Oh for a 10mm spanner....
I was driving up to Essex on Saturday for a family do in the Mondeo and pulled into Fleet Services on the M3 for a p. When I got back in the car, pressed the start button, the ignition lights and the screen came on, but I had a message
Key Not Detected. Not bothered, as this happens occasionally and usually getting out locking it, and unlocking it usually sorts it. Not this time....
I looked through the handbook, and found that if I prised off the blanking cover where the key barrel would normally be, I'd find a slot to put the key fob in and then the car would detect the key. It didn't.
Scanned the forums and read depressing threads about expensive modules failing.....
Annoyingly, when I got out of the car, shut the door with ignition left on, a message appeared on the screen
Key Outside Car.
Eventually gave in and called the breakdown service, recovermycar.com. Their chap turned up in about an hour with a recovery truck, he tried the jump leads in case the battery had dropped and was giving it the shits, no joy, but seemed quite pleased with the prospect of a nice 6 hour roundtrip to take me on to Essex or back home to Dorset to fill up his shift.
Just before we loaded it onto the truck, I suggested disconnecting the battery, which he did, and low and behold it must have cleared the gremlin as it sprang back to life!
We stopped and started it a few times just to make sure and after 4 hours or so hanging around Fleet Services I was on my way to Essex and caught the tail end of the family do.
I now hold the family record for the longest Dorset/Essex (or vis versa) trip.
About 8 hours.
Oh for a 10mm spanner....
P.S. To be fair to the recovery guy, I expect he's seen tonnes of cars with goosed electronics that needed attention at a garage or main dealer, so was probably humouring me with disconnecting the battery.
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Topic: So what have you done to your car today? (Read 3694296 times)