The Car Won't Start!

Wednesday, August 29^th, 2015

The day started out well enough. The whole family, (minus their dad, who was on a business trip) had been to the chiropractor and all felt much better after their visit. They had driven two vehicles so that Mom and the boys could go straight home, and the sisters could run errands. Yet that afternoon mom needed to go out-of-state for wedding reasons, plus she could stay overnight at her mom’s house and run errands in the bigger city stores.

The two sisters (including Yours Truly) went to Meijer for groceries, and managed to get in and out in good time. The girls needed to get home to fix supper and leave for church in a timely manner. They were feeling pretty good about themselves when they got in the tan van and started it up. The radio and A/C came on. They turned the A/C off and lowered the windows, to give the A/C time to catch up with the 90 degree heat.

The Car Won't Start! A True Story by Left and Write

But something wasn’t right.
The sister who was driving turned the radio off. “Is the van on?” she asked and listened for the engine. Nothing.  She turned the key back towards herself and then tried to start the van again. Silence. No cranking sound. The van did not even try to start! Both girls begin to sweat in the afternoon heat as the driver tried several times to start the van.

“Is the starter broken?” The Driver wondered. Or could it be the heat, or the battery? When the driver tried to start the car, a battery icon appeared in the “message center” on the dashboard.

“I’m going to call mom” the driver decided. The sister in the passenger seat readily agreed, knowing that if their mom left the house and headed to another state, they would be stranded. Visions of mom rushing around and not checking her phone flashed through her mind. “I’ll call Tall brother” she said, thinking that he would answer his phone faster than mom. She was right.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Is mom still home?” The moment of truth.

“Yes.”

“Can I talk to her?” The sister in the passenger seat explained to mom that the car wouldn’t start, and how the windows were down. Mom had them make sure they could put the windows up if they had to leave the van. The windows went up. Good. The passenger also mentioned the battery icon. Mom said that if it’s the battery she could come and jump the car so we could drive it to a local mechanic. But there was another problem. We were in the kind of parking lot that has H-shaped spaces for two cars to park nose-to-nose. The space in front of the van was filled with a pickup truck. There were cars on either side of the van as well. Jumper cables might not stretch far enough. The driver lowered the windows again because it was sweltering in the van.

Mom contemplated calling Triple A. Through the open windows, the passenger heard the echo-y sound of a ratchet being used in a mechanic’s garage, just off the end of the Meijer parking lot. “Or we could ask the mechanics in the Tireman if they jump cars,” she offered, even though the prospect of approaching a stranger was not pleasant to her. Why do cars break down when Dad’s not home? Mom decided to call Triple A, and instructed the sisters to go back in air-conditioned Meijer and wait for her to come pick them up. The passenger agreed and hung up. She gathered her things. They put the windows up, but the driver could not get the key out of the ignition. They did not want to leave the car with the key in it!

Something jogged in the passenger’s memory. When vehicles refuse to yield up the key, she had shifted out of park and then back into park and the key had come out. “Are you in park?” She asked, and narrowed her eyes at the PRND indicator on the dash. In the bright sun, she could just barely see the orange glow behind the R. The driver shifted into park and started the car. It revved to life! They called Tall brother back in case mom was already on the phone with Triple A, and explained their silly mistake. Embarrassed and relieved, they lowered the windows yet again and drove out of the parking lot. After a few minutes they put the windows up and blasted the A/C. They made it home without incident.

Later, when we were retelling this story to a dear friend, she interrupted us, asking ‘was it in reverse? The only reason I know is because I have done that.’

So, the bottom line is if your car won’t start, and/or the key won’t come out, make sure it is in park!

My dad said cars will start in park and also in neutral, but not in gear, so not reverse or drive. As for the battery icon, that comes on every time we start the van, for whatever reason.

You learn something new every day! I'd love to hear about your crazy car stories!