Friday, July 25, 2008
A job half done...
On Wednesday afternoon Emma and I drove to Nonitown to do some errands, both business and personal. I had a late afternoon appointment with an automotive locksmith to program my keyless entry for the new car. He was going to sell me the fob and program it. I called and asked if he could do it, he researched it and called me back and said he could. I made an appointment and drove over the mountains, looking forward to getting the keyless entry, as well as two spares.

The locksmith who I had spoken to on the phone wasn't there when I got there, one of his employees was. OK, no biggie, I'm sure he hires professionals. The guy spent forty minutes searching the front dash area of my car looking for a module with a switch to flip so he could program the keyless. He called the local Hyundai dealership twice for advice. The second time he must have talked to someone different (and actually knowledgeable) because they told him it was a "canned system" and there was no switch. The automotive locksmith wouldn't be able to program it after all...

Breath in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. The locksmith's instruction book was wrong. While it said my car could be programmed by them the truth was that it couldn't. Now I would be forced to go to a dealership. I explained to them the great lengths I had gone to in order to be there for that appointment. I was nice about it, but firm. The guy paged his boss and his boss told him to give me the key fob they were going to use at no charge and to tell me that they were sorry. That was very nice, but part of the reason I went to the locksmith to begin with is because the dealership was being ornery about programming a fob that I brought in instead of buying one from them. Since I was already at the locksmith I had him cut me two extra keys for our wallets and told him I'd pay for those. I was extremely paranoid having only one key to the car. He cut the keys and gave those to me for free too. Which doesn't sound like much, but I'd already tried to get spare keys made at our local co-op and that guy couldn't get them to work. That's how I found out how the alarm on the car is triggered. Unfortunately I'd already forgotten how to stop it without a keyless. I'm having fun I tell ya!

So, I went back to the dealer I'd bought the car from and told them my sad little tale. They had told me to let them know first if I was ever going to go to the dealership for work and they'd use their connection there to put in a good word for me. I did that. Unfortunately the dealership with the "connection" is thirty minutes down the road from Nonitown.

I have an appointment for this Wednesday again. The guy told me to bring all my keys. That doesn't give me a warm fuzzy. All I have is the one key and the spare made from it. At least the key fob the locksmith gave me has Hyundai stamped on it and isn't an aftermarket one. Seriously, wish me luck. I'd really like to accomplish this for less than the $150 the dealer in Nonitown wanted to charge me.

On a more pleasant note...that afternoon we were downtown near the courthouse. Emma sat down on the "wall" and wanted me to take her picture. Doesn't look like a comfortable place to sit to me.


Written at 6:05 PM by Highlandgal.
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