random thoughts – Day 2,089 (Friday) – tires and fob

The day dawned with a plan. A drive to Chelmsford was needed for a 9:30 routine annual medical thing. This was a change from the plan set 24 hours previously which was for me to sleep as long as I wanted and then sit around drinking coffee and applying for jobs, but it was favorable in that it avoided me having to get up at oh-dark-thirty next Wednesday to get to Lowell for the thing. After that, Mom and I could go to Fitchburg for a couple errands, which was the original plan set a day earlier.

I called Mom before I left to let her know it would be about 11:00 when we could begin our errand. Being a very cold morning, the remote start button on the fob was tapped twice to give the car a head start warming up. This, along with the heated seat and steering wheel, are possibly my favorite features, especially since the roof panels chose to become problematic and now whistle when driving at 50 mph or higher. It didn’t work. I ended up starting the car the old-school way – while shivering inside it. Once running, the car declared it was nine degrees, but the accuracy of that is questionable.

After backing out of the driveway and turning down the street, my nemesis the dashboard informed me that all four tires were experiencing low tire pressure. I returned to the comfort of my carport to inflate the tires with my recently bought inflater thing, starting with the one with the lowest pressure (28 psi). It sounded like the air was coming out as I fought to attach the gizmo to the tire valve, then the unit danced around the asphalt while it allegedly added air. It was extra hard to pull the gizmo off the tire valve. Despite the effort, the results on the dashboard were not greatly improved. I took a calculated risk, said “to hell with it,” and drove to Chelmsford. The tire pressure increased with the travel, but not by much.

The fob has been increasingly cranky, and in the past couple weeks, it randomly wouldn’t lock or unlock the doors or remote start the car. It was possible it was the battery, which hadn’t been replaced in June with the annual car inspection because I went to the local garage for the sticker instead of the dealership for an oil change, battery replacement, and inspection sticker. At least the doors still unlocked when the fob was near the handle so it wasn’t totally a lost cause.

Back at home, Mom’s plans had changed and the errands were cancelled. The snow angel neighbor knocked on the door to say he saw me freezing my ass off earlier (his words) and that he had a compressor and tire gauge and offered to help after he had lunch. We exchanged phone numbers and later he texted to say he could address my low psi.

During the tire inflation, the dashboard claimed the tires were still low even when the compressor gauge indicated they were at 35 psi. The compressor setting had to be bumped up to 40 psi for the car’s dashboard to hit 35. Talk about annoying dashboard technology. He joked the bill would be in the mail and I joked I would pay it in cookies and now it looks like I'll be baking for the snow angel/ tire inflater across the street which seems like the start of a Hallmark movie.

After the tire inflation, during which we whined about expensive and complicated automobile technology, the Jeep dealership was visited to have the fob checked. The car came with only one fob, which I didn’t learn until delivery and I have guarded it like it was the key to salvation ever since. The fob has a physical key inside, accessed by fighting a very tiny slider which was clearly not designed or tested by anyone who ever paid good money for a manicure. It required some swearing, but I got the key out of the fob to lock the door before going into the dealership service center. 

Problem fob and key.

The battery was changed. The fob was tested. There was no improvement. A new fob was ordered ($280 plus programming fee) and should be in on Tuesday. This seemed a lot easier than when I bought the Jeep and the salesman acted like it required an act of the gods to get another fob, promised to do so anyway and then didn’t, reinforcing every stereotype and negative impression I’ve ever had of car salespeople. 

Fun note – since the service guy opened up the fob and replaced the battery, it’s worse. It used to unlock from a short distance sometimes and always opened the door when the fob was near the handle, but now the key is required at all times to be inserted into the keyhole to open the door. This wouldn’t be bad if it wasn’t such a pain in the arse to remove, and once out of the fob, the key is a free agent and could be easily dropped. Yay. I look forward to crawling under the car to reach for the dropped key.

The day wasn't total frustration. The third time was the charm and after previous calls that never went much further than the AI bot assistant, I finally connected with a human representative at the the company that holds the Bank's 401k plan. Due to the merger, the plan is being dissolved and I needed to move my account somewhere. It was a relief to have that done with.