In fact, in front of mine is the house, and it's been like this for a day or so.
If it were someone else's, I'd have tutted and sucked me teeth, opining helpfully that "they don't usually do that, do they," and glowing with the thankful knowledge that these cars are utterly reliable.
And so it has been the case till now: this 2.0 litre GX-specced 1995 N, nominally referred to as the 4.1, has barely done 108, 000 miles, has just about original everything apart from new discs and pads a few weeks ago and of course is on its 3rd timing belt, as I'm the model of eminent sensibility...
Sadly it still has its original immobiliser, the naff Scorpion system, though that same company has some while ago itself gone to the Big Scrappy In The Sky.
I loathe the idea of electrics going wrong with cars: in fact, I start to lose touch with comprehension of anything other than everyday bits once I consider what lies beneath the colour red. Electrics to me are worse, as they represent a set of shifting variables swirling about in a fog of uncertainty, in which also are dimly perceived but gargantuanly large pound-signs. Were the image to have a soundtrack, it would be the string section from the shower scene of Psycho, against a half-heard murmur of teeth-sucking voices saying, "not going to be cheap, mate..."
I had started to think the battery was on its way out: a year too early but, battery, yes. I'd started to get the odd struggle with starting, the colder the weather was getting...and occasionally the lights were dimming upon slowing down under engine compression at night. The alternator had crossed my mind but fleetingly, as I remembered the speedy winking-out swansong of a previous Nova 1300SR's alternator, which had failed like a powercut's effect on listening to a tape-recorder.
I had also thought there was a battery problem because of at times of starting-difficulty, there was a blipping from what sounded like the starter and/or the immobiliser...low charge I'd thought. And indeed last week the car failed to start at all, so I thought, "right then; new battery."
The extremely helpful chap at the battery place thought to check the output from my alternator: sure enough, he diagnosed it as being on the way out and not efficiently charging the battery, so in addition to getting a new battery I also took a deep breath and arranged to have a new alernator fitted.
However, there was another set of circumstances that I took as a purely coincidental embuggerance: one day a few weeks ago, totally without warning, I turned the key(long ago having eschewed the worn buttons on the key fob) only to find the alarm going off. Despite repeating the manoeuvre, of course the immobiliser kicked in. I waited, locked and unlocked the car with the key...but the darm immobiliser light would not go out: and of course I'd begun to attract the glowerers, who obviously believed I was blatting their eardrums and those of the entire population of Tesco deliberately. I don't know why the manufacturers have been so successful in isolating the psyche-shredding frequency of a mewling infant, but also to have it poke your eardrums like a blunt stick at 110 decibels, is positively bowel-watering.
Thanks to a good mate who drove me home to get my key-button-fob thing, I thought, right, in business.
Except we weren't: it would not reset.
So, we decided to turn the thing off with the little nubbin-key thing that I'd mercifully not lost in the 10 years I've had the car...eventually, relief: no more screeching of the thing..but we'd only turned off the alarm, not the immobiliser.
Thus, next we disengaged the battery, then reconnected: kissmyfayce: bingo. All was well; I drove home...mistakenly thinking I'd deactivated the immobiliser as well as the alarm.
However, what with the battery upon startup, all my attention has been until today on the power side of things, assuming that squeaks and rattles from the starter along with threatening noises that signified the immobiliser's attention was upon me...were merely because of a low battery.
To add fevered complication to the mix, I decided to lurk around a couple of Rav forums and finding a vastly knowledgeable collection of Ravites. I scared myself witless with accounts of people going through starter motors, alternators and batteries before finding a rogue corroded battery lead or terminal to have been their culprit...and I started to sink into a mire of panic: was it my alternator at all? Is it a battery strap or somewhere else in the harness?
And that's when I saw several accounts of horrendous mischief caused by immobilisers developing faults..and decided to find that sticking my metaphorical head in a bucket of sand was of more comfort than thinking of imobilisers.
Hmm. So today: disaster:
Indeed my car is booked in for a new alternator..but, it's worse than that, it's dead Jim. And I mean dead: not a smidge of life whatsoever in anything electrical, no clicking of relays, no nuffink...and I wonder to myself...
Did I cause inadvertent damage by putting a charger on my old battery overnight? Or is in some way the recalcitrant immobiliser exerting such a death-grip on the starting-procedure that either its resetting or its removal is the answer.?
Well, out of 3 choices, I have thus far tried one: I've gone through the reset procedure with the zapper/fob, having also disconnected the car battery and reconnected it: this was successful a few weeks ago outside Tezzies...but did absolutely fanny adams this afternoon.
This leaves me 2 further options, that I may try tomorrow...indeed, we're in an impossible situation here, as the only way my mechanic get get the car to his works in order to do the alternator, is of course to, er, drive my car.
Thus the scenario is this: I've never done anything more ambitious than change a bulb, oil, etc; on a car. I have no idea and a personal loathing of electrical problems...and am flapping about in a soup of unknowns and variables to which is added a manky seasoning of maybes.
:My mission, should I be brave/foolish enough to accept it and eschew the G.S.I approach(Get Someone In), is as follows....and I've done them as a series of steps so that you too(gentle reader) may copy and paste them if you're ever in a similar position with an early Toyota Rav 4, on the understanding that I hereby disclaim absolutely any responsibility if it all Goes Belly Up ...yet fully accept plaudits, remuneration, pats on the back or kisses on the cheek if it Pulls A Blinder(with hat tipped to those knowledgeable people at the Rav Forums).
Firstly, a temporary workaround, from some ideas culled from the Rav Forum:
1. Disconnect the battery, either terminal will do,
2. Locate the alarm cable should be behind the glove box ( it is a square white connection block with 4 terminals 3 are round and one is square ) ,
3.Put key in ignition and turn it to the point just before ignition,
4. Reconnect battery then turn key fully as in normal start;
it should turn over as normal.... unfortunately when you switch the engine off you will have to repeat this process each time but it will work.
Secondly, only if you wish to Get Rid of the Scorpion Immobiliser from your early Toyota Rav 4:
Kit: wire snips, some connector blocks, phillips screwdriver, small flat screwdriver, small adjustable spanner.
1.Remove the live battery terminal;
2. Locate alarm control unit/wiring wiring = behind the glove box to the left hand side;
3. Unscrew box from its securing point: you will have a mass of black wires;
4. Locate connector block in engine that supplies the alarm sounder and disconnect it if not already done so;
5. Remove kick panel in RH side driver's footwell... trace where the black wires splice into and reconnect the original wires with a connector block;
6. Remove the panel under steering wheel... trace where the black wires splice into the ignition switch and reconnect original wires with connector block;
7. In the same place there is a white terminal block with a thicker red wire soldered onto a bared wire which runs into a couple of 7.5 amp fuses. Snip this off, tape up the ends on this wire and secure behind panel in a safe place. The black box and all the black wires can all be pulled out.
8. There will be 2 wires that go to the sensors fitted to the left and right pillars: either pull them out or snip them in place.The alarm box should now come away.
9. Replace panels etc; replace battery terminal: now the the car should start normally!
The alarm will have been fitted by Scorpion alarms when the car arrived in this country and is only spliced in so can be reversed...so it is said.
So: here we are then: the night before, wondering if I'll have the bottle, courage, faith, stupidity, impatience, etc; to proceed. Well, I've prayed about it, prayed about it with a mate, despite my earlier frustration, tears, swearing and "why me"s, so you'll know that if it works it'll not be because of any skill or flair of mine. And of course it only addresses one issue, that of the immobiliser, whereas just a few days ago I was blissfully unaware of having an alternator that is on the way out.
Typical: last week I thought that just a battery was the answer...now I'm not even sure how many and how complicated the questions are.
I'll let you know how I get on...
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