“Wired Magazine” stuck some foot in a wrong pile today by releasing an article about how to “Hotwire Your Own Car“. If anyone actually follows this advice, they are an idiot. Not only will the directions they give not work, the attempt to make them work can ruin your car.
1. Their “what you need” list contains various tools and items. My “what you need” list contains 1 item: a spare key hidden somewhere on the car.
2. The screwdriver. This only works on 2 kinds of cars. The 20 year old Toyota pickup truck with the ignition so worn out that the key looks like a toothpick, and the 20 year old GM plasti-cars with the key that fits in a giant plastic wing-nut on the column, and happen to have a broken tumbler. In any other situation, forcing the ignition with a screwdriver will guarantee that when you do get the key, it wont fit anymore. End result: expensive repair.
3. Pulling off the panel. Nope, you need a screwdriver, and sometimes a special one. If your car has been sitting in a hot sun for a few years, pulling that panel down “carefully” will get it off, but it ain’t goin’ back on, cuz everything that holds it on is now powder. End result: expensive repair. Or, adding other duct tape colored accents to your interior to match your new column. Oh, and forget the slightly painful electric 12 volt shock, how bout accidentally arc-welding the power wire to a chassis ground and blowing a super-fuse you don’t have or starting a harness fire.
4. Pairs of wires? Ha! this ain’t a phone system, they’re not in pairs, they are in one big shrink wrapped clump you’ll need to cut open. The way to tell the difference here is not the color. I have never seen a wiring diagram for the ignition key in an owners manual, except maybe for an old VW beetle. Your gonna need a Chilton book or something. A handier diagram would be directions to find your hidden key.
5. If your gonna start MacGyver-ing wires together, expect to blow fuses or possibly a computer. Oh, and expect an expensive repair bill.
6. Even if through some miracle, you get the car running, you cannot drive it, the steering will be mechanically locked. The only cars on the road without steering locks are older cars that have the keyhole for the ignition somewhere away from the steering wheel. when was the last time you saw that? for me, its usually older Porsche cars.
Others have probably edited more info into the article, but there is no circumstance in which even I, the Geekwrench, would choose hotwiring over a tow truck.
This post has been edited and reposted for those of you who base credibility on grammar (rather ridiculous to me if you know any physics majors). While I am better educated than most mechanics, including ‘The Man’ I work for, I have never seen anyone turn down an estimate for repair because the mechanic didn’t have an English major. Or for that mater, even speak English.
Posted on August 16th, 2008 by Geekwrench
Filed under: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
