at that ABC company even thinking. I am dropping it off my list".

Call me old school or whatever but i still prefer manual central lock, unlock. Even on cars that come with a remote lock i pull the door handle to double check after hitting lock on the remote. Can't describe the satisfaction of manually central locking all 4 doors of a car with a key. Have seen many issues with remote locking systems - auto unlock because of accidentally pressing the key, buzzr on continuously because of some wiring malfunction, people with even street knowledge about remote locking mechanism unlocking cars in a ziffy using very crude ways, with mobile signals, radio signals etc. Never found them to be foolproof. Manual locking is not foolproof either. However, its better than remote locks i feel.

Ofcourse, can't imagine cars these days without remote locking. It's a small tradeoff for convenience over security.

[Slick]

A bit of a bummer for me, I thought the keyless FOB works in a way where the car shuts down after five minutes of being away from the FOB.

A bit off topic but wouldn't somebody be able to steal a car when the owner steps out? ( I am sure we have discussed this in a thread dedicated to key less entry so not going in to the value it presents or not)

Interesting problems crop up with new technological advancements indeed.

- Slick

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

For being such an advanced nation architecturally, American homes are poorly designed/built to begin with. These irrelevant issues won't exist to begin with if all homes :

1) Had garages with a tilted fibre-panel ventilation window running vertically across the length of the garage, or if the shutter doors had an open grille running across its width on the top. Preferably both should exist as the cross-ventilation will take out any and all gases with them.

2) If there were no door leading to the home from within the garage, instead the owner must exit the garage from the shutter and onto the main door.

A carbon-monoxide detector is unnecessary if the above two golden rules are followed, a garage is like a bathroom, it must be as cutoff from the home as possible and well-ventilated to begin with.

Keyless go must also be auto cut-off (in say, 30 minutes of "P" engagement) once the key is no longer detected inside the vehicle for said period.

1. American houses are built poorly? No. There are reasons why the garages are built this way. For one, weather conditions.

2. Carbon monoxide detectors are unnecessary? No. I suggest you read-up on this lifesaver. There are many things that can generate excessive carbon monoxide and automobiles are just one of them.

3. Keyless Go - Auto cut-off engine when in P for > 30 minutes. Again, you have to understand the different scenarios. People leave pets inside the car with the Air-con ON. Is that the right thing to do? You can debate on that. But the NHTSA has raised this as one of the concerns around the request for mandating auto cut-off.

Originally Posted by dark.knight

a garage is like a bathroom, it must be as cutoff from the home as possible ..

..err what?!

[svsantosh]

My Colleague and family friend of 5 years lost his smart-key fob when he got down to pee at a roadside stop.

He drove back home without stopping anywhere midway (thankfully) and only realized when he pressed-off the engine and tried to central lock the car!

Car - Swift ZDI AMT, Cost of a new key- Some 6-8K, dont recollect

Keyless ignition is not for the 'not-so-attentive' car drivers!