Today I faced one of the nightmare scenarios on a road...
first off, I must say that I have brought this Armageddon on myself - I was in a hurry and did not follow proper "procedures"... And this will not (I should say - should not) happen to your ride...
What happened, I was coming home, with both kids in the back seat, playing whatever they play, when all of a sudden, without any previous warning (the signs were there, i just did not pay attention) the car went TOTALLY dark. I was shifting lanes and punched the gas pedal when this happened, the total speed was 35 MPH and I was hoping to pick up a couple extra MPHs to overtake the "slow" traffic... the nav monitor (the brightest light blob in the peripheral vision) went black, the cluster went black, the xenons, the radio... the entire car lost its power... engine was off... (i think it was off, even though come to think about it, it should have been on... maybe should not have...) my hand jumped to 4-way flashers - to no avail... duh... i managed to coast to the left turning lane in front of the traffic signal, and then i stopped... the power locks did not work... kids are screaming... look in the mirror, no cars behind me, i jump out the car, grab the cell phone, turn on the flash light on the phone, shine the light onto the oncoming traffic, to warn them... I am in turning lane, so I should not expect anyone flying into me but driving a black car with NO identifying lights at night is not good... my flares, my flashlights are in the trunk... trunk can't be opened... by now i already know what the problem is... before tackling it, i yell at the kids to get out the car, get onto the median, and once there was no cross traffic, i send them across the street to the sidewalk - just in case if somebody manages to plow into me, at least the kids will be at a safe place...
meanwhile, some dude on a bicycle yells across the street, turn the flashers on... some other dudes, as they pass by in their cars, yell the same thing...my response - total loss of power... the bicyclist is, open the hood, maybe we can jump it... I was like, you got a battery on you??!! he did not, obviously... well, at least he stayed with me and his bike had the blinky thing
Now, what actually has happened...
if you guys remember, I have installed a master cut-off switch and placed it in the spare tire cavity (
http://www.xoutpost.com/951035-post76.html). earlier today, i was working on some of my projects, i was tucking away some cables, rerouting some of the previous wires in the trunk area and i had the spare tire out as i was running some video cables... since i only have couple of hours to work on the project, before parents' duties kick in, i had to wrap up the work and was hoping to continue the next day, sunday... and because it is my daily driver, i had to zip everything back up... however!! I was too LAZY to properly secure the spare tire - I did not tie the tire down and just threw it in there... I thought that the tire was a bit too close to the red kill-switch but said - yeah, nothing happened in all that time before, nothing will happen...
obviously, as i punched the gas pedal, the tire shifted and effectively activated the self-destr... the kill-switch...
i managed to open the top hatch and just recently i was explained how to open the bottom hatch in case of power failure... all i needed is a flat blade screwdriver to pop the trim on the inner side of the bottom gate... believe me, i have a screwdriver or two... or even more... but most of my tools are in the trunk, under the sliding floor, which can not be opened without the bottom gate opened, which needs some rigid tool to pop the panel... i found something in the pockets, popped the trim, opened the lower gate, pulled the floor opened, reached in and turned the switch!!! voila!!! the car came to life!!! started the car and went to collect the kids, who were cheering up... thanks to the bicyclist guy who stayed with me...
there are so many lessons here for me...
keep spare tire secure...
have a flashlight in the glove compartment in addition to the trunk
have a tool handy to pop the trim on the lower gate
there are probably more lessons out there but those are the immediate attention ones...