Sunday, July 25, 2010

Sunday and home

We intended to spend most of today in Austin with Kim and Christian, but it did not work out. I took luggage to the car, and it would not unlock. I opened the door with the key, and the alarm went off. It is quite a piercing sound, I might add. Trying to stop the alarm, I inserted the key in the lock, and the entire car shut down and could not be started. Time with the car handbook proved to be less than helpful. As I tried several methods, periodically the alarm would go off again. A call to Chrysler and no one there works on weekends. A call to AAA and shortly a nice young man appeared. He went through the several steps that I had tried, and the alarm continued to entertain us and others within ear shot. Kim did some research on her computer and discovered that this had happened to other Crossfire owners. Apparently, the trick is to disconnect the negative lead from the car battery. This causes the alarm to go off as well, and then you are to wait while it shrieks for 30 or more seconds and then reattach the lead. This resets the car, and it can be started.

We still do not know if the car battery is weak or the remote key batteries need to be changed or what caused the doors to not open to begin with. Tomorrow, if I can get the car going, I will take it to a local dealer and see what can be learned. I hope they like the sound of the alarm.

Once we got the car working, we left for home and did not stop it until we arrived. So we got home much earlier than planned. Happy travels.

1 comment:

sperlonga said...

Will had a similar problem with his car alarm. It never happened again. Hmmm. Wonder what it is. He has a Mazda6