[1moreRobot]

If you got an orange "Care Key" (restricted remote control key) with your XC40, you can have it reprogrammed to act just like a normal black key. The ability to remove the restrictions has been around for a bit, but some people may not know about it and a dealership I was at on Thursday where both the service desk advisor and the main technician swore it wasn't possible.

The Care Key was designed so that you apply a speed limit, but more annoyingly is locked to profile 3 and has some annoying quirks.

If you want to have the orange key reprogrammed, you can take it to your dealer and they should be able to do it at no cost. If they don't know anything about it, you can refer them to Volvo tech journal TJ35978.

 

[AlanKilian]

and has some annoying quirks

What "quirks" are those?

I've found nothing about the Orange key that needs changing in my opinion.
Why would anyone care if it was locked to a particular profile number?
Is there some reason people want to move a key from one profile to another?

- The speed limit is not enabled by default, so as far as I can tell, the key works prefectly like a black key.

I would be happy to do experiments (as I posted before) if anyone wants to provide them.

2021 Momentum T5

 

[1moreRobot]

What "quirks" are those?

I've found nothing about the Orange key that needs changing in my opinion.
Why would anyone care if it was locked to a particular profile number?
Is there some reason people want to move a key from one profile to another?

- The speed limit is not enabled by default, so as far as I can tell, the key works prefectly like a black key.

I would be happy to do experiments (as I posted before) if anyone wants to provide them.

2021 Momentum T5

Glad you haven't had difficulties. Have you or anyone in your household tried using the orange key and keeping profile configuration properly saved? It's very buggy.

 

[AlanKilian]

Have you or anyone in your household tried using the orange key and keeping profile configuration properly saved? It's very buggy.

Yes, we only got two keys: One Black and One Orange.

I use the orange key and my wife uses the black key.

 

[1moreRobot]

Yes, we only got two keys: One Black and One Orange.

I use the orange key and my wife uses the black key.

Well, again, glad it works well for you.

Lots of folks have had troubles with it. For those interested in having the restrictions lifted, the option is there for them.

 

[AlanKilian]

Lots of folks have had troubles with it.

Also, lots of folks have had no troubles with it.

You haven't described any experiment I can perform to see if your problem is linked to something specific you are doing or not, so I'll go with hands-in-the-air I guess.
As I've said, I'm ready and willing to perform experiments so people can be reassured that the Orange key is not (or IS) some failure of Volvo engineers.

I'm ready and willing to learn from experience, not anecdote.

 

[1moreRobot]

Also, lots of folks have had no troubles with it.

You haven't described any experiment I can perform to see if your problem is linked to something specific you are doing or not, so I'll go with hands-in-the-air I guess.
As I've said, I'm ready and willing to perform experiments so people can be reassured that the Orange key is not (or IS) some failure of Volvo engineers.

I'm ready and willing to learn from experience, not anecdote.

👍

 

[SeattleCat]

I thought the ability to restrict speed was not actually implemented in the system yet? Or did it sneak in in a subsequent build to the one I use.

And for me orange is working fine.

 

[1moreRobot]

I thought the ability to restrict speed was not actually implemented in the system yet? Or did it sneak in in a subsequent build to the one I use.

And for me orange is working fine.

the issues, for those that experience them, seem to revolve mainly around the orange key can act like a second class citizen when it comes to saving certain settings to a profile and can get ornery in cases where and orange and black key are in the car at the same time (for us that meant that the orange key always “won” and the car would shift to profile 3, which we could never get all our profile settings to save to). We also had a thing going on where we found that even having the orange key sitting in a drawer outside the car was enough for the car to detect it and shift us into a limited profile 3, while we were trying to set and save a profile with a black key that was actually inside the car.

The good news is, no one has to do anything they don’t want to. If the orange key works well and doesn’t glitch for you, you can keep it just the way it is. In our case, we were glad to be able to remove all the limitations, which seemed to come with problems and headaches we didn’t need.

Our young P8 has enough electronic gremlins in its own innards to not add any complications from the keys (it spent a long weekend at the dealers for all kinds of fiddling and resets and just came back home).

 

[AlanKilian]

the car would shift to profile 3, which we could never get all our profile settings to save to

I would like to try this.

What profile settings were you unable to have profile #3 retain?

 

[1moreRobot]

I would like to try this.

What profile settings were you unable to have profile #3 retain?

Our car has settings that would gray out with the orange key, including big stuff like charging current limits and small stuff like interior illumination. We were not able to save changes to those without having a black key in the car as well, as far as we can tell.

If we both got into the car with our keys, and the car recognized the orange key first (even though the black key was also in the vehicle belonged to the person behind the wheel) our driver profile would be set to profile 3 and there seemed no way to change to the other profile. Obviously this is not how it's supposed to work, but it's what ours did. Seats and mirrors were set to the profile 3. The only way we found we could switch profiles is if I got out of the car with the orange key and took it far away from the car (even outside the vehicle the key was still being recognized). We have an office on the same floor as our garage and having the key in the desk drawer was enough to have profile 3 activated when the car was started with my husband's black key. Our car does not seem to have the ability to discern a key in the general vicinity from a key within the vehicle itself. And with the orange key in its original programming, we were locked into that profile (perhaps it would have unlocked after my husband started driving away, but he doesn't like fooling with stuff like that on the screen that once he gets going).

Since the key reprogramming, we have had none of these issues. Mind you, we still have other problems with our car, but the limited profile problem is gone.

 

[AlanKilian]

If we both got into the car with our keys, and the car recognized the orange key first (even though the black key was also in the vehicle belonged to the person behind the wheel) our driver profile would be set to profile 3 and there seemed no way to change to the other profile. Obviously this is not how it's supposed to work, but it's what ours did. Seats and mirrors were set to the profile 3. The only way we found we could switch profiles is if I got out of the car with the orange key and took it far away from the car (even outside the vehicle the key was still being recognized). We have an office on the same floor as our garage and having the key in the desk drawer was enough to have profile 3 activated when the car was started with my husband's black key. Our car does not seem to have the ability to discern a key in the general vicinity from a key within the vehicle itself.

My wife and I just tried that experiment:

• I'm Orange (Profile 2)
• She is Black (Profile 1)

The car always detected which key was in the driver's seat and loaded the correct profile.

Is this just ANOTHER failure of the P8?
That's sad and I'm sorry that you P8 owners have to deal with so many many failures.
For the price of a premium car, you shouldn't have to have those frustrations.
Hopefully Volvo will get things worked out over the next dozen software updates.

I'm glad that there's a thing you can do to make Orange the new Black (or whatever) so it works for you.
(Although, knowing how RFID and embedded-firmware works, I can't for the life of me figure out how changing a key from Orange to Black would have any effect on the failure to determine which key was in the driver's seat.)

 

[Jezza]

Very helpful post, @1moreRobot. The Care Key features are useless for the vast majority of Volvo buyers.

 

[1moreRobot]

(Although, knowing how RFID and embedded-firmware works, I can't for the life of me figure out how changing a key from Orange to Black would have any effect on the failure to determine which key was in the driver's seat.)

It doesn't. It just stops the orange key, when detected, from imposing itself (maybe preferentially?) and throwing the car into a limited profile.

 

[Sven509988]

If you got an orange "Care Key" (restricted remote control key) with your XC40, you can have it reprogrammed to act just like a normal black key. The ability to remove the restrictions has been around for a bit, but some people may not know about it and a dealership I was at on Thursday where both the service desk advisor and the main technician swore it wasn't possible.

The Care Key was designed so that you apply a speed limit, but more annoyingly is locked to profile 3 and has some annoying quirks.

If you want to have the orange key reprogrammed, you can take it to your dealer and they should be able to do it at no cost. If they don't know anything about it, you can refer them to Volvo tech journal TJ35978.

Orange key kept messing with and overriding profiles. Pissed me off so bad I told volvo corporate I would never buy another volvo because of this. Well, I must have not been the only one. I am glad this is changed. Just made my appointment for tomorrow to get key rerogrammed to black programming instead of the orange

 

[AlanKilian]

I still use my Orange key and it works perfectly for me every time.

I've never been able get someone to actually describe a problem they are having with the Orange key that I can test to see if it happens to me.
They are all like this "kept 'messing' with profiles..." and there's no way to even know what that means much less test it to see if it really happens.

 

[1moreRobot]

@AlanKilian I’ve described lots of undesired behavior of the orange key above. I always feel like you want me to prove how bad it is.

Listen, if yours works as you like it, that’s wonderful. Only those who have a issue need get the modification.

 

[AlanKilian]

I'm still available to perform experiments for anyone who has a specific reproducible problem with the Orange key.
It might save you an annoying trip to the dealer to get your key reprogrammed somehow and hoping that fixes your issue.

2021 XC-40 Momentum that came with two keys and each works perfectly.

We're all in this together and if working through your problem gets you loving your car again that would be wonderful.