I drove the car out of the garage and my wife then drove several miles and returned home.  "Nothing unusual" I hear you say, except the key was in my pocket, at home, the whole time.  Surely not right?

Certainly possible in mine (2013). Key needs to be detected to start but once started it does not shut down if key is no longer detected, the consequences of that could be horrible.... 70 mph at nght in the rain in the outside lane of the M6!

In mine you do get  dashboard warning if contact with key is lost but the car continues to run.

It detected the key when you started up, if the engine was still running it would continue even though the key was no longer detected and your wife drove off. If it then started up for your wife with no key present that would be diffeent.

John

18 minutes ago, Boynielaad said:

I drove the car out of the garage and my wife then drove several miles and returned home.  "Nothing unusual" I hear you say, except the key was in my pocket, at home, the whole time.  Surely not right?

Yes, this is correct. Had your wife stopped the car, she would not have been able to restart it. Furthermore, there would have been a warning on the dash to say the fob was missing from the car as she drove away.

18 minutes ago, Jimbov8 said:

Yes, this is correct. Had your wife stopped the car, she would not have been able to restart it. Furthermore, there would have been a warning on the dash to say the fob was missing from the car as she drove away.

Interesting.   Thanks.   Of course,  she never looks at warning lights. Or (thankfully) this forum!

Always found this odd, you would think car would go into some form of resticted mode if key not present say after a couple of minutes. 

Probably not the most convenient of action, to drive without key present and then not be able to start if the car were stopped and turned off. Todays so called technical progress does at time leave me totally cold and confused. There again I am 72 years of age, so maybe not surprising.  😑

Regards, John