Hello August!

RM> I like mine well enough, although it's a bit older now, 2017.

AA>I'm looking to get nothing older than 2020.

Yes, if you can manage it the smartest thing to do is to buy a
'new' car that is 3 or 4 years old with low mileage, or consider
one a little newer with high enough miles to keep the price down.

Mine is older but I bought it in 2021 and it had just a little
over 60,000 km (37,000 miles) on it but I got it for about
half the price of a new one.

Cars take a big hit in value (price drop) the first year or two
so if you buy a little older, or something that would be less
popular (odd colour, higher than average miles) then you get
the advantage of that price drop.

Note: Higher than average miles is probably more okay for me
than most people. First, high miles means lots of long distance
driving/commuting which is easier on a car than short trips and
secondly, I put very few miles on a car so mileage won't get so
high that things are breaking down due to wear too quickly.
In the 4 years I've had this car I've only put about 7000 km
(4300 miles) on it.

AA>I have no experience with keyless fobs.  But I would think that
  >the batt does indeed drain faster when it's able to communicate
  >with the vehicle.

I'd think too so since the car constantly is acknowledging the
fob is close enough to start the car.. Modern cars do way too
much on their own these days. Mine, if I open a door to get
something out of the car, makes all sorts of funny noises
while it's trying to decide if I'm going to start the car,
plus there is theft control active all the time. I was quite
surprised I didn't have any problems starting my car last
winter with it sitting for 2 weeks between being run, and
I'm pretty sure still with the original car battery, so it's
over 7 years old now.

AA>You might want to make sure the batts in that hidden fob are
  >still good.

By the sounds of things all I'd lose with a dead fob battery
would be the ability to unlock the car before I get to it
(and remotely blow the horn / sound the theft alarm).

I'm not sure what I might run into changing the fob battery.
They warn online that often they have to be re-programmed to
match your car after, and I'm not sure what's involved there.

Okay.. another look online and they say usually on that model
you don't have to re-programm them but they also mention that
the distance from the car it will unlock the doors will drop
dramatically quite a while before it stops working completely
so I will get some notice..

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 * SLMR Rob  * ... Gotta run... Cat's caught in the printer...
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