I am considering buying an Octavia Estate vRS on Monday - but it comes with keyless entry as standard. Several friends have had cars stolen with keyless entry and so I am somewhat hesitant.

 

Is there some way I can get keyless entry completely and permanently disabled after the fact? For example, is there a configuration option in the menu, or can I take the car to a Skoda garage and get them to disable/remove it?

 

Thanks!

Hi and welcome to the forum

 

Is it a new or used car and if used, which year as this may give different possibilities?

Once we know I will also move it to the correct octavia section of the forum, so you can hopefully get more answers 

Hi

 

It would be an ex-display 2021 model (basically new).

 

Thanks!

A professional car thief will take a car they are targeting with or without Kessy.  The difference if you were to be getting the car back is the damage they do or lack of damage. 

 

From owners manual.

 

You can also turn kessy off in the window & central locking menu.

4 hours ago, TheUltraRunner said:

From owners manual.

 

I’d have thought (to avoid confusion) that first section should be headed ‘Deactivate Keyless Unlocking’ ?

Thanks Bought the car today and this worked perfectly.

1 hour ago, Berisford said:

I’d have thought (to avoid confusion) that first section should be headed ‘Deactivate Keyless Unlocking’ ?

Sorry, I'm not sure what exactly are you referring to?

23 minutes ago, TheUltraRunner said:

Sorry, I'm not sure what exactly are you referring to?

The bold heading from the Skoda handbook reads 'Deactivate Keyless Locking' - to my mind that should read 'Deactivate Keyless Unlocking' inasmuch as going through the blip to lock and touching the sensor within 5 seconds is all about preventing you using the Kessy to unlock, you have to use the blip.

30 minutes ago, Berisford said:

The bold heading from the Skoda handbook reads 'Deactivate Keyless Locking' - to my mind that should read 'Deactivate Keyless Unlocking' inasmuch as going through the blip to lock and touching the sensor within 5 seconds is all about preventing you using the Kessy to unlock, you have to use the blip.

 Got it now. Yes, I guess it would make more sense.

The latest keys 'go to sleep' if not moved for a short time and the repeater method cannot be used to unlock and steal your car.

 

Won't stop them if they really want it but kessy won't be your problem.

5 hours ago, GreenlineIIEstate said:

The latest keys 'go to sleep' if not moved for a short time and the repeater method cannot be used to unlock and steal your car.

Interesting. How do you know if your keys are ones going to sleep?

 

I have opted for a RFID blocking keybox at home as I was unaware of this sleep feature.

Ultimately the question is "Why buy one with it?"

 

The very idea of having it is for the convenience of it. If you're not going to use the functionality of it, then don't order it and save some cash.

It comes as standard on this model (which we wanted for all the other features).

 

We couldn't configure as we couldn't wait 4 months for the car. We searched around to find the car on-display and bought it within a day or two.

1 hour ago, TheWanderer said:

Ultimately the question is "Why buy one with it?"

 

The very idea of having it is for the convenience of it. If you're not going to use the functionality of it, then don't order it and save some cash.

 

There are lots of reasons folk may wish to disable certain features on a vehicle, I don't really think it is productive to simply say don't order one that has feature X if you don't want it.

 

I have a Superb on order that features keyless entry as a standard feature on the car, and I too want the option of doing a permanent disable at times. Me and the missus go camping a lot, and our security solution for the eternal 'Where to store the car keys?' question (all other valuables stay locked in the car overnight) is that there is a particular part of the tent where we can hang the keys so they are not possible to get to without entering the tent itself or climbing right on top of it (It's a large tent and that would be impossible without falling into/collapsing the entire thing). This is a serious thing, as I have been on campsites where a stanley knife has been used to silently slice open a little gap in the side of a tent to gain access to valuables.

 

So, in this scenario my keys could potentially be moving when we are turning in sleep, if it is a windy night etc. The car is usually literally almost right against the tent, so it is reasonable to assume that keyless entry will very likely work due to the close proximity.

 

I personally will want the reassurance of disabling the system altogether while I am away on holiday. I don't want to muck around checking I have temporarily disabled the feature every single time I come and go from the car for something, come and go for my evening shower, come and go to put something back in the car before bed, come and go to do that before bedding down for the night, etc etc etc.

 

Far far far easier, stress free, and risk-free to simply disable the feature permanently for the times I do not wish it to be active.

 

 

 

Octavia mk4 and the latest Arteon use UWB. The up to date relay devices cannot overcome it as it calculates the time of flight of the signal, rf travel at the speed of light so any delay is seen by the car kessy box and it knows this is not the key. Moreover, UWB uses a very wide band, up to 1Ghz and signal is a complex multi-frequency burst of less than 2ns. All this makes it very unlikely for a thief to exploit the keyless system and usually they know what cars to target - Skoda is not among the highly sought cars to steal

 

See here: https://www.skoda-storyboard.com/en/skoda-world/the-approach-of-the-keyless-age/

 

A thief can still break into the car and use the diagnostics port and train a new fob but this applies to all vehicles.

Edited 28 August, 20223 yr by MP1983

3 hours ago, MP1983 said:

Octavia mk4 and the latest Arteon use UWB. The up to date relay devices cannot overcome it as it calculates the time of flight of the signal, rf travel at the speed of light so any delay is seen by the car kessy box and it knows this is not the key. Moreover, UWB uses a very wide band, up to 1Ghz and signal is a complex multi-frequency burst of less than 2ns. All this makes it very unlikely for a thief to exploit the keyless system and usually they know what cars to target - Skoda is not among the highly sought cars to steal

 

See here: https://www.skoda-storyboard.com/en/skoda-world/the-approach-of-the-keyless-age/

 

A thief can still break into the car and use the diagnostics port and train a new fob but this applies to all vehicles.

 

No, Because it's so unreliable at the moment. 

12 hours ago, MP1983 said:

Octavia mk4 and the latest Arteon use UWB. The up to date relay devices cannot overcome it as it calculates the time of flight of the signal, rf travel at the speed of light so any delay is seen by the car kessy box and it knows this is not the key. Moreover, UWB uses a very wide band, up to 1Ghz and signal is a complex multi-frequency burst of less than 2ns. All this makes it very unlikely for a thief to exploit the keyless system and usually they know what cars to target - Skoda is not among the highly sought cars to steal

Tell it to this guy:

https://tinyurl.com/4yccmcck

 

Just watch the movie clip.

Edited 29 August, 20223 yr by Felix2021

Carrying a sack does not mean they relayed it. They bring tools but its not clear which ones they used.

You really think they used something else? Cause i'm 100% sure it was a relay.

Well, I wasn`t there with those guys to know 100% but the principle of operation does not allow relaying. The car is measuring time of flight by itself without any additional data - so in my opinion hard to overcome. I know Skoda did adopt this sometime in 2020, there might be a chance that first mk4`s did use the older tech and this one was such. Besides, they also have motion sensors.

 

Of course, these (as yours) as just assumptions. The several websites that offer relay devices state they do not work on Octavia mk4 (all but one indeed which claims to work on all cars incl Land Rovers and etc. so either lying or maybe found a breakthrough).

 

https://www.evanconnect.com/product-page/keyless-repeater-new-generation

Edited 4 September, 20223 yr by MP1983

On 28/08/2022 at 19:12, MP1983 said:

A thief can still break into the car and use the diagnostics port and train a new fob but this applies to all vehicles.

On recent models, no they can't. One of the fobs on my new Octavia was broken on delivery, the replacement had to come from the factory because keys are now encoded to the VIN of the vehicle. I also needed to take it to a dealer to get it paired to the car - they don't have access to do this directly, it needs a connection to the Skoda mothership.

https://forums.ross-tech.com/index.php?threads/17071/post-152354