Kia e-Niro a target for thieves?

[sc489]

The test is to see if you can open the car standing next to the door with the key in the pouch.

[Colin Lambert]

My Farady pouch (bought on EBAy about 6 years ago) was tested yesterday and works fine. I tried with my spare key which lives in the pouch and left my (used) key upstairs where I leave it every night.
Standing next to the car with the faraday pouch, the car would not even open the door mirrors and would not allow me to unlock it. When I tookk it out of the pouch everything opened as normal.
It also proved that my used key is safe from thieves in it's nocturnal resting place.

[sc489]

The keyless entry can be disabled on my Niro 3 HEV by locking the car with the fob then pressing the fob lock and unlock buttons together for c. 5 secs until the indicators flash 4 times. Hopefully that defeats the Gameboy attack method too.

Also, the key is disabled if left static for c. 10 minutes denying theft by relay attack.

It's safer to use a metal tin with a screw top metal lid than a Faraday pouch prone to wear if your key is vulnerable to relay attack.

[Colin Lambert]

See my comments above.
eNiro key cannot be put to sleep, unfortunately!
Re my old Faraday, still working after at least 6 years.

[LondonMartin]

Oh, yes. Yes, it definitely is. Electronic theft of cars with push button starting is now extremely common, as I discovered to my cost when I lost my 2020 e-Niro in this way. The technique is called "relay theft", and when it happened to me my neighbour's Ring Doorbell fortunately captured me parking and locking the car, but not the actual theft a couple of hours later because the theft also had a jammer which disabled all Ring doorbells in the area for 6 minutes. The solution for me would have been to use a Faraday pouch for my key fob, but I am also investing in a steering lock, a tracker and community CCTV.
After this I did a bit of research, and discovered that insurers reckon that 60-70% of cars stolen in the past 12 months were keyless models. This is recent; car thefts increased by 59% between 2021 and 2022, and it's still increasing, which explains why - as you might have noticed - your insurance has gone through the roof. Relay theft of keyless cars is the reason. Get a Faraday pouch, think about a tracker and steering lock, and let your insurer know. And tell your friends and family.

[Colin Lambert]

You can track you eNiro using the app. Open the app and go to the 'MAP' button, to see exactly where your car is parked.
Sadly insurance companies do not recognise this fact as it is not considered to be a legitimate 'Tracker'.

[Eurocruiser24]

Having had our e-niro - 2020 - stolen for the second time a few days ago, we were lucky enough to locate the car on the app, lock it remotely and find it in undamaged condition. The first time we were less fortunate, as they ripped open the dash and destroyed the wiring loom, presumably in search of the tracker. Again, we located it through the app. It took 10 weeks to get the car back from Kia. Once I finish this email I will go and try the tip to send the remote to sleep. Once we recovered the car, we drove to Halfords, fitted a dash cam with "AI", had the windows etched and bought a steering lock. I phoned Kia and asked why they had still nothing to suggest besides a steering lock and a Faraday device when their cars were so open to theft. No response/
I have wondered about simply disconnecting the 12v battery overnight.