Backstory:

Bought the 05 with one keymote. Bought second keymote from dealership for $200. Dealership "programmed" both keymotes to unlock/lock the doors remotely. Found Orig. owner of car who had original keymote. Orig. owner gives me keymote which unlocks door and starts car, but no lock/unlock remotely. I'm going to try the witch doctor voodoo magic the tech did when he programmed my new key later on, but that's not the focus of this thread...

Here's the question;

There's no special chip or anything in the key that tells the car 'this key is authorized to start this car' in the event of a lost or stolen key? If I lose one of these keys, or it's stolen from me and the perp finds my car later, he can put the key in the door, unlock it and drive away?!?! I thought that was the point of the programming procedure the tech did with the lock/unlock buttons and turning the ignition and opening/closing the doors...

WTF? What if the orig owner just wanted his car back instead of giving the key to me?

 

Transfer of keys from one owner to another is a level of trust. To my best knowledge, for 1st-gen MINIs, the primary factor is the laser cut of the key itself. When I had my old '02 MCS, I had a "dummy" key (same housing, but no lock/unlock buttons), as well as a plastic "valet" key. These could both unlock and start the MINI.

Only when you go to the 2nd-gen MINIs do you have the key fob binded to the computer. This has to be the case, as you just press the "Start" button. In this case, changing the programmed frequency between the key fobs and the MINI would prevent another from stealing it.

 

Old keys can be "killed".
If you buy a new key..all keys must be "programmed" or brought to the dealer to let the car learn them...
Unlearned keys will still physically open a door, but will not start the car.

 

That's what I thought too, but the old key started car before and after programming. The only thing programming did was get the remote buttons to lock/unlock the doors. I'm surprised there is no way to re-flash the key and car to a different computerized 'access' code or something to prevent an old key from driving off with your car.

Off to the car stereo shop for a kill switched alarm...

 

One day both my key fobs just stopped working the locks / windows, but the car still recognized the keys and was able to drive to my dealer....my guess is that the fob is not related to any theft feature.

Tech was able to retrieve the data codes from the computer to reprogram them....and good thing too. Otherwise I was told I would have have to purchase new key fobs.....

Blamed on a computer "glitch".