Friday, December 3, 2010

Electronics; can't live with it, can't live without it

The electronic lock (transponder, transmitter, whatever) for my 13 year old Subaru outback has been dying for some time.  It didn't owe me anything, but having been knocked around my pockets for the last few years (it is the second in the series), there was no loop left to attach it to a keyring, and the hole I drilled through the case to hang it off a large fishing swivel had broken as well.  You couldn't read the buttons (and after all these years, I still tend to punch the wrong button).  Even the Subaru imprint in the plastic had worn smooth, and pocket lint and dirt was starting to cause it to function erratically.

So today, after a lunch meeting with friends, I stopped by the dealer, and got a new one.  Sixty dollars, and a set of Chinglish instructions for how to program it.  I didn't get it right, so I convinced a service guy to help me, and he took it out of sight and got it working.  By the time I got back to work it no longer functioned.  I fiddled with it at home, and realized the old one could be program but not the new one.

So I swapped the batteries.  The old battery in the new one worked, and not vice versa.  For 60 bucks, the battery in the new one should have darn well worked.  Anyway, I now have a working new one and a dead old one, which we'll probably fix for Georgia.

I thought electronics were supposed to make life easier.  I could just use the key...

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