Worse than that, I couldn't get to Henley because of road works. I did a u turn and headed off back towards Sonning trying to ignore the sound of Lulu (our Satnav) getting very upset with me. We veered off around the northern end of Reading, into the countryside, enjoyed the view of the backside of a tractor for mile after mile and eventually got into Wallingford where Lulu gave up completely on the name of the street.
I reverted to what we did in the Dark Ages, and asked someone the way. Hey.... it worked and we dropped the hat off. Soon we were crawling along country roads trying to get to the M40. I was already exhausted but still had a three hour drive to go.
After a couple of hours I pulled into a service station on the M6, gave up on the baguette after a few chewy bites, handed the car keys to Debbie and we headed back to the car. Perhaps I should explain that my car doesn't have what I would call a key. It has one of those little chunky electronic blocks that you push into the slot that used to be a keyhole. It also has two inset buttons that lock and unlock the car. Well, it unlocks the car door normally but in this case Debbie couldn't get it to work.
Being a man, I smugly took the block from the helpless woman, and walked around the car pushing the damn thing in long and short bursts. It didn't work. I suggested she phoned the dealer for help. The girl who answered started to relay instructions from someone who knew what to do. So.....man, girl, Debbie, to me... I was supposed to take out the 'blade' from the electronic block. What blade? I have never seen a blade.
At this point a man came up and said his friend was having a bad day and would we have a photo taken with her. SHE was having a bad day? We had a photo taken whilst I managed to work out that inside the block there was a KEY to the car door. Apparently normal keys are now called blades.
I felt good again. I had a key. I used the key. All HELL broke out. I have never heard an alarm that loud before. Nothing seemed to stop it. Debbie was still on the phone but couldn't hear the instructions. A friendly man tried to shout his instructions into the car. The service station shops and restaurants emptied as they all came out to see the silly conjurer trying to look nonchalant, and failing.
Apparently you have to push the damn thing and you pull the damn thing out and you push it in again and start the car. Simple... then the reason why it didn't work in the first place was explained by the man who was telling the girl who was telling Debbie. Sometimes the signal is blocked if the car is surrounded by other cars and what I had done was what you have to do to get out of trouble.....
Well, fair enough, my car WAS surrounded by other cars. It was in a car park!!! Where do you leave your car? Who thinks this stuff up? The Capello of car design, that's who.
4 comments:
Sorry it was such a crap day.
thanks for posting this story for us all to have a good laugh.
it cheered me up immensely knowing someone else has the same kind of stupid stuff happen to them too.
Mr D: when I read your story, a little bell rang and I googled your problem on the basis you were in your "electric" car.
What follows is someone else's story about how he couldn't get the key fob to work the central locking even though the battery in the fob itself was ok.
You may have a problem with the auxiliary battery.
"When the RAC guy arrived, he said there's a special procedure they have to follow when faced with a Prius with a flat 'auxiliary' battery, which I shall detail below.
1) Get into the car using the key-fob's hidden physical key, then open the bonnet.
2) Under the bonnet, locate the power hook-up point.
3) He then attached a portable battery pack to this, in order to use the key fob to open the central locking and disable the alarm, which started to sound as soon as power was restored. This was just to gain access to the boot where the auxiliary battery is actually situated under a cover on the offside.
He said his instructions recommended NOT attempting to charge the battery from the power hook-up point under the bonnet.
4) He then attached jump leads direct to the battery from his van and ran his engine for 20 minutes, so his van's alternator would charge my battery.
It then started without probs and he suggested I take a drive of around 45mins so that my car would sufficiently recharge the auxilliary battery, which it did.
Btw, the auxilliary battery is just an ordinary 12v battery with a normal life expectancy of between 3 and 5 years. The hybrid power pack wasn't affected by this event and just stores power for the electric drive motor, but does not provide power for things like central locking, alarm, etc.."
Hope this helps.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for that but in my case putting the fob into the slot, turning the engine on and off, killed the alarm.
Once I had the hidden key I was more or less back to normal
Glad you're sorted. Should it happen again, at least you'll know what to do!
How's the punt coming along and did you get the screws you wanted?
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