Car Key Hall of Shame (Part two)

To celebrate the amazing achievements in Rio, here are the worst of the worst remote style keys. With first place being awarded to Vauxhall Astra J and Insignia keys, Peugeot and Citroen were closest over the line for second place.

Second Place – Silver medal position

Peugeot and Citroen Flip Keys

The French make beautiful cars, stylish sleek lines and are loved by many who drive them….apart from when they go wrong. If only they had hired someone from Volkswagon or Audi for the day to help out with designing a key that stays intact for more than a week….

So in 2006, all Peugeot and Citroen vehicles started to pop up with these fancy pants flick – out keys. They look great, just like the cars. However someone must have left the office junior in charge of the CAD/CAM machine and the rest is history.

The major problem is that they no longer have a solid transponder chip. In the olden days, chips used to be tough, encased in carbon.

They were so tough that should an elephant accidently sit on your car key, it would still work fine, even if it did look a bit worse for wear! Fast forward a few years and someone, somewhere, had this great idea to change the design that has worked perfectly for years. They introduced a ‘virtual chip’ that creates a signal using many  components on a circuit board.

If the average car key was carried about on a velvet pillow, protected from sudden knocks and bumps then the design would work perfectly. However once these keys are dropped and thrown for a few years, the components that make up the ‘virtual chip’ go faulty.

The result is that forget the elephant… should a tiny mouse, weighing just a few ounces,  brush past that key on a bad day, it may well make the signal ‘virtually disappear’ which means that you will be ‘virtually stranded’ somewhere..   and on the back on a an AA recovery truck ( Other recovery services are available)

So as if this wasn’t bad enough, the flip arrangement is made from plastic, so thin that you can virtually see through it. The blade has been placed in the wrong orientation so that whenever there is pressure applied, ( such as, actually turning the ignition) there is too much pressure applied to said plastic, so that it cracks and lets the blade become limp and so annoying, often repaired using nuts and bolts.

Lastly…the buttons may as well have been made from Balsa wood or Pavlova, they split and crumble and are horrible.

….how do you Citroen and Peugeot owners live with these problems?

Watch out for our Bronze medal  winner, coming soon