Car woes and action #6
Jan. 31st, 2026 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nosrednaydujOur new car discriminates against the polyamorous.
You can't have three key fobs. You can only have two. They are connected to the car because of course it's the modern keys with an entire computer inside them. And evidently they just have two slots in the car side of the computer to hold the paired key information. I think we would not have bought this car if we had known. But it's not something we ever thought to check. It's like, we didn't check if it actually had headlights, either. After all, we had multiple key fobs for our Prius, our Leaf, and our Tesla. We just thought it would cost $300 at the locksmith to get the third fob purchased and paired. But then we discovered that no, we cannot at all! The car also only has two driver profiles (where it remembers what you're seating is), but it has a guest profile. Which suggests that you should be able to have a guest key. But apparently not!
Even without supporting polyamory, you would think that people might have adult children who were living at home and needed their own key to a car, or caregivers whom they wanted to have drive children or elders to various places, or just to have an extra key because they are flakes.
It's too late, because we've already paid and done all the paperwork, so we will just have to leave our keys hanging on a hook so that we can take one when needed, and we will have to be careful about "can't just leave the car at the train station have somebody else pick it up without a lot of planning". We also learned this restriction is common with many models of Kia, so buyer beware.
Then, on the way home from action #6, where I stood in my town center with 90 other people holding various signs, the Leaf decided that it didn't need to provide braking normally anymore. So I had to really push hard on the pedal and it was making horrible noises. I guess we need to call the shop on Monday. And hope that it drives (stops) well enough to get to the shop. There is a shop in the center of town that we often use. We thought about going there and just leaving it but in the end decided to bring the car home instead.
Our town is more liberal, so there was more positivity towards our action than in neighboring towns, but we did have a few fingers and long beeps which usually mean "no" whereas a series of short beeps means "yes".
You can't have three key fobs. You can only have two. They are connected to the car because of course it's the modern keys with an entire computer inside them. And evidently they just have two slots in the car side of the computer to hold the paired key information. I think we would not have bought this car if we had known. But it's not something we ever thought to check. It's like, we didn't check if it actually had headlights, either. After all, we had multiple key fobs for our Prius, our Leaf, and our Tesla. We just thought it would cost $300 at the locksmith to get the third fob purchased and paired. But then we discovered that no, we cannot at all! The car also only has two driver profiles (where it remembers what you're seating is), but it has a guest profile. Which suggests that you should be able to have a guest key. But apparently not!
Even without supporting polyamory, you would think that people might have adult children who were living at home and needed their own key to a car, or caregivers whom they wanted to have drive children or elders to various places, or just to have an extra key because they are flakes.
It's too late, because we've already paid and done all the paperwork, so we will just have to leave our keys hanging on a hook so that we can take one when needed, and we will have to be careful about "can't just leave the car at the train station have somebody else pick it up without a lot of planning". We also learned this restriction is common with many models of Kia, so buyer beware.
Then, on the way home from action #6, where I stood in my town center with 90 other people holding various signs, the Leaf decided that it didn't need to provide braking normally anymore. So I had to really push hard on the pedal and it was making horrible noises. I guess we need to call the shop on Monday. And hope that it drives (stops) well enough to get to the shop. There is a shop in the center of town that we often use. We thought about going there and just leaving it but in the end decided to bring the car home instead.
Our town is more liberal, so there was more positivity towards our action than in neighboring towns, but we did have a few fingers and long beeps which usually mean "no" whereas a series of short beeps means "yes".
