DIYbanter - View Single Post - Toyota keys (why do they lock themselves in the car?)

pandora

On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 09:22:58 -0700, Checkmate, DoW #1 wrote:

Warning! Always wear ANSI approved safety goggles when reading posts by
Checkmate! In article ZYKdnS_VTeNV7VfEnZ2dnUU7-V-
, says...

On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 19:57:05 -0700, Checkmate, DoW #1 wrote:

Warning! Always wear ANSI approved safety goggles when reading posts
by Checkmate! In article 8L6dnZl7j_LkN1TEnZ2dnUU7-
, says...

On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 16:25:38 -0700, Checkmate, DoW #1 wrote:

Warning! Always wear ANSI approved safety goggles when reading
posts by Checkmate! In article asWdnb01MfeI-1TEnZ2dnUU7-
, says...

On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 16:17:57 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 9/25/2017 3:06 PM, pandora wrote:

My new Mazda hatchback has a key fob to start the car. It can
be left in my pants pocket or my purse and it still starts the
car as long as it's in the car. Unless the battery in the key
fob dies and then nothing which happened to me recently.
Changed the battery and all was good.

If it happens again, try holding the fob right next to the
start button.
If the battery is weak it may give enough signal to get the
car
started so you can go to the battery store for a new one.

I know that now. That's exactly what the tow truck driver did
when I called him. Was *I* embarrassed. You betcha!

My ex once called for a tow because her car wouldn't start. She
didn't have it in park. LOL.

Heh. At least I made certain of that first before I called.

I used to get service calls where people would say their circuit
was dead. I'd ask them over the phone if they checked the
breaker, because I feel bad if I have to drive all the way out
there, flip a breaker, and then charge them a minimum $60. I'd
even explain to them that you can't just push it to the on
position if it's tripped,
you have to push it all the way to off first to cock the mechanism
inside, and then to on.

I learned *that* a long time ago. I always push it back and forth
several times before I call for help.

They'd always insist that they did all that, so I'd get out there,
and at least half a dozen times, all I had to do was exactly what
they had insisted they had already done.

Yep. People are just darn stubborn and can't believe it is that
simple.

I remember one poor secretary who was afraid her boss would get
mad at her when he found out it was just a tripped breaker, so I
had to be a little creative when I wrote up the invoice.

That was kind of you. :-)

What's done is done. She has a problem, and got it fixed... that's
all her boss needed to know. I'm sure he didn't hire her to be a
secretary/electrician. I showed her how to do it in case she ever
had to again, and life goes on. Hopefully, her boss wasn't some
tyrant.

Well, ya know, secretaries have to be multi-faceted, sometimes.

Down time costs money too if you're running a business. I got a call
from a USPS sorting facility one night, because they had a sorting
machine that was manned by eight employees, and it quit unexpectedly.
When I got there, there were suits running around all over the place,
and they were absolutely frantic, which meant I'd better get that
machine back up ASAP... no pressure there!

Heh.

It turned out to be a simple problem... a burned connection on a
power transformer, except that it was twenty feet in the air. They
had their own scissorlift, so I had them back in business in about an
hour.

Good job!

What I didn't tell them, was that I took the cover off the
transformer while it was hot, because I didn't want to shut off any
more **** until I knew what was going on. As I removed the cover, it
came pretty damned close to touching the live 480 volt primary
terminals inside. It wouldn't have shocked me, but it would have
made for some spectacular fireworks and an arc burn on my hands. I
forget what I charged them, but it probably wasn't enough.

More than likely. Reminds me of the time when I worked for a newspaper
in the distribution department. We had a machine that inserted
*slicks*
into the main paper after it came off the presses. It would shut down
now and then (it was old, built in the 1930s) and if we couldn't get it
to work we'd have to hand insert. (Tedious job that). I calmly went to
the plug, pulled it out and put it back in. Magically, the machine
started up again. (My husband taught me that.)It didn't always work
but it was certainly worth the try.

Like mysterious computer problems. Most of them can be fixed with a
simple reboot.

Indeed. I've learned to NOT panic until I've tried a reboot a couple of
times. Mostly (so far) that's worked for me.