A key fob mystery to solve.

[Couch-Potato]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I wonder if someone was cruising parking lots trying to spoof fobs.

There's not a lot of technical information on how each system operates, for obvious reasons, but the general sense is there is a range of radio frequencies that cycle and both the car and fob have to stay in sync with.

Thus if you push keys on your fob out of range too many times [maybe a dozen maybe two], your fob gets out of sync with the cycle sequence of the car and the two need to be re-paired.

Maybe someone thinks they have a gadget that can cycle through enough frequencies fast enough around enough cars, they can snag a 'hit' and sync with a car that isn't theirs.

You used to be able to do something similar much easier with garage door openers, that have much less sophisticated cycling algorithms and much less range of cycled frequencies, particularly if bunches of residences all had the same brand opener. Kids would drive down a residential street pushing their own opener to see if any garages opened.

Maybe someone's getting a little more aggressive with this because both Honda and Tesla have had recent problems with potentially having their fob algorithm hacked.

And maybe whatever they're trying failed to give them assess to your vehicle, but succeeded in throwing your vehicle's cycle schedule off of sync with your fob.

This. I also wonder if it wasn't the guy that pulled in next and verbally confirmed with the OP that his key fob wasn't working. I had a rental car stolen recently and was told that they're targets for theft.