Hassle-Free Hotwire

This was supposed to be easy!!!

Stewie: Quick! Hotwire the car!

Brian:"Hotwire"? I don't even pump my own gas!
—Family Guy
"Red's the juice. White's the ground. Strike 'em together and we blow this town..."
—Sucre, Prison Break, "Flight"

In the current situation, now is time for action from a character, and that character needs wheels. A vehicle is nowhere in sight, so what does the character do? He hotwires the car in under five seconds and gets on his way.

Wait a second. That looked a lot easier than it actually is, and that character shouldn't even know the first thing about hotwiring the car!

That's where this trope comes from. When needed, everybody can hotwire a vehicle at any time. All they need to do is yank the protective covering off of the wires, rip out two of the wires and connect them together.

According to The Other Wiki:

"To know how to hot-wire a vehicle, it is important to understand how a vehicle's electrical system works. Instead of using a multimeter or test light, it is often easier to look up the information required. Remote start units will by definition need access to the same wires (and others besides), and there are internet databases with listings of wire colors and locations. Hotwiring generally involves connecting the two wires which complete the circuit when the key is in the on position (turns on the fuel pump and other necessary components), then, touching the wire that connects to the starter.

"Older vehicles, namely ones from pre 1986, which have a carbureted engine and a single ignition coil and distributor, can be hotwired from the engine bay.

"Those who lack the basic mechanical skills and knowledge of automotive electrical systems sometimes use a brute-force method to bypass the ignition lock, smashing the key mechanism to reveal the rotation switch, which is operated by the key's tumbler. (end)

"Hotwiring is portrayed unrealistically in most fictional settings. For starters, it is very easy to ruin the car by ripping at the lock pin off the mounting structure (the most popular way to hotwire in TV land) will ruin the steering lock, rendering driving impossible. There is also severe risk of electrocution from this method. The most popular way by car thieves involves a screw driver and a cordless drill (The drill breaks the lock pins without twisting the lock off the mount and the Screwdriver is used in place of a key afterwards) and takes around 2 to 10 minutes depending on skill (not conducive to using a random car to make a quick exit). Finally, not all cars have gaping security systems, and in fact, many cars made after 2005 (the most popular in modern Product Placement shows) will have computer chips that will disable the ignition mechanisms if the lock is destroyed, effectively ruining a get away."

Examples of Hassle-Free Hotwire include:

Film

  • Used in Battle: Los Angeles. Played with in that it takes several minutes to perform and the character is shown having difficulty with it.
  • In WALL-E, Captain McCrea, someone who's never done anything in their entire life, including standing, is able to hotwire the ship's public address system in a second with no thinking. One can argue that, since he's the captain, he should know a thing or two about the ship, but, then again, he needs help turning the pages of a book, so... yeah.
    • IIRC, he did go on a massive Archive Binge earlier, looking up all sorts of things out of sheer childlike curiosity. It's easy to believe some technical information took root, especially since being massively ignorant does not necessitate him being stupid.
  • Bourne hotwires a car really really fast in the trilogy. He's hurt, people are chasing him, and he still does it in less than ten seconds.
  • The Terminator can hotwire cars with relative ease; justified in that he's got nifty programming, but this ability is still played for laughs when John shows him that most people keep an extra copy of the key in the visor.
    • Actually Terminator never hotwires anything, he does one better. He smashes and rips away the steering column cover, along with the lock cylinder, and then turns the ignition lock shaft with his fingers, which was clearly shown in the first film, and then repeated again in the second. Incidentally, due to it's strength the whole process literally takes it 5 seconds, about as fast as most people take to start a car with a key.
    • Other than in movies, I've never in my life encountered anybody who kept a key in their visor. And just kind of cramming it up there so it falls down when you lower it? How do you keep from losing your keys when you actually need the visor?
    • Kyle Reese hotwires a car in the first film as well.
    • The film was an example of Shown Their Work, as the creators actually researched the correct way to hotwire the cars in question.
  • Averted in the second The Matrix. Trinity has to ask their (literal) Voice with an Internet Connection to make her able to do so via a (again, literal) Powers as Programs system. Of course this proves unnecessary, as she's escorting a rogue computer program who literally has the ability to open any lock.
  • In the 2003 movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Erin hotwires the van.
  • Bizarre Double Subversion in A Sound of Thunder: the protagonists encounter an SUV-like vehicle (this is the future, mind you). One of the scientists mentions it has a special lock, and starts listing all the equipment they will need to break it. However, before she can finish, the team's doctor breaks the window with his gun and hotwires it in a flash. When everyone stares at him dumbfounded, he just says "How do you think I put myself through medical school, hmm?" So... yeah.
  • Chev Chelio hotwires a car in Crank 2 with the usual movie method of ripping out wires in the car and connecting them. The fact he knows how to hotwire a car can possibly be justified, since he is a hitman, but not entirely since what hitman really needs to know how to do that?
  • In one of the Police Academy movies, Zed (a convicted criminal turned police officer) hotwires a car by ripping out the appropriate wires and biting them.
  • Averted in Die Hard: With A Vengeange.

McClane: You know how to hot-wire this thing?
Zeus: Of course I can, I'm an electrician. Only problem is...
[Zeus starts the ignition with his pliers]
Zeus: It takes too fuckin' long.

  • Averted again in Die Hard 4.0 with Voice with an Internet Connection
  • A bit averted in National Security when Martin Lawrence has to hotwire a car carried inside a semi trailer with a bit of struggle of having to know the design and the model year.

Literature

  • The kids from Maximum Ride are all able to hotwire cars with ease, thanks to training their adopted dad Jeb gives them. While Max tells the readers that it works nothing like how it is shown on TV, she refuses to go into specifics for fear of inspiring a bunch of readers to steal cars.
  • Fox Tayle attempts this once or twice when the FBI is chasing him.
  • Alice hotwires some very expensive cars when she and Bella are in Italy in Breaking Dawn.

Live Action Television

  • In the episode Flight of Prison Break, Sucre sings the song quoted above when attempting to hotwire a car. It doesn't work, however, as it turns out the car is missing its engine.
  • Prison Break again, throughout series two and four the characters have little difficulty commandeering and obtaining vehicles undetected.
  • Played straight and somewhat plausibly in Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Giles hotwires his clunky old Citroen in "Dead Man's Party".
    • Not only is an older car, it's implied that Giles, being a Former Teen Rebel, has a lot of experience hotwiring cars. He even says that it's "Like riding a bloody bicycle" [1]
  • Nearly every episode of 24

Tabletop Games

  • In the popular zombie apocalypse tabletop game All Things Zombie, this trope is played straight and inverted. Every character can try to hotwire any vehicle on the board, and chances are he or she will eventually succeed. However, a special rule named "The car won't start!" makes it much harder to hotwire the car if there are zombies near the car closing in.

Western Animation

Video Games

  • Averted in most of the Grand Theft Auto games because the protagonist never actually hotwires anything. Except for the fourth installment, where the trope is played straight, as the player can see the protagonist duck under the dashboard to start the engine.
    • The DS Chinatown Wars game requires work on the touch screen to hotwire a car. Still, the trope is played straight.
  • Also, in the latest Alone in the Dark game, Edward can get in to any car around Central Park, pull a few wires out and there's a little minigame for you to get the right pair together. Can be slightly difficult when you've got a few enemies bearing down on you though.
  1. ↑ an old saying meaning it's something that once learned, you never forget how.
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