Friday morning it was about
negative 30 F when I tried to leave for work. I put the key in the ignition and the dash lights came on, I could hear the fuel pump working and then . . . nothing. The starter wouldn't engage. I tried the usual stuff, like checking the battery terminals and fuses. I checked to see if I had left the lights or radio on and I hadn't, in fact, the headlights worked fine after I turned them on so it appeared the battery was still holding a charge. I did notice that there was a lot of snow in the engine compartment from the strong wind that we'd had overnight and I thought that might be causing some kind of electrical problem.
That day I did two things, I ran an extension cord out to the car and plugged in an electric light under the hood to get a little heat in there to try to thaw things out and I also went to the store and bought a new battery as the one I had was about 4 years old. Later that day I tried again with the same results - starter wouldn't crank.
Saturday, I got out my tools and tried to diagnose the problem and hoped it wasn't a bad starter because it would be a major pain in the butt working out in the snow underneath my car when the temperature was below 0 F. After almost freezing my fingers off under the car tapping on the starter and trying to get it started, I gave up and went inside.
Yesterday I went out to try yet again, since it was a lot warmer out and after reading the repair manual, I found out that there is a theft deterrent device on my car that disables the ignition unless it detects the key with the proper electronic "signature". I tried to no avail to figure out how to diagnose that system and was just about to give up, when I had the image of John Cleese from Fawlty Towers flash in my mind where he's sitting in his car and it refuses to start, so he threatens to beat the car until it starts and when it doesn't, he gets a tree branch and flogs the **** out of it.
Yes, I decided to try that. I loudly threatened to beat the crap out of my car if it refused to start and then I started pounding on the dashboard and steering column and I told my car it had one last chance before I had it towed to the junkyard. Then I turned the key and it started right up.
