Ideas about my car being nicked from key relaying are getting into my head. While there are recommendations like Faraday pouches and visual detergents like locks, which option is more practical?

• Using Fordpass app to remotely lock unlock the car, leaving the keys at home

• Using a Faraday pouch but not ideal due to potential bulkiness

• Anti theft detergents like steering wheel locks

• Jacking and Removing 1x wheel, kept in locker while at work.

Any other recommendations? Or is car theft really not a serious concern?

1 hour ago, mburdett555 said:

Using Fordpass app to remotely lock unlock the car, leaving the keys at home

I don't understand how you are planning to start the car without the keys being present?

1 hour ago, mburdett555 said:

Using a Faraday pouch but not ideal due to potential bulkiness

Believed to work, not overly bulky. An alternative would be to put your keys in a metal tin whilst at work and another metal tin at home. If you have a metal locker at work then leaving the keys in there would significantly reduce the range of their signal.

1 hour ago, mburdett555 said:

Anti theft detergents like steering wheel locks

These do provide some deterrent and may slow a thief for a few seconds/minutes, they might encourage the thief to pick an easier target.

1 hour ago, mburdett555 said:

Jacking and Removing 1x wheel, kept in locker while at work.

10 minutes to the the wheel off, 10 minutes to get it back on. In the pouring rain on a cold dark evening?

Are there a high number of thefts of 13 year old Focus cars in your area? I've never really worried about it. Take reasonable precautions and leave the insurance to provide a replacement if the worst should happen.

2 hours ago, mburdett555 said:

• Anti theft detergents

These sound like the best idea. Just wash the car in them once a month, problem solved! 😉

If you're still buying an MHEV it'll almost certainly be new enough to come with sleepy keys anyway. They stop transmitting signals after 20 seconds stationary. So they can't be relayed as long as they stay still. (Obviously won't work if you do a physical job and walk around with them in your pocket in all day.)

Sorry yes forgot to clarify this is a new car and I don't update my profile yet as I'm still on 2013 Ecoboost.

There's a push start button in the car, my concern is if the car is ever open (and I have had people in my cars before in the night by my fault of leaving it open), it'll get nicked simply by pressing that button

It would be of relief if someone told me that the car locks itself if the keys go out of a certain range lol. I do intend to use the ford pass app provided it doesn't kill the battery (like some say), to ensure it is locked, and if I get away with solely using that, I rather would.

34 minutes ago, mburdett555 said:

it'll get nicked simply by pressing that button

Pressing to start button only works if the key is in the car. It can work if a thief can relay the signal from your key in the house to the car, modern Ford sleepy keys prevent that from happening by only transmitting a signal when the key is moving and for a few seconds after it stops moving. Laying the keys on a table deactivate them because they are not moving.

The car does NOT lock itself if the keys go out of range.

FordPass seems to use about 1% of the battery charge each time it causes the car's electronics to activate. So locking the car once uses 1% of the car battery capacity, unlocking it later uses another 1%. I use FordPass every night to make sure that my car is locked before I go to bed.