One Time Fluke? Neighbor's Key Fob Unlocked my Truck

This morning, after my wife left for work and the kids were still in bed, I went outside to move our trash bins out to the curb. While I was making my way past my truck my neighbor came out to get into her Highlander and when she unlocked her vehicle my truck unlocked as well. I have a MT so I don't have the fancy key fob the AT guys have, and my keys were inside the house. I've tried searching for this online, only to come across one account in a Tundra forum but little else.

Have any of y'all heard of this happening before?

 

You sure you been sleeping at the correct house

 

Haven't had (or personally seen) this happen myself, but is always something I've wondered about (curious how many possible individual codes there are in the system)

Toyota programmed the system so that if a truck is unlocked via the fob, but then a door is not opened afterward, the truck will re-lock itself after (I think) 30 seconds. So they must've seen this as possibly happening (making it so that the unintentionally-unlocked vehicle won't just be left unlocked afterward).

 

I know this used to be more common with cars in the 90s. Figured the technology has more frequencies, or whatever now. Had a family member that travelled 100% of the time for work, so was in a new rental car constantly. Said it was always fun when he'd walk out and hit the trunk button and have half a dozen trunks open. Usually he got lucky and the key would start the 2nd or 3rd car of the bunch that he tried.

 

When I was a kid (1980s) I used to take the garage door clickers and then ride my BMX bike around the neighborhood to see how many other people's garage doors I could open (there was around 4 or 5 of 'em lol).

 

my first garage remote had like 4 dip switches in it. Not all that many combos. Like 16?

 

I think there were 8 on the ones we had, NuTone I think (so 256 combos). I tried the whole neighborhood, probably 500-1000 homes using two clickers, so yeah just a little bit of neighborhood mischief lol)

 

Does the Highlander key fob unlock your truck every time, @Foushee?

 

Not that I'm aware. Typically I leave before her, but I'm done teaching for the summer so I happened to be home at the same time and just caught this today. It's most likely a one-off oddity, but thought I'd ask in case this isn't an isolated issue. We live in a nice area, but have had some random car break-ins and cat thefts in the past and would hate for someone to take off with the gear I keep in my bed drawers.

 

She's your neighbor. Seems the easiest thing to do would be to ask her to give it another try or 3?

 

You weren't doing your laundry at the time were you? If so go and see if your key fobs in the wash, because that will cause it to lock your truck. Ask me how I know.

 

58 Buick and 60 Impala of neighbors years ago, ignitioñ keys swapped. Trunk did not.

Only so many patterns to go around

 

Guy told me he once walked out of grocery store and got into a Chrysler minivan (wasn't locked), put key in ignition and fired it up. Put into reverse to back out and when he turned around to look out the back he noticed belongings in back set not his. Looked over 2 spaces and seen his van. Same make, model and color.

Reparked it, got out and got into his and drove off.

What are the chances of that?!

 

Ever own a Chrysler?

I'd say odds were higher than other marques.

 

I was definitely not doing laundry, but I did that years ago with my wife's keys.

When my neighbor gets back I'll ask her to try her key fob again.

 

Pretty sure they use rolling codes. At least the aftermarket stuff always did. The odds were extremely high that both vehicles were on the same code at the time.

 

The 30 second relock is there because people accidentally unlock their own vehicle all the time without realizing it, especially when the fob is in a pocket or purse. But it helps for this issue too.

The FOBs for the OP’s year definitely use rolling codes, which could have billions of permutations. So this was a highly unlikely event and even more unlikely to repeat.

If the neighbor’s FOB was to keep reopening the Taco then there’s an issue. Assuming the other vehicle also uses rolling codes, they’d have to be on the same algorithm, same counter.