The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Mr Larrington]

O hai EDF!

If you really want me to have a “smart” meter you'll have to wait until the ambient temperature outside reaches 20 degrees.

Now smeg off.

Kthxbai!

[Beardy]

If you ignore them for long enough they get bored. It took some time though.

Unless, of course, my spam folder learned to eat their emails…

[Mr Larrington]

A Several of years ago one, or more, Cheerful Geordies from EDF would phone and say “smart meter”, I'd say “OK” and only then would Cheerful Geordie become noticeably less cheerful on discovering that they didn’t actually have any people available to fit 'em.  As far as I know Geordies don’t read back to front or umop-ap!sdn so why they apparently read their script from the wrong end will be forever a mystery.  Because after the third or fourth repetition of this little one-act play they gave up for half a decade or more.

[T42]

Bah. Expecting a Chronopost (24-hour delivery service) today so decided not to go cycling.  Opened email this morning to find that they don't deliver at weekends. The wretched package got from Bordeaux to Strasbourg overnight and now it'll sit there until Monday.   If I'd seen that earlier I wouldn't have had the double shot of vasoconstrictor with breakfast.

[rafletcher]

I have grumbled upthread about our neighbour who was “looking after” another’s car whilst they were away. Well I went out yesterday to attempt to charge the battery. Opened the drivers door with the key. Tried to open the passenger door from the inside. No deal. Which means I can’t open the bonnet. Which mean I can’t charge the battery. And the inter webs say “jack up the car and possibly remove the bumper and get your hooked tool over the release cable. Like fuck. Turns out all she’d been doing, rather than running the engine occasionally, was turn on the ignition and check for lights. Which just woke up the electronics and drained the battery faster 

That’s the second year in a row she’s done that. Fortunately the contractors coming to re-surface the parking area are made of sterner stuff - and the cars a manual. They’re going to push it out of the way to do their work Monday. 

[Kim]

I have grumbled upthread about our neighbour who was “looking after” another’s car whilst they were away. Well I went out yesterday to attempt to charge the battery. Opened the drivers door with the key. Tried to open the passenger door from the inside. No deal. Which means I can’t open the bonnet. Which mean I can’t charge the battery. And the inter webs say “jack up the car and possibly remove the bumper and get your hooked tool over the release cable. Like fuck. Turns out all she’d been doing, rather than running the engine occasionally, was turn on the ignition and check for lights. Which just woke up the electronics and drained the battery faster 

That’s the second year in a row she’s done that.

Obviously there's a need for reëducation all round, but I can't help thinking that whoever designed a car that was basically impossible to recover from a batt flattery condition is more culpable than a well-meaning neighbour who presumably has a driving licence yet is stunningly ignorant about how cars work or indeed the laws of thermodynamics^[1].

Anyway, in the absence of car-thief tactics, could the battery be charged via the not-a-cigar-lighter socket?  Or, if available, a trailer socket with a permanent live pin.


_{[1] These are the people that Toyota's "self-charging hybrid" advertising campaign is targeted at, so there must be enough of them around.}

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm confused by this. Is it really impossible to open the passenger door or the bonnet while the battery is flat? How is that compatible with the possible need for rapid exit, eg if the car's on fire? Or is the reason you can't open the passenger door something unrelated to the battery? I can just about imagine a bonnet release being located inside the passenger door frame...

[rafletcher]

@Kim, I guess the cigarette lighter option was what the AA used the last time.

@Cudzo, it may be the passenger door is fubar - I expected it to open mechanically from the inside. It’s entirely possible it’s broken, the owner isn’t very mechanically aware and rarely if ever carries a passenger- usually just the person who he is visiting in Romania when she comes on a return visit.

 And yes, this being a car designed in Europe, the bonnet release is only accessible when opening the drivers passenger door.

[T42]

And yes, this being a car designed in Europe, the bonnet release is only accessible when opening the drivers passenger door.

Can't you sidle over the gear-stick etc?

[Tim Hall]

Some ( mine I think but ICBA to outside to check) vehicles have the bonnet release lever concealed, or obstructed, by the closed passenger door.

[T42]

Right enough, I had a car in which the boot lid release was like that.

[Mrs Pingu]

That is a stupid design.

[Mrs Pingu]

Finally got out on our first bike ride since October. Quite cold when I got home.
Stupid pissy electric shower.
That is all.

[rafletcher]

That is a stupid design.

Agreed. Some have it half obscured which is even stupider. My current car has it on that pillar but accessible with the door shut. My next has it sensibly placed under the dash on the drivers side. It’s Japanese.

[Beardy]

Finally got out on our first bike ride since October. Quite cold when I got home.
Stupid pissy electric shower.
That is all.

I insisted on an over spec combi-boiler just so,I could,have hot water in the shower at close to mains water pressure. This is something I’ve insisted on ever since that first combi. You’ve got to do it Mrs Pingu, you know it makes sense.

[Pingu]

Finally got out on our first bike ride since October. Quite cold when I got home.
Stupid pissy electric shower.
That is all.

I insisted on an over spec combi-boiler just so,I could,have hot water in the shower at close to mains water pressure. This is something I’ve insisted on ever since that first combi. You’ve got to do it Mrs Pingu, you know it makes sense.

It's high up on Mrs P's list of stuffs I can tell you.

[chrisbainbridge]

Being in a tied house with an electric shower and he big attraction of our bolt hole flat is the mains pressure hot shower. Luxury!

[T42]

Being in a tied house with an electric shower and he big attraction of our bolt hole flat is the mains pressure hot shower. Luxury!

Yeah. We had to fit a pressure-reducer. 60 psi throughout.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Re the flat battery on the car.  On my VW Touran if the key battery goes flat you can lever off a little plastic cover on the drivers door which reveals - a conventional lock. The key then unlocks the door.
For the passenger door though this unlocks from the inside. I dont think there is a similar plastic cover on the passenger side. Might be worth checking though.
On VW there is a tiny slot on the bottom of the plastic cover which perfectly fits the key shank so you can lever it off.

As an aside you need to use fresh batteries not weak ones. VW dealership changed the battery then said key would still not work and they wanted 60 quid to reprogram it. There is a procedure to sync the key with the car which you can find online so saved 60 quid.

[hubner]

On screen keyboard on a mobile without the apostrophe, where you have to go back and forth to symbols.

[Basil]

No apostrophe on mine either, but touching and holding the Full Stop key reveals a small selection of symbols,  including the '.
Touching and holding the Comma key does the same, but stupidly exactly the same selection.

[rafletcher]

Re the flat battery on the car.  On my VW Touran if the key battery goes flat you can lever off a little plastic cover on the drivers door which reveals - a conventional lock. The key then unlocks the door.
For the passenger door though this unlocks from the inside. I dont think there is a similar plastic cover on the passenger side. Might be worth checking though.
On VW there is a tiny slot on the bottom of the plastic cover which perfectly fits the key shank so you can lever it off.

As an aside you need to use fresh batteries not weak ones. VW dealership changed the battery then said key would still not work and they wanted 60 quid to reprogram it. There is a procedure to sync the key with the car which you can find online so saved 60 quid.

It’s the car battery that’s flat, and this being a 2006 A3, it has a visible conventional lock on the drivers door, but nothing on the passenger side. I’m still of the mind the passenger door is bust, any door should be openable from the inside,no matter the state of the central locking.

[Auntie Helen]

My old 2002 A6 had a non-opening passenger door (from inside) which was to do with the door hinges dropping a little. This would of course be an MOT failure as well as bad news anyway so my mechanic fixed it somehow. He had to do it again a few years later. Might be an Audi thing.

[Pickled Onion]

I’m still of the mind the passenger door is bust, any door should be openable from the inside,no matter the state of the central locking.

Yes it's broken. Not being able to open any door from the inside is an MOT failure.

The normal way of getting out of my Spitfire was to use the outside handle, until one year it was noticed at MOT. I protested that this was no hazard as the car had neither roof nor side windows, but roolz is roolz and I had to get it fixed.

[perpetual dan]

I’m still of the mind the passenger door is bust, any door should be openable from the inside,no matter the state of the central locking.

Yes it's broken. Not being able to open any door from the inside is an MOT failure.

My bold. Being able to set a child lock, to prevent mid-tantrum exits, has always been a thing on cars I've had. Though I only recall it on the rear doors. So I'm assuming it's not the case here.

Being unable to manually open the door sounds broken to me too.