soberups
Pees in the brown Koolaid
So today I was driving down a rural, windy road at about 30 MPH. I was in the middle of a fairly sharp right hand curve with a car approaching me in the oncoming lane...when my engine instantly and completely shut off. I lost my power steering, I lost my power brakes, and I damn near hit the oncoming car head on because I started drifting into his lane and I couldnt stop. He was able to swerve to avoid me, and I was (eventually) able to muscle the car back over into my lane and roll to a stop. It was still a dangerous situation though, because I was basically parked in the middle of the road on a curve and I couldnt get the car started again. The fob would still open the bulkhead door, but the keyless ignition was dead.
I normally keep my ignition key on the fob, but my car got PMI'd about a month ago and when the mechanic put fresh batteries in both fobs he put the fob with the ignition key back into the lock box and I hadnt gotten around to switching it back. I still had the code to the box, but since it is mounted on the firewall to the left of the brake pedal the only way I could reach it was to get out of the car and stand in the road and lean in...as cars went driving around me on a blind corner.
Once I got the key, I stuck it in the ignition and the car fired right up. Both fobs worked fine for opening the BH door, but the only way to get the engine running was to use the key. I was able to keep on working, but the experience scared the hell out of me when I started thinking about how much worse it could have been. I could have been on a main highway, trying to merge with traffic at 55MPH. I could have been pulling a fully loaded pup trailer up a steep hill. If it were winter I could have been heading downhill in the snow on a windy mountain road with no guardrail. I could have rolled to a stop halfway out into a traffic lane on a busy highway and caused other cars to hit each other trying to avoid me while I frantically called the center trying to get the code to that stupid lockbox. Or, I could have been crushed beween the side of the package car and a passing vehicle while standing in the road opening the box.
What I learned today is that having posession of a backup ignition key is a safety issue. There is absolutely no valid reason for locking that key up in a box. When the keyless system fails, having the ability to instantly restart the car and get it the hell out of the middle of the road can mean the difference between life and death. The company needs to immediately see to it that every package car has an ignition key attached to its primary fob, and more importantly it needs to figure out why a malfuntion in the system will cause the cars engine to just shut off out of the clear blue at 30MPH and then figure out some sort of a fail safe or mechanical override in the system to prevent this from occuring. My package car is one of many thousands that are all identical, so if it can happen to me then it is a statistical certainty that it will eventually happen to someone else also. When it does, the results could be a whole lot worse.
I normally keep my ignition key on the fob, but my car got PMI'd about a month ago and when the mechanic put fresh batteries in both fobs he put the fob with the ignition key back into the lock box and I hadnt gotten around to switching it back. I still had the code to the box, but since it is mounted on the firewall to the left of the brake pedal the only way I could reach it was to get out of the car and stand in the road and lean in...as cars went driving around me on a blind corner.
Once I got the key, I stuck it in the ignition and the car fired right up. Both fobs worked fine for opening the BH door, but the only way to get the engine running was to use the key. I was able to keep on working, but the experience scared the hell out of me when I started thinking about how much worse it could have been. I could have been on a main highway, trying to merge with traffic at 55MPH. I could have been pulling a fully loaded pup trailer up a steep hill. If it were winter I could have been heading downhill in the snow on a windy mountain road with no guardrail. I could have rolled to a stop halfway out into a traffic lane on a busy highway and caused other cars to hit each other trying to avoid me while I frantically called the center trying to get the code to that stupid lockbox. Or, I could have been crushed beween the side of the package car and a passing vehicle while standing in the road opening the box.
What I learned today is that having posession of a backup ignition key is a safety issue. There is absolutely no valid reason for locking that key up in a box. When the keyless system fails, having the ability to instantly restart the car and get it the hell out of the middle of the road can mean the difference between life and death. The company needs to immediately see to it that every package car has an ignition key attached to its primary fob, and more importantly it needs to figure out why a malfuntion in the system will cause the cars engine to just shut off out of the clear blue at 30MPH and then figure out some sort of a fail safe or mechanical override in the system to prevent this from occuring. My package car is one of many thousands that are all identical, so if it can happen to me then it is a statistical certainty that it will eventually happen to someone else also. When it does, the results could be a whole lot worse.
