In reality, keyless entry theft is pretty much a thing of the past.In the early days of keyless entry, the code was the same each time you unlocked your car.The modern RKE system uses a hopping code that produces a fresh code sequence every time you press the button to lock or unlock your door. These devices produce code combos in the millions.

A thief might lie in wait in the parking garage and snap up your RKE code with a wireless device.However, the code that the thief just grabbed is no good because your RKE system just made up a new one.The average street thief doesn’t have access to the sophisticated software he would need to break your RKE code.

Car thieves are lazy.Smashing the window and doing a little hotwiring is as much work as these guys want to do. Crooks prefer to work fast and make a clean getaway. If you really want to protect your automobile, buy a good vehicle alarm and practice good vehicle security:
- Never leave your keys in your car.
- Always lock up even when you leave for a few minutes.
- Don’t park in isolated areas or bad neighborhoods
- Don’t leave valuables in your car.
- Be sure to hide what you can’t carry.
- Resist the temptation to gussy up your ride with chrome and brand name stickers.
- Park in a garage if you can.
- Park in the driveway instead of the street.

These steps are recommended over and over again by law enforcement officials because they work.For today, anyway, electronic brains are smarter than human ones when it comes to opening your car doors.

A remote car starter lets you use a control button on your key fob to start the engine while you’re not in the driver’s seat. In fact, you don’t even need to be outside. The idea is to leave the heat on (in the winter) or the air conditioner on (in the summer) when you park. Then when you start up remotely, the interior temperature has plenty of time to adjust to your liking before you go out, get in, and start to drive.

The nice thing about these devices is that they let you thaw the ice off your windshield if you’ve parked outside. And if you’ve parked in the sun on a hundred-degree day, you won’t burn your hands when you grip the steering wheel, or other parts of your anatomy when you sit down on the upholstery.

There are plenty of safety features. A good sytem will leave your vehicle locked when you hit the remote button, so nobody will steal it. Before you can actually drive, you have to turn the key in the ignition. And you can turn off the engine with the key fob, as well as turn it on.

Basic features found on most systems include remote engine starting, programmable starting to set how long the vehicle will run before automatically shutting off, a visual indicator that you’ve started the car like flashing the parking lights, power door locks, and power trunk lid operation.

Advanced features in addition to remote car start usually involve a combination car alarm remote with full a full vehicle security system. You’ll find items like an outside air temp sensor that will automatically start the engine at a certain temperature, an LCD display panel, long-distance transmission features so you can start your vehicle through cement walls and from up to one mile away, and a rolling code feature so thieves can’t copy the starter signal and steal your vehicle with it.

The price of a basic car remote can be as low as $40. High end car alarm remotes can cost up to $400. Don’t forget to add on the cost of installation, unless you plan to install the system yourself. Some vehicle models will require an adapter that bypasses your factory installed ignition lockout or car alarm system, and these can add another $50 to $100 to the price tag.

If you drive a manual transmission, be sure the remote starter system you buy is compatible with a stick shift. Also, some systems only work with fuel injected engines. Again, check the system’s specs for compatibility.

This type of system is triggered by either a key fob attached to your keychain, or by a device built into the plastic grip on the key itself. One button unlocks your car; the other one locks it. A third button opens the tailgate or trunk, and a fourth button, usually red, activates and deactivates a pulsing series of horn blasts to alter passersby if your safety is threatened. If your car is equipped with a car alarm, the fob will also have buttons for activating and deactivating the vehicle security system. Many keyless entry remotes will also close your sunroof and roll up the windows you left open when you send the signal to lock the doors.

Your keyless entry remote fob is a miniature radio transmitter that acts as an electronic key to your vehicle’s doors. The signal is much like the ones used in radio-controlled toys. The fob also contains a circuit board, an antenna, and a battery. Pushing one of the buttons on the fob activates the transmitter, which sends a signal to the receiving unit inside your car. The receiver is tuned to the same frequency as the transmitter. It looks for a signal that matches the one it’s been programmed to receive. If it gets one, it unlocks your doors.

An automotive keyless entry system performs all the functions of a normal car key, but without touching the vehicle. You can lock and unlock your power door locks from up to 50 feet away (depending on how fresh the battery is), and even from indoors. Just like a normal key, locking your keyless remote fob inside your vehicle is a problem if you don’t have a spare.

So much for how it works. But is it secure? To understand the answer to this question, you need to know the history behind this type of system.

The precursor of keyless entry locks was the good old automatic garage door opener that first came into wide use in the 1950s. The transmitters in these units were so simple that they all sent out the same signal. It didn’t take long for thieves to figure out that they could open all the garage doors on one street with just one transmitter.

The 1970s saw the advent of DIP switches in garage door openers. These were an eight-switch transmitter that you programmed with a keypad and matched the code up with the receiver inside your opener. This was improvement over the original design, but eight switches only had 256 possible combinations—enough to discourage opportunistic theft, but no match for professional thieves, and not secure enough to use in automotive applications.

Modern keyless remotes began in the 1990s with the introduction of a small computer chip in the transmitter unit that can generate literally billions of possible codes. At this point, automobile keyless entry became standard equipment on all but the cheapest cars. Car thieves responded by using laptop computers with wireless cards to pick up the signal from a car owner’s key fob. They would store the signal and track the owner to where he left his vehicle, then stole it.

The vehicle security industry’s response was the 40-bit rolling code, also called a hopping code. This type of keyless entry lock generates a new code sequence each time you use your key fob to open or close your car door. The receiver chip inside your car is synchronized with the transmitter on the key fob to accept the new code as the fob generates it. The thief who picks up the code sequence you use to open your car will find that it doesn’t it work if he follows you to a parking lot and tries to use it after you’ve left your vehicle.

One problem with rolling codes is that if you get out of range of your car and then press the button on your key fob, the keyless entry chip in your car won’t know what the new hopping code sequence is. In that case, the receiver chip is programmed to predict the next 256 hopping codes that your key fob will generate and accept any of them. So unless you accidentally push the button 257 times, your keyless remote will still work when you push the button.

The same technology found on these systems is also used on radiofrequency ignition devices (RFIDs). This is a car theft prevention technology which locks out your ignition system until you send it a signal to unlock by either pressing a button on the key fob, or inserting your key in the ignition.

Car theft has many variations. The most common occurrence of the crime is theft of the vehicle without using a key while it’s left unattended. Usually, the criminal hotwires the ignition or otherwise tampers with the car’s systems in order to drive it away. If the owner was smart and locked the doors, the thief will break a window or use a tool to jimmy the door lock or pry the door open. Car alarm systems are designed to prevent this type of crime by tripping a switch when someone opens the doors or trunk while the vehicle’s owner has armed the system. The switch triggers attention-grabbing devices like horns, sirens, and flashing lights to alert bystanders and law enforcement. High-end vehicle security systems also have sensors that can detect the sound of breaking window glass, and devices that sense when someone is standing within touching distance of the vehicle. Auto alarms that feature ignition and starter system lockout devices are very good at frustrating hotwiring attempts.

A second type of theft without keys is towing, where the bad guys drive up in a tow truck or flatbed trailer and steal the vehicle without starting it. More and more alarms are being offered with sensors that detect when a vehicle is tilted slightly, in preparation to tow it away or drive it up on a flatbed truck.

Theft with access to keys happens most often when the thief knows the vehicle’s owner and can easily get the key to the automobile. Also known as “taken without consent” by law enforcement personnel, this is a common crime by juvenile children of the owner, family members with alcohol or drug problems, or the vehicle owner’s employee. If you think this might happen to you, a key with a special code embedded in it will prevent the key being used by anyone but you.

A third type of car is opportunistic theft, where the vehicle was stolen while left with the keys in plain view—often with the engine running. The best auto security device to prevent this type of theft is your brain: don’t leave your car with the keys available, even for a few seconds. Hiding a spare key on the vehicle frame falls into the same category of making life easy for thieves.

A more serious type of car theft is carjacking, where the thief uses force or threats to get control of the vehicle away from its owner. Courts treat this crime very seriously, since assault is always part of the process. Usually the carjacker gets the passengers out of the vehicle and drives it away, but occasionally, hostages are taken. A few alarms come with carjacking protection devices that disable all of the car’s systems and set off a siren when the owner flips a switch, but these have the danger of doing more harm than good.

A thief’s tools of the trade are simple but effective. Slide hammers can make short work of a door lock. The “Slim Jim” device that tow truck operators use to open vehicles that the owner has locked themselves out of consist of a flat hook to insert between the car’s frame and window glass. Some simple electrical supplies are used for hotwiring, such as spare wiring and a DC meter to find where the battery current connects to the ignition. Recently, theft has gone high tech as thieves attempt to use laptop computers to pick the ignition code of RFID key theft prevention devices and come back later to steal the vehicle after the owner has gone. This type of theft is rare, however.

Why do people steal cars? Some thieves just want short term transportation to drive for a few days and then abandon. Many times, the thief will use your car to commit other crimes, so the vehicle’s license plate and description can’t be traced to him. Other thieves need transportation out of state and know that once they cross the state line, the odds of getting caught go down—especially if they switch license plates once or twice along the way.

Some thieves steal cars to resell, either whole, with the VIN altered, or to be chopped down and sold for parts. If your car is stolen by a chop ring, your chances of getting it back are poor. Newer auto security approaches include VIN etching and microdot identification on parts and even the paint job to put a unique fingerprint on parts that might be sold after theft.

Finally, some car thieves steal cars so they can go joyriding. This most commonly occurs in instances of opportunistic theft, but a good car alarm system can go a long way toward preventing this type of crime.

Vehicles most likely to be stolen include the Cadillac Escalade, Jeep Cherokee, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry. The late model Dodge Charger, an expensive luxury sports car, has become a recent favorite of car thieves.

Vehicle security systems come in different types. If you really want to keep your car from getting stolen, you should take a multi-faceted approach to auto security and try to use as many of these approaches as you can afford.

Barrier devices put a physical object between the thief and your car to make theft more challenging. For example, you can buy a basic lockout device like “The Club” to clamp on your steering wheel, or a lockout lever for your brake pedal. Another type of physical barrier is the immobilizer switch that disables the starting system unless you insert a coded key device in the ignition. Kill switches work on a similar principle, but are designed to be flipped by the vehicle owner, rather than activated by the ignition key. To really be effective, the switches are hidden in obscure locations around the vehicle and have to be flipped in a certain order known only to the owner.

Most car security systems work through deterrence. Although the thief can physically steal your car, these systems make it more likely that he’ll get caught. Car alarms respond to a breaking and entering of your car by making noise and flashing lights on and off. Signage on your windows and flashing LED lights also let car thieves know that your car isn’t a safe target for theft.

If your car is stolen, there are auto security devices that help you and the police track it down. VIN etching and microdot ID tags can trace parts that were taken off the car in a chop shop. More car manufacturers are offering these as options. GPS tracking devices also are available as factor options. Other tracking devices include the LoJack, which emits a radio signal from the car, enabling law enforcement to track its whereabouts and return it to its rightful owner.