What Happens When Your Intelligent Key Malfunctions ??

Crash

That KEY doesn't open the doors. It ONLY locks the glove box!

The part of the fob that starts the car will not run out of batteries. I can't explain why, but just trust me on it. The part of the fob that sends signals to lock/unlock the doors which is the transponder WILL stop working when the battery in the fob dies. They are two completely separate devices in one piece of plastic.

For more info on this, please look up "RFID" on google.

The "fobgina" you're all talking about is not for when the fob runs out of batteries. It's for vallet parking. You pull the key out of the fob, use it to lock the glove box, and put the rest of the fob in the slot and rest of your keys go with the key in the fob... so you can take it with you and prevent the vallet drivers from getting in your glove box.

Any more questions?

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2003 Corvette Z06 50th Anniversary

chubbs

Yes, I have a question.

What on earth does the bit I've quoted mean?

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zelerious

I think he means:


Take Key from inside fob and the rest of your keychain inside with you.

Leave fob inside fobgina for valet

semtex

The mechanical key does in fact unlock/lock the doors. That's why the doors have keyholes. I just tried it with my own car to verify. In fact, this is explicitly covered in the manual, page 3-4. Also, there's a section in the manual called Valet Hand-off, and it doesn't say you have to stick the fob in the fobgina, it just says hand it to the valet attendant (sans the mechanical key if you've locked something in the glove box, of course). Indeed, I wouldn't want the attendant to leave the fob in the car, because that will prevent him from locking the doors.

Now, what you wrote about the part of the fob that starts the car not running out of batteries is interesting. The fobgina (which is really called the 'Intelligent Key Port') is covered on page 5-9 and 5-10 of the manual. It states: "If the battery of the Intelligent Key is almost discharged, the guide light of the Intelligent Key port blinks and the indicator appears on the vehicle information display. [In other words, the fobgina will start blinking.] In this case, inserting the Intelligent Key into the port allows you to start the engine." It does go on to note that the fobgina doesn't actually charge the fob's battery, it just allows you to start the car.

But here's the thing. The way they have that written, it kinda implies that if your battery is low, you'll be fine, but they are silent on what happens if your battery is completely dead. Well, I just took the battery completely out of the fob, stuck it into the fobgina, and it still allowed me to start the car. (The fobgina didn't glow tho.) So you're right about the battery having nothing to do with starting the car. And that makes me wonder why they go through all this hoopla about the battery running low and a glowing fobgina. Why not just say that if your battery goes dead, don't worry, stick it in the fobgina and your car will still start?

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Crash

Yes, I know it's called an intelligent key port. LOL But they guys on this board now know it as a fobgina, so I was just going with the lingo, and will continue to do so because it's funny.

Interesting. I didn't notice the key port on the door. My Infiniti manual said to put the fob in the fobgina when valeting the car. I'll have to re-read to make sure that's what I read. I actually don't remember seeing key ports on the doors, so I'll have to look when it's not raining.

Yeah, the battery has nothing to do with RFID tags do not need batteries for the receiver antennas to read them. My guess is that Nissan doesn't want people to know that the intelligent key is an RFID because RFID is easy to hack. (48-bit encryption only. Although a 64-bit version is on the way, and 128-bit is supposedly going to be around in 2012.)

I do wonder, though, why they ask that you put the fob in the fobgina when the battery is low. I wonder if the battery in the remote acts as an amplifier for the RFID tag. I haven't done research on RFIDs for a few years, so I don't know if that's possible, but it sounds logical.

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2002 Corvette Z06 - Totaled
2003 Corvette Z06 50th Anniversary