Your key does not float

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Dutchbenz

Active Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2017
Messages
74
Location
Purmerend, Netherlands deceased 26-12-2018
Car
2008 S204 C230 estate
For those who still don't know, your key is not a floating device.
Last Wednesday my wife and I went to Germany for a 4 days stay in a hotel along the Bitburg Stausee to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
A kilometre along the lakeshore you could rent paddleboats and being mr. romance I took my wife out onto the waves, the weather was perfect.
While paddling on the middle of the lake I heard 'plok-plunge' and my carkey flipped out of my pocket into the lake.
Cold sweat on my head, darling I think we have a problem, the spare is at home...
Walked back to the hotel and called MB Bitburg, they said the shortest term was 3 days for a new key, after the weekend to come.
Long story short, our son was willing to bring the spare to our hotel, a fair 380 kilometres one way.
He stayed over night and the next day we drove home together.
 
There is a solution to the problem of a loss, failure, or theft of the car key - conceal the spare key inside the car and hide the metal key blade where it is accessible from the outside, so you can get into the car.

A spare key is no use at home; it needs to be with the car so as to avoid all the inconvenience that comes with expected events like this.

Dec
 
There is a solution to the problem of a loss, failure, or theft of the car key - conceal the spare key inside the car and hide the metal key blade where it is accessible from the outside, so you can get into the car.

A spare key is no use at home; it needs to be with the car so as to avoid all the inconvenience that comes with expected events like this.

Dec
But in this case what would you tell your insurer if the car is stolen and they ask you if the key was left in or near the car? Or if they ask you to produce both keys and a letter from the manufacturer stating that an additional key was never made (as was requested from a friend of mine when his CL55 got stolen)? Tricky one, even if you are personally 100% certain that leaving the spare key in the car had nothing to do with the theft...
 
True enough, I see your point, but to me the benefit outweigh the risk regardless of the value of the car, you could tell your insurance company that a key is conceal, maybe the will only charge an extra £10.

The chances of a thief figuring out that there is a key to open the door on the outside and another inside to start the car is very remote indeed.

Dec
 
My W210 had an additional credit card sized key with remote and pull out key. Don’t they still do something similar?
Actually, stupid question - neither my 208 or 209 had one.
 
Well actually I have thought about taking the spare with me but I only do that when at trips further away, say a holiday in Spain.
Then the missus and I equally carry the 'goods of importance' like passports, sparekey etc. in case we get robbed or other desasters.
This time I thought we were 'at reach distance', not knowing this should happen in a place 15 kms away from any public transport.
Tomorrow I'll be at the dealers to order a new spare.
@moonloops: I like the idea of the self activating boyancy device! I'm not going to tell you that most of my professional life I have worked in the marine business and used to wear self inflating collars...
 
There is a solution to the problem of a loss, failure, or theft of the car key - conceal the spare key inside the car and hide the metal key blade where it is accessible from the outside, so you can get into the car.

Surely it's not that simple. If you have Keyless Go locating a spare key inside the car will stop you locking it.
I suppose you could place the spare in a Faraday pouch inside the car.
 
It’s that simple, if you don’t have Keyless Go.

If you do have keyless go then you would have to turn off the keyless go by double clicking the lock button on the spare remote, or, as you say, use a Faraday pouch or perhaps take the batteries out of the spare remote, (The batteries wouldn’t be needed to start the car)

I suppose you would really need to test it all to see what would actually happen with the Keyless Go.

Dec
 

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