I got a phone call that my GF's daughter had come down with a migraine and was parked by the side of the road a few miles from my house, essentially blind and unable to drive. I take my Mom with me in the TCH and we drive over to rescue the girl.

We pull up behind her car, I get out of the TCH, hold the driver's door to help my Mom to get in and close the door for her. Then I walk forward to my GF's daughter's car, climb in, start it up, and drive home with my Mom following me.

Here's what's weird - I forgot to take the smart key for the TCH out of my pocket and leave it with my Mom. She was able to follow me all the way back home, going the entire way with "Key is not detected" on the MFD. So what are the rules for driving without the smart key? I was surprised that it could be done at all. Are there any hidden security risks if you forget to turn the car off when you get out, like someone could get in and drive away?

Once you start the car with the smart key, anyone can drive it with or without the smart key being detected . Once the car is shut down after being started with the smart key, it cannot be started again unless the smart key is detected. This only pertains to the normal use of the smart key and does not preclude any other means. legal or illegal, as a way to start the TCH. Who knows if there is a "master" smart key or a way with the proprietary toyota programming tools, etc... Maybe there is a backdoor way, i.e., honk the horn 7 times, while simultaneously stepping on the gas peddle 3 times, while flashing the brights, while hitting the eco button as you manually open the trunk, while resetting the tire sensors, while standing on your right leg and saying "please, toyota" 3 times slowly into the microphone .....you get my drift....

Yes. Someone could drive away.

The car only checks the presence of the key when starting the car. After that it will run until it is shut off. With no key.

This is to protect the battery in the key fob. If the key fob had to keep transmitting to maintain a connection with the car the battery would run down quickly. So you'd either have to replace the battery very often, or have a much larger (and heavier) fob.

Also if the battery ran down while you were driving, the engine could shut down!

The current SKS system is a simple superset of the existing key fobs that everyone started using just over 10 years ago.

There are ways around this, but it would increase the cost and complexity of the system.

The TCH should have sounded it's "chirps" as you walked away from the vehicle with the key no longer in the cabin.

Scott

As long as you consistently lock your car when you get out and walk away from it (when your mom's not driving it, anyway) the car should remind you to shut it off before you leave it. If you try to lock it while it's still on (and I _have_ done this, lol.. sometimes it's so easy to lose track of whether it's on or off!) it will beep loudly at you and if I remember right, it won't lock.

On the other hand one night I actually left my car on while I ran inside to grab/do something, figuring at least nobody will be able to tell it's running!

Last week, I saw a poor victim of this dilemma.. She had driven 600 miles from her home and shut off the vehicle. THEN she realized that she has lost her key fob !!. She had the entire car torn up looking for it with all four doors and trunk open.. It was a lexus or infinity SUV model. Who knows where the fob ended up but she DID have a large (and expensive) dilemma on her hands.. She would have to have it towed to a dealer, and they would have to custom build a new fob for her. $$$

I did a post last year when I was in the middle of a New Mexico desert and the situation occurred to me that if somehow the fob gets lost you are pretty much SOL!. One poster suggested always carrying the spare fob with it's battery removed just for this possible occasion.

KEEP TRACK OF YOU KEY FOB AT ALL TIMES!

In the TCH, at least, if I'm not mistaken (and as someone else posted), if the key's not found in the car, the MFD will sit there telling you so, even if the car is still running. If you go 600 miles ignoring the warning, I'm thinking you probably run into other problems as well... If you left the fob outside, there's a warning, and if you lost it inside, you shouldn't have any problem starting it again. On the other hand if you lost it inside you can't lock it, and anybody could drive it.

So yeah I'm not going to claim there are no issues or risks. But some of them should be mitigated by paying attention to the obvious alerts provided by the car.

You do realize that the car will start occasionally if you leave it long enough, right? I hope this was in your driveway! I wouldn't dare do this where anyone might walk past.

Umm.. yeah, I've probably owned my TCH longer than all but a few here, I am in fact aware that when the battery gets low enough the engine comes on. How long do you think it takes to grab something? Heh. I love my car, do you really think I'm going to leave it on unattended long enough for it to be obvious it's sitting there running and empty? Give me a little credit! Upstairs, inside, grab, back down with a couple of locks in between.

You'd be surprised ! My neighbour a couple of years back left his BMW running in his driveway just long enough to run inside and grab a jacket. He came out just in time to watch it being driven away. He was away from the car for less than a minute.

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Randy