‘Twas a fairly peaceful day today thankfully, as James (the workshop manager) was on leave. Fortunately, all went well and even a couple of the bigger jobs were finished and driven away by their happy owners. Every day in the workshop is different, as you never know what’s going to turn-up next. Throughout the day, a steady stream of customers arrive with their cars either making a funny noise, dripping something, or not doing something it should. We always try and have a look while they wait, and see if it’s something we can fix fairly quickly (if it’s something really obvious and simple), or if it’ll need booking-in for a bit more investigation.

At lunchtime, all the staff just ’disappear’ and generally leave me on my own in reception. During this time today, one of our regular customers (an ex-Ghurka) brought his 1996 Honda Civic in as his alarm was going off a lot and it would also immobilise the engine so he couldn’t start it.  Now, although his English is far better than my Nepalese, I was trying to explain that I needed the little alarm keyfob that should be attached to his keyring, but he said that he has never had one and just has a normal key. Now, the 1996 Civic always had a little remote fob with 2 buttons that operate the alarm and central locking. I found the owners manual in the glovebox and showed him what it should look like. Unlike most newer cars which have a coded-key with a little immobiliser RF chip built-in to deactivate the immobiliser, the Honda of that age used a normal key, with a separate alarm fob. If you only ever lock and unlock the car using the key in the lock, the immobiliser won’t activate and you’ll never need the remote fob. As it turns out, his car battery had gone flat a few days before, and it must have re-activated the alarm and immobiliser. The only permanent solution is to buy a new remote fob (they’re about £35.00) and then we can program it to the car using our latest iKeys diagnostics. He’ll then be able to lock and unlock his car with remotely. The moral of the story is that when you buy a used car (particularly a Rover or Honda from 1992 – 1998), make sure you get the remote fob as well as the key from the previous owner!

Anyway, that’s how I spent my lunchtime today but at least I wasn’t bored!

You Should Also Check Out This Post:

More Active Posts: