It was depressing to wake up and remember that our waterline was frozen.
The first thing on our agenda, after getting through with all of the morning duties, was to drive into the hardware store to buy two 5 gallon jugs of water. We did that at 9:00. Happily, the car started quickly in the -27°C (-17°F) temperatures, and we slowly drove through the crunchy cold to town.
At the hardware store we filled up the two jugs with water and lugged them back to the car. Glen our neighbor was also there getting water. After loading the water into the back of our car, I got in the driver’s seat, pressed the car’s “Start” button, but nothing happened except for the fan, radio, and dashboard lights coming on. The engine didn’t do anything.
A message, something like, “Keyless Start has been Disabled” appeared on the dashboard. I had no idea what that meant, but I continued to try to start the car, and got the same, non-response.
It was very cold in the car and I didn’t know what to do. Glen offered to take my wife and Kona back home so they didn’t have to suffer in the cold car, and they left with him.
I grabbed the car’s “Owner’s Manual” and went back inside the hardware store to see if I could find some pertinent information. The manual was pretty useless.
The battery have had some power, because all of the dash board things came on, but I wondered if the battery just didn’t have enough power to turn over the engine. I called the BCAA (BC Automobile Association) to come and maybe give me a jump start, but due to the extreme cold, getting help was hours away, so I just sat there on a stack of plastic lawn chairs in the hardware store.
My feet were very cold, so I ended up buying a pair of some of their thermal socks, which I put on right away, and continued to wait, with warmer feet.
A little before 11:00 I got a phone call from the local BCAA garage, who asked me some questions about the car and what was happening. After I told him, he told we a “jump” would not solve the problem, it was in the keyless part of the car. I thanked him and told him not to come, but didn’t know what to do.
I called Glen, to see if he could pick me up, like he had offered, but was told by his wife that he was up at the waterline with Nick, my other neighbor, trying to see what was wrong with our waterline. Before going to the hardware store, I had made arrangements for all of us to go up there at 10:00 to check things out, and since I was still at the hardware store, they had gone up without me. Anyway, Glen couldn’t come, so there I sat in the hardware store.
I began to wonder if changing the battery in my fob, might help. I had kept a new fob battery in the car, so if it went out sometime, I could change it.
I couldn’t remember how to open the fob, so got onto youtube on my cell phone, and watched a video to remind me. As I started to take the fob apart, sitting in the hardware store, I accidentally touched the “Alarm” button on the fob, and the horn on my car, sitting outside, started honking.
This seemed to indicate that the fob battery was working alright, but since I had already started to take the fob apart to change the battery, I continued. After opening the fob up, several parts of it fell and spread out onto the top of the box that served as my “work bench.”
I hoped I would be able to put the parts back together again. I removed the old battery, and put in the new one, and fortunately was able to put all of the fob pieces back into place, and closed up the fob.
I then went back out to the car, pressed the Start button, and to my amazement, the engine started. Why Subaru couldn’t give out the dashboard message that the “Fob Battery is Weak”, instead of “Keyless Start has been Disabled” remains a mystery to me. At any rate, the car started, and at 12:00, I was able to finally able to drive back home, having wasted a whole morning sitting at the hardware store, instead of helping with the waterline.
View my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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