Local tech advice

Paul P.

Paul P.

H-DRCGB Archivist
I'm asking for a lady customer who's car central locking won't work and its been to a garage who couldn't help (just drove her to collect it) and I told her nowadays there are travelling car electrics specialists who can come to your house. She asked if I knew any to be trusted, I don't but I said I'll ask some mates....
anyone had a good experience and got the name?
 
...by the way, another example of how un-necessarily complex modern cars have become - I had four steering wheel/gearstick locks and none would fit her car due to thick dumpy steering wheels and dashboard gear selectors!
 
This is probably not the fault but recently with our car the central locking needed several button pushes with me getting closer and closer to the car before it would unlock (locking was fine). A new battery made no difference.
In the end I found that if I held the fob button down longer than the quick press I was used it works fine and from a distance away.
 
What make, model and year of the car in question? If its a fairly common car, chances are that central locking faults will be fairly common and a bit of google research will probably turn up some likely causes.

If its a relatively modern car, hooking the car up to a decent fault scanner would probably identify the likely cause of the problem, or at least point towards which of the car’s electrical systems is at fault.

Chasing down the cause of a central locking fault can be problematic and time consuming. Sounds more likely that the garage didn’t really want the work and took the easy option of sending the car back to the customer.

Could be as simple as a flat battery in the key fob.
 
Y
Thanks you have a point Mark and I will check what I can but I am expecting it to be more than a fob issue as the garage was the one who sold her the car so have an interest in her and their workshop looked quite serious. I have noticed a number of workshops call in mobile electrics specialists these days, no doubt because cars have become BLOODY FUCKING STUPIDLY COMPLEX!!!!! (sorry, pet hate issue...)
 
A lot of electronic key fobs have an actual key located inside the fob to be used in the case when the electronics fail. But that's only if there is an actual manual lock on the car door.
 
PeteJ said:
A lot of electronic key fobs have an actual key located inside the fob to be used in the case when the electronics fail. But that's only if there is an actual manual lock on the car door.
Click to expand...
Mercedes Vito's have this "Hidden" Key in the Fob. A Cover on the passenger door handle has to be removed to access the Lock.
 
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