A rare glitch in the key security of older car models enabled a Queensland man's car to be taken without his knowledge.

Key points: Owner thought car was stolen

Owner thought car was stolen Turns out key from another car opened his car

Turns out key from another car opened his car Rare but not unheard for 'wrong' key to fit another car

Josh Bingham thought his Toyota Hilux ute had been stolen.

Mr Bingham said he was leaving work for the night at a Noosaville craft brewery when he discovered his car was gone.

"I ran around quite frantically looking for my car and couldn't find it anywhere around the area, so I called the police," he said.

At that stage, Mr Bingham's hope was the car could be found that night before any potential thieves had the chance to wreck it.

What he had no way of knowing was his car was actually sitting in a mechanic's workshop a few doors down.

The mechanic had been recruited to service another person's Hilux and had been given that vehicle's keys, along with instructions to pick it up from the side of the road around the corner.

Sorry, this audio has expired Hear the moment the penny dropped. How did Josh discover the innocent fate of his stolen ute?

However, when the mechanic's apprentice went to collect the car, the first Hilux he encountered was Mr Bingham's.

The story might have ended there, except that the other man's keys unlocked Mr Bingham's car and started the engine, so the unwitting apprentice drove the wrong car to the workshop where work began on someone else's service.

It's rare, but it happens

RACQ principal technical researcher Russell Manning said it was rare for the 'wrong' key to fit another person's car, but not unheard of.

"The design of the lock means there is a finite number of key combinations for any particular lock, and that will vary depending on the design of the lock," Mr Manning said.

"So there's a possibility that if you try enough keys you will find one that is either the same or is close enough to it to start the other car."

But the odds of someone else's key fitting your car are, at best, in the order of thousands to one, and the odds of finding yourself parked near someone with a matching lock even slimmer.

Mr Manning said this security glitch only applied to older model cars, with more recent models relying on more secure electronic methods to guarantee security.

"What they use mainly is a transponder chip inside the key so that it looks, at first, that the key will turn the in lock," he said.

"But the next part of it is, once that happens, the security system in the car is asking the key for its unique identifiers.

"[So] you may be able to turn the lock, but the car won't start.

"Basically, unless you've got a key for the car, you won't be able to steal it unless you want to tow it away."

A spokesman for Toyota Australia said the company was unable to provide a definitive explanation without specific details of both vehicles.

However, the spokesman also backed Mr Manning's assessment as "spot on", and added that "the probability of cars being parked side-by-side with an identical key is very low."

Josh Bingham says his Hilux needed a service anyway. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Alex Easton )

The penny drops

Meanwhile, Mr Bingham's hopes of recovering his 'stolen' car were fading.

"The next day my mother put a post on Facebook and it was quite overwhelming to see how many people shared that," he said.

More than 100 people shared the post and soon Mr Bingham was receiving offers of help from people willing to lend him a car until he got his own wheels again.

"There's a big support group around here in Noosa," he said.

"It was amazing to realise how much support you really have."

Then, a few hours later, the penny dropped.

"I was in the brewhouse, cleaning away on a tank, and just as I was talking my boss about what happened, a mechanic came walking in and he said 'mate, I think we might have your car'," Mr Bingham said.

It turned out some of Mr Bingham's mates had spotted the Hilux on the workshop hoist and had gone in to point out the error.

"Mind you, you know, they're already three-quarters of the way through the service on my car," he said.

If that wasn't enough, Mr Bingham's regular mechanic, who also knew the Hilux had gone, spotted the ute during a test drive for the service.

"He saw it drive past his shop, so he immediately jumped into his car and chased down my car that was on the road and it was just this, you know, innocent mechanic trying to fix this car," he said.

Mr Bingham said the mechanic was very apologetic about the mix-up and, as a result, he had received a service, which the car was due for anyway — including new brakes — for free.

"It worked out really well," Mr Bingham said.

"They did an amazing job."

The mechanic who did the accidental service declined to comment on the mix-up beyond saying he had heard of this sort of thing happening before — just not to him.