Anyone knows what happens when you forget to shut off engine and walk away with the keys?

 

Car will beep at you when the fob is out of range, but the engine will just continue to run normally.

 

Engine will Run until it runs out of gas.

 

On the flip side, if you're driving and throw your keys out the window, you can keep on driving. But once you stop and turn off the engine, you won't be able to start it again.

The NY Times just published an article about people dying of carbon monoxide poisoning by taking their keys and accidentally leaving their engine running:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/13/b...xide-toll.html

 

 

But that is a function of the auto start/stop system and has nothing to do with walking away from the car with the key. Also keep in mind, most cars these days do not feature an automatic start/stop, and on many which do, folks have them turned off because they are so annoying.

 

I guess I didn't know the TLX didn't have this

 

To be quite honest, I have no idea whether the TLX has that feature or not.

 

The auto stop/start feature is only on the TLX AWD models (V-6 engine). This feature will not completely shut off the engine since it will be cycling on and off as power is needed to keep the battery charged.

 

thks for the info, i guess i'm lucky no one drove away with the car. i left it running for 1.5 hrs.

 

The auto stop/start will actually turn the car back on as soon as you un-click your seatbelt, and will not allow the car to turn off again. (so that people didn't incorrectly assume the car was actually off)

If you were to come to a stop in a parking space, and stepped on the brake hard enough to engage the auto start/stop, and then put the car in Park, that too would turn the car back on.

All features to make it pretty hard to walk away from the car with the engine off, but the car still "on", or in Drive.

Opening the car door with your seatbelt off automatically puts the car in park to prevent roll aways. Park also automatically engages if you stop while in Drive, and then turn the car off. (Jeep actually put some of these safeties into their cars as part of their recall for their weird shifters, and rollaway problem)

Walking away from a running TLX with your keys has a pretty loud alarm which is very apparent. I've never accidentally walked away from my car with the engine running, but a couple of times tried to when I was fiddling with things, and had the car in the Accessory mode. The beeping clued me in instantly.

Pretty hard to hurt yourself with this system.

 

When my wife and I take her Mazda3 and we happen to have both keys with us, if she say, puts her purse in the hatch and I lock the car, it beeps rather annoyingly until we retrieve her key from her purse.

 

My 2012 Sonata would run without the key... as mentioned, it would just beep at you, but that's it.

My 2016 370z runs without a key also. Just beeps if you walk away.

And if you try locking the doors on either, with the key still in the car, you get one annoying beep reminding you to take it.

 

Interesting. Yeah, the A4 turns off if you take the keys out with the car in park and the engine on. Found that out once when I was getting the mail. It doesn't make a noise if you try to lock the doors when the keys are in it; the doors simply don't lock. Now, with Audis, that's fairly obvious because they always chirp (It's like a brand thing. one of the minor things I prefer about Acuras/Hondas. I don't need it to chirp every time)

 

There would likely be some safety issues if the engine shut off when it didn't detect the key FOB. Or at the least, some serious inconvenience. What if the FOB malfunctioned or the battery died while you were cruising down the freeway at 70MPH? That sure would suck. Or if you were driving home in a blizzard and the car just died. I always figured it was a security and/or convenience feature which allowed you to start the car without a key in the ignition as well as make it more difficult for thieves. It's unlikely that you're going to walk away from the car while it's running, then have someone jump in and drive away. If that happens, you probably deserve to have your car stolen.

 

FYI, if you park your car in your attached garage and forget to turn off your car. Then it could be the last mistake that you will ever make because of carbon monoxide poisoning. Apparently this is a thing now with push button engine start and engine stop. A minor mistake may have big consiquecons.

 

Just saw this article today on that very subject: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/13/b...xide-toll.html

 

For this very reason, I have a carbon monoxide detector in the mud room that leads into the garage. Plus a few more located throughout the home.