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OT: Stolen Ford Fusion with PATSII

J

JML755

Well-known Member
Guy at work has a new (about a month old) 2015 Fusion. I should say "had" because it was stolen last night from the parking lot of brewery near downtown Detroit. There was glass on the ground where he parked it so the assumption is that they broke the window to get into his "locked" car. I thought these new cars with push-button starts and smart (i.e. expensive RF) keys made it highly unlikely to get stolen unless they towed it off. There were no skid marks and no commotion in the parking lot. He said he was sitting where he could see his car if he had stood up from the table.

Anyone else know of instances where/how thieves stole newer Ford cars/trucks?
 
Those keyless ignitions are a formula for disaster. If you are out on the road, and lose one, you are totally out of luck. For those with the "hide-a-key" complex, guess what? You hide a spare fob in or around the car, you may as well have left the car running with gas money taped to the steering wheel. Years later, when one of those RF fobs gets lost, that means that there is a "key" somewhere that will run your car. And, when that whole electronic business fails, you will be getting the car towed in to a dealer to get repaired and re-flashed. Then there is the issue of when it becomes a car on the used car lot. Will ALL of the "keys" come with the car? Or will somebody come along with a spare and drive your car away.

IMHO, I would NOT buy or own a car with a keyless ignition. Too many of these "convenience features" become tools for thieves.

Making a better security system breeds better thieves to defeat it. Thieves have been able to obtain enough inside information to study and learn the weak points of these systems before they even come to market.
 
I refused the pushbutton start when we bought our Camry; just figured that it was trouble that we didn't need.
 
So are you one of those guys that would not have a car with fuel injection, electronic ignition or front wheel drive???? Yes I remember those guys pretty slim pickings these days.
 
No need to put words in my mouth. I did NOT say that electronics are all bad. I DID say that the security systems of today are potential disasters waiting to happen.

Some cars have gotten so electronic and proprietary that you cannot even replace a taillight bulb without having the computer re-flashed. They are getting too carried away with the electronics.

BTW, I do have fuel injection, ABS, and a few other things on my cars, but there are reasonable limits. I also have one that has a chip in the key. To get a second key, I have to have it re-flashed to recognize a new key. $100 shot!! Wonder why I don't like it? I'll be looking for a way to disable the PATS system. After all, why would a thief want my 15-year-old car anyways? With 243,000 miles on it?
 
amen to that jim. i posted a couple weeks ago about a taurus we towed in the shop. push button start car with a key fob. dash warning said KEY NOT RECOGNIZED. lady was stranded and had us tow her in. the fob has a watch battery in it that went dead and left her high and dry. ran down to walgreens for a battery and car started right up. best to keep a spare battery in the glove box.
 
Sold a new Grand Marquis to a fellow once, it was an LS so it had the
push button combination lock on the door. I programmed his birthday
into the door as one of the select-able codes. He thought that was
great he explained when he went to the gym or the beach he was going
to lock his keys in the car and he wouldn't have to worry about them
the combination would let him in. This worked fine until one foggy
morning he went to the gym, forgot to turn his headlights off. You
know those keyless combination locks don't work with a dead battery?
 
in owners manual it will tell you where to place key fob to start vehicle is key is not recognized. as far as buying a used car with pats on it you can have keys or fobs erased and just program you keys to vehicle. A thief will learn to steal anything. As they say locks are for honest people.
 
On a lot of newer vehicles you have what are called "smart keys" or "proximity keys". These types of keys usually have a remote built into them for keyless entry, lock/unlock functions and an RFID chip usually used for push button starts. Thieves are getting smart and can have technology available to capture and clone the key signals.

It would require the owner of the car to activate a button on the key to capture the radio frequency to gain entry into the car, but the RFID chip can be "sniffed" from being close to the owner or actual key. There are devices that can read, amplify and send these codes via wireless connection.

I dont know what actually happened here but its possible that a person inside the brewery could have been close to your buddy with a "sniffer" that read the RFID chip code, then an accomplice with another device receives the RFID code wirelessly, busts the window for entry and simply pushes the start button and he's gone. This
 
The sad thing here is whatever technology is used to try to prevent theft, the same or better technology will be available to thief. For this scenario its possible that a mechanical key and key cylinder would probably have been enough to prevent the theft.
 
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