FOMCO - keyless systems clueless?

This last week I rented three FOMOCO cars at the SF airport and every last one of them had faulty keyless ignition locking systems. The first two I could not get out of their lot because neither I or Budget could get the systems to work reliably. Either they would not start every other time because it didn't recognize the key FOB or the cars would not lock and unlock with the key FOB. Both were high end Taurus models. I have rented these before without incident as little as 4 months ago too?

So finally they gave me a Lincoln MKS and that at least got us off the lot. But then once I was in SF and parking for a restaurant I tested the locking and WTF it also would not lock or unlock the car. I could lock and unlock it manually. Starting also worked for the most part.

So for the first evening there I had to leave the car unlocked everywhere we went and that night at the motel.

The next morning we tested it repeatedly and it was fine from that point until the end of the trip.

So I was thinking perhaps the RF interference at the airport caused these cars to go wonky for a while? Neither Budget personnel nor myself could explain this. SDo this wasn't user error that I can identify.

We did have an iPad, Laptop, my phone and my wife's phone in the car but all were turned off. Her business Blackberry was on though. We also had all of these back in the car minus the iPad later on and everything worked just fine.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

 

212 views and no one has a clue as to what may be the explanation for this incident?

I find it a remarkable thing to have 3 cars in a row fall victim to this malfunction.

My nearly 10 year old Jag has some intermittent issues with the key FOB but not a total failure. Repeating an attempt while annoying usually succeeds and these cars were all less than a year old. One had 3K miles on it!

 

Three cars in a row within 45 minutes all have bad key FOB batteries? One was very low miles. The final one was completely fine A DAY AFTER we left the airport.

That strikes me as highly improbable and how would that explain the third car?

I was hoping someone had heard about something like this before.
A simple weak battery is something we've probably all experienced.

 

Ah ... because there is no key only a FOB.

 

Yes they were all the correct FOBs. All three with low batteries?????

Very weird.

 

Except that all of our devices were turned on so no RF transmission. ???
Beyond that, if a cell phone or any other bluetooth/WIFI device can incapacitate 3 vehicles something is really wrong with that system since it's designed to automatically SYNCH (registered trademark) with those sorts of devices in the first place.

Not trying to be argumentative but really this is quite mysterious.

My SWAG is that unique RF experienced near the airport caused these systems to malfunction for an extended period of time. It must be a new phenomena because I've rented other Ford vehicles with similar systems there over the last 5 years and I have never experienced this.

 

I know. Residual effects? My wife's blackberry was back on by then.It's a mystery.

Of course there is this to contend with when you're in SF, Herb Caen referred to it as SF's giant roach clip LOL
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