Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What is this key that came with my car?

This is topic What is this key that came with my car? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-16-2007, 11:33 PM:

This key was in the console of my 2005 Ford Explorer. The salesman said he thought it was a valet key, but there is no mention of such a thing in the manual. Danny seems to think it's the key to make his CP200 work properly. [Razz]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-17-2007, 12:30 AM:

It's the self-destruct key. It goes into a little slot under the steering wheel. If you insert it there and press the red button on top of the steering wheel (the one which makes all lights flash), the car will self-destruct in a powerful blast within 3 seconds, with you in it, of course.
But don't use it lightly, for instance, when you just had a bad day at work.
Only use it when you have absolutely no other choice. For instance, when you get surrounded by Aliens and you know there is no other way out - but you also don't want to end up being eaten from the inside. Then use the key but wait until the last possible moment, so you take as many of them with you as you can.

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 02-17-2007, 01:49 AM:

It may be a special dealer key that fits your ignition and could be used for a number of cars. Rental car companies have such devices.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-17-2007, 02:21 AM:

The key does not fit in the ignition. My roommate suggests it may be some sort of electronic kill switch. Either that, or the alien thing.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-17-2007, 08:45 AM:

Is it something to do with the immobiliser or alarm system? My 1997 Mondeo has a little RFD chip built into the top of the key, and the immobiliser has to be receiving its signal in order to let the car start. I found this out the hard way at midnight in an airport car park: the moulded plastic housing containing the chip had fallen out of the key during the flight (either that or it's lying on a sidewalk in Anchorage as I write!). When I tried to start the car, nothing happened. I called the RAC, assuming that either the battery was as flat as Pamela Anderson's chest before she had cosmetic surgery, or that the starter motor was buggered. It turned out to be the key chip thinggy. Annoyingly, Ford refuses to supply the RAC with any universal chips to restart the car in that situation (the reason they give being the risk that they could fall into the hands of crooks), and so they had to tow a perfectly serviceable car the 35 miles home.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 02-18-2007, 07:01 PM:

Does it release the radio?

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-18-2007, 07:31 PM:

quote: Michael Schaffer
It's the self-destruct key.

LOL!!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-18-2007, 07:45 PM:

Yooooouuuuu bought an Exploder....... [Eek!]

.

I've had room keys at hotels that look similar. You might show it to the Ford Parts manager if they are still in buisness on Monday.

Mark

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 02-18-2007, 08:26 PM:

Another master key to our Grand-Poopie-BAH's chastity belt?

I'd take that key to the dealership GM and ask him...while bitching what a dumbass, uninformed, worthless POS his salesman is.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-18-2007, 08:38 PM:

I vote for the ignition kill switch theory.

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 02-18-2007, 09:30 PM:

It's for extra power in reverse - torque up reverse (TURkey)

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-18-2007, 09:39 PM:

Definitely nothing to do with the stereo. The release keys for Fords are U-shaped and poke into two holes on each side of the stereo.

Did you buy this thing used? Maybe that key has nothing to do with the car.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-18-2007, 11:56 PM:

Stick that thing in every hole you can find until you find the perfect fit.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 02-19-2007, 12:12 AM:

Funny, that was Wilt Chamberlain's motto.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 02-19-2007, 11:45 AM:

This key either works the Interceptor mode or is designed to reprogram the computer. Louis

Posted by Bob Koch (Member # 1062) on 02-19-2007, 02:13 PM:

Adam;
Sure looks like the key to my motel room in Fort Bragg,last week.

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 02-19-2007, 07:38 PM:

I think you have the key to Phil's heart.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 02-19-2007, 07:46 PM:

quote: Mike Heenan
Funny, that was Wilt Chamberlain's motto.

That's funny [thumbsup]

Adam - Did you buy your vehicle used?

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-20-2007, 05:39 AM:

Yes, I bought it used. At this point, I am assuming it has nothing to do with the truck and is just something that ended up in the console.

Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 02-20-2007, 06:12 AM:

It could be a security code key for re coding the ignition key.

Normally Ford (FIX OR REPAIR DAILY) Have on master key for coding the ignition key which has a red tag on it. (in The UK)

Dose it look like the ignition Key is even part of a Ford.

Ford normally stamp FORD on every part just in case you do not know what manufacture made the heap of [bs]

you are driving

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 02-20-2007, 08:57 AM:

Normally Ford (FIX OR REPAIR DAILY)

Actually, FORD stands for First On Racing Day.

Having had the misfortune to have owned not one, but two British cars (Triumph TR7 & TR8), I would not criticize American cars. The only reason Jaguar still exists is that Ford bought them, and the only reason LandRover still exists is that BMW bought them. The only good thing I can say about my Triumph's is that they were slightly more reliable than the Fuckin' Italian Atempt at Transportion (Fiat X1/9) that I also had the misfortune to own.

Posted by Frank Dubrois (Member # 3042) on 02-20-2007, 11:39 AM:

quote:
Actually, FORD stands for First On Racing Day

Fucked Over Rebuilt Dodge

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-20-2007, 12:35 PM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
I would not criticize American cars.

I would.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-20-2007, 01:00 PM:

I printed out the picture and showed it to the parts guys at the local Ford dealership here and they confirmed it is not a Ford item.

My family has owned an auto parts store for over 40 years and I can tell you, all brands of cars suck equally, just in different ways. American cars are not as reliable as foreign cars but they are cheaper to fix. Some of your better foreign cars like Hondas and Toyotas are better built (although that quality gap has closed a lot in the past 20 years) but when they do break, parts can be harder to find and/or cost a lot more than domestic.

Just for an example: A water pump for a 2005 Ford F150 with a 5.4L V8 sells here for $43.67, whereas a water pump for a 2005 Toyota Tundra with a 4.7L V8 sells for $173.68.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-20-2007, 02:11 PM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Having had the misfortune to have owned not one, but two British cars (Triumph TR7 & TR8), I would not criticize American cars.

The British motor industry in the 1970s was an international joke. Do you know the car-beating scene from Fawlty Towers? It was directly inspired by the state of British car manufacturing at the time.

Both my grandparents had Triumphs - one had a Stag and the other a Dolomite Sprint. They were both breaking down, all the time.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 02-20-2007, 03:13 PM:

Back when I owned those Triumphs, I had a British mechanic who was trained in Conventry and brought over here by British Leyland. He eventually opened his own shop. Over the door to his shop was a sign that said "Why Do The British Drink Warm Beer? They Have Lucas Refrigerators!".

To those who don't know, Lucas (no relation to George) is/was the company that supplied most of the electrical parts used in British cars of the 1970's and 1980's. Unreliable was not just their motto, it was ther way of life.

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 02-20-2007, 03:16 PM:

Usually keys like that fit into a slot under the driver's side dash board. They're usually made so that the ignition won't start without that key in it. The dealer must have disabled it, but if you were so paranoidically inclined, you could have it re-enabled to give a double layer of ignition security.

Posted by Christopher Meredith (Member # 3767) on 02-20-2007, 03:44 PM:

Personally, I think it's a computer mouse. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 02-20-2007, 04:50 PM:

Adam, you have a key that you don't know what it's for, I just saw yesterday when I opened my center console, there is an ethernet port. I guess to diagnose the electronics?? Or maybe I can connect to the internet while I am driving!!

Rick

Posted by Kyle McEachern (Member # 2250) on 02-21-2007, 12:28 AM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
...and the only reason LandRover still exists is that BMW bought them.

How does one European car company having bought another European car company fit into this discussion?

(Side note: Land Rover is now owned by, ironically, Ford, since 2000)

quote:
Actually, FORD stands for First On Racing Day.

Actually, as of this past weekend at Daytona, it stood for Fifth On Racing Day...Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, and Mike Wallace were all driving Chevys, and David Ragan was the first person to cross the finish line in a Ford.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-21-2007, 02:32 AM:

The British motor industry of the 1970s was one of the final symptoms of the post-war nationalisation of heavy industry and the fact that we didn't invest in our manufacturing base to anything like the same extent as mainland Europe did in the '50s and '60s (in the context of cars, especially Germany). To be fair, that was partly because we couldn't afford to: we were paying off massive debts incurred during the war, whereas mainland Europe was receiving substantial long-term investment through the Marshall plan and other funding streams. But a lack of long-term investment, a mismanaged economy and chronically poor industrial relations over 2-3 decades culminated in the kind of vehicle that Basil Fawlty delivered a good thrashing to.

My grandpa lived in South Wales in the 1970s, where he was a manager at a steel works, most of the output of which went to the British Leyland car factory in Lancashire. He drove a very unreliable Triumph, but often said that if his and thousands of his colleagues' jobs hadn't depended on the British motor industry, he'd have bought a BMW without a moment's hesitation.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-21-2007, 04:12 AM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
we were paying off massive debts incurred during the war, whereas mainland Europe was receiving substantial long-term investment through the Marshall plan

Not true. Great Britain was actually *donated* most of the help it received from the US through the lend-lease act. They were also the main recipients of funds from the Marshall plan. Great Britain received more than any other European country although they had less actual damage than all or most other countries.

I think the reality is that British economy was simply based mostly on economic exploitation of other countries through colonialism, not on their own technological development and industrial progress. Once the colonial base fell away, it could only go downhill.

The Marshall plan was a great idea because it helped rebuild Europe after the war and avoid a lot of human suffering, because otherwise, an expansion of the influence of the USSR would have been pre-programmed, it also created new economies that could trade with the US (American economy was really booming in that time, but if you have overproduction and nobody you can sell the goods to, economic collapse can follow quickly) and it made sure that the mistakes made after WWI wouldn't be repeated when Germany was made to pay immense reparations which led to an economic burden the country could hardly bear and from there to the flourishing of radical movements like the Nazis and a desire for revenge. It worked out fabulously well. I mean, the Marshall plan, not the revenge.

But it is often misunderstood. The Marshall plan was not that substantial as far as the actual funds which flowed across the Atlantic were concerned, its main effect was that it helped get things just started again. It was also very well administrated to make sure that the funds went into the right channels (not like in Russia in the 90s when countless billions of help offered from Western countries just kind of syphoned off, with the result that you have a lot of immensely rich people there, but still a vast majority of direly poor). What happened after the 4 years the Marshall plan ran was mostly up to the individual countries. German economy boomed so enormously during the 50s that they actually had massive need for foreign guest workers at the end of the decade. The reason for that was that there was already a strong industrial and intellectual base there which could be revived after the war even though the entire country lay in ruins.

Things didn't go so well for Great Britain because they lost their most substantial colonies (like India) as a result of the war (oops) and they simply didn't have the substance to make up for that loss of essentially free resources from enslaved colonies.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 02-21-2007, 06:30 AM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
we were paying off massive debts incurred during the war

There was something on the radio at New Year that we had, that day, finally finished paying off our outstanding debt from the Second World War; there was something a couple of months previously about the final payment being made soon. This sounds good, but somebody told me that we still have some outstanding debt from the First World War. Does anybody know if this is true?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-21-2007, 06:51 AM:

quote: Michael Schaffer
Not true. Great Britain was actually *donated* most of the help it received from the US through the lend-lease act.

That help was received during the war itself, and for the sole purpose of fighting it. Lend-lease had nothing whatsoever to do with the post-war reconstruction period, which was what my earlier post referred to. You're right in that the residual infrastructure that was in or en route to the UK at the time the Truman Administration suddenly terminated the agreement in December 1945, was sold to the British government at 10% of its pre-war cost price. But we had to pay that 10% back, and doing so imposed a significant financial burden (during the 1945-55 period, this was equivalent to 2.8% of the income tax paid by each British adult). The axis countries didn't have to pay anything, while at the same time their industrial infrastructure was being rebuilt, largely funded by the ERP.

quote: Michael Schaffer
I think the reality is that British economy was simply based mostly on economic exploitation of other countries through colonialism...

That statement would be true if you were talking about the century before the First World War. The Empire had ceased to deliver any net economic benefits to the UK by the early '20s (see Correlli Barnett, The Lost Victory, London, 1995, for the figures). We handed back all the major colonies as soon as we safely could after WWII without the risk of leaving behind civil wars or worse (which, in the case of India/Pakistan, the Palestine Mandate and Kenya, was a very real threat).

In answer to Stephen's question, we finally paid back the last installment (of around £45 milliion, if I remember the news story correctly) in December 2006.

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 02-21-2007, 07:29 AM:

Hi, Mitchell; I also had an X1/9 .. my first new car. It was a 1979, which was the first year they upsized the engine to 1500cc and added a 5-speed. After about five years, it started to turn back into iron ore....

Not being one to shy away from a challenge, I now have a Range Rover Discovery II. It does some strange things once in a while, but (at 80000 miles) has been a good car.

I had read somewhere that the "V" in the Cinemeccannica projector model line stood for "Victory," meaning Cinemeccannica's return to stable production levels after WWII.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-21-2007, 12:35 PM:

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 02-21-2007, 02:57 PM:

Yes, but many good conversations drift away from the original topic, no? That's why it's called 'yak-king.' [Smile]

Growing up, the schools I went mostly only taught what happened to Americans in foreign countries, not what happended to foreigners in foreign countries. Personally, I find comments made by Leo, Michael, Stephen, (and others across the Big Pond) really interesting.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-21-2007, 04:38 PM:

Indeed, and casually yakking about this and that is part of "getting to know each other" and forming an "online community".

Besides, I already told Adam what the key is for. You may think I am kidding, but I am not. Only a few weeks ago a guy here blew up his truck and himself up with that because he thought he was attacked by Aliens. As it turns out, he had just had a really bad day and the people he saw approaching in his rear view mirror were just some really ugly people.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-21-2007, 05:45 PM:

Adam, unless you're gonna share, please refrain from using smilies no one else knows the coding to... [Razz]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 02-21-2007, 06:03 PM:

Right on, Tim! [beer]

(Adam is such a brute)

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-21-2007, 07:15 PM:

Well, you can save and upload the image.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-21-2007, 07:29 PM:

:offtopic:
:ot:
:off:

Well, it was worth a try (or 3).

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-21-2007, 07:55 PM:

UBB code is actually :offtopic: but apparently that isn't activated here. I don't know if you can activate/block certain smileys. Looks like it though.

Let's try another one:

:applause:

That doesn't work either.

:notontopic:

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-21-2007, 08:34 PM:

What makes you think that Adam didn't just upload it himself and link to it just like you guys did? See look, I can post it but I don't even have to upload it.

You guys make my head hurt daily.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-21-2007, 08:35 PM:

I don't know about Schaffer, but I was just wondering how long it would take to get a response out of you. 39 minutes, you're slipping.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 02-21-2007, 08:51 PM:

Ok, let me give it a try...

Woah! what have I done wrong?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-22-2007, 05:26 PM:

Moved to Australia?

Posted by Mike Pennell (Member # 1692) on 03-26-2007, 10:19 PM:

It's a hotel/motel key!!! Just used one at the Red Roof Inn in San Antonio.

Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 03-29-2007, 11:20 AM:

Any way off topic

Fords [bs]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 03-29-2007, 02:53 PM:

Thanks, Mike! I'll have to keep it and give it a try next time I'm in SA! [Razz]

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 03-29-2007, 02:58 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
Moved to Australia?

Yer funny Leo! [Wink]

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 03-30-2007, 10:09 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Just for an example: A water pump for a 2005 Ford F150 with a 5.4L V8 sells here for $43.67, whereas a water pump for a 2005 Toyota Tundra with a 4.7L V8 sells for $173.68.

Yeah, but the difference is that you won't have to replace the Toyota water pump. [Wink]

I have had the displeasure of owning two GM cars previous to our cars now. My wife had a 99 Pontiac Grand Am, and I had a 99 Silverado pickup. Both were total piles of [bs]

.

We both got new cars last year to replace them and both of the GM cars that were replaced had barely over 100,000 miles on them. I estimate we spent at least half of what both cars cost us to buy, just in unecessary repairs that were not wear and tear items.

Needless to say my wife bought a Honda Pilot to replace her Grand Am and I bought an F-250. I would have bought a Toyota but they don't make heavy duty vehicles like what I need to haul stuff for work. Also, my employer pays for my vehicle and repairs now so I don't have to worry about it.

If I have to buy another vehicle again it will be a "foreign" make for sure. Funny thing is, I just saw an article in the USA Today last week that showed the percentage of certain vehicles parts that are made in the US. The Chevy HHR is made 85% overseas and assembled overseas. The Toyota car they cited was made around 75% in the US and assembled here too.

[ 03-30-2007, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: Joshua Waaland ]