Different way of immobilising car...?
 

Here’s a different one. When I park my car at Bristol Airport, nice and close to the car park check in office, they move it to a different county by the time I get back – so I have to drag my suitcase in the rain about ¼ of a mile over the rocks, boulders, puddles and pools of mud they call a car park, to where they’ve parked it.

No, the “Silver Zone” car park doesn’t like to waste money on a courtesy bus, surfacing or anything else which might benefit the customer – that’s how monopolies work.

Anyway, my old M3 had the facility to enter a code which disabled the car, which was VERY handy. Of course, they whinged at me every time I came back, but at the end of the day, my car was still where I’d left it, only 100 yards from the check in.

So… what would be the easiest way of “secretly” immobilising the motor when I leave it there? I’m thinking a hidden switch under the dash or something maybe, but I wouldn’t know which connection to break – I’m nervous about “partially” cutting power or something by accident, and ending up in some sort of scenario like I’ve seen mentioned here before when people repeatedly try to start the car with a flat battery etc. and it knocks the key code out or something evil.

I’m not much of a lateral thinker – so there may be something really obvious I haven’t thought of!

Cheers all :D


PS can't be a Crooklok or similar - I couldn't plead ignorance!

maybe just a hidden switch in the ign pickup coil cable , should stop it dead!! ;)

With a relay, it could be done quite easily!

take the chip out of the key, simples

Nice logic, but I don't fancy (a) losing the tiny chip in Ireland somewhere, (b) fumbling around in the dark trying to put the key back together when I get back...

Why not hand over a "spare" key that does not have the chip installed but would work by hand or remote ONLY.:D

why not take 2 keys, one with chip you keep with you, one without you leave with them, no fiddling, nice and simple, and no wiring mods either

Hhmmm, interesting ideas... I can't remember how these things work... I do have a spare with no gubbins in it at all (chip or any electronics). I guess, if I gave that to them, they’d still be able to open the door wouldn’t they – presumably the alarm would then go off, and they wouldn’t be able to do anything else…

I guess the alarm times out after a while, so the battery wouldn't go flat… if this happened, then they locked the door again with the chipless key, would there be any other adverse effects?

Well there you go, the forum strikes back, and you have the ability to carry it out. I'd love to see their faces.

best bet is key with PCB but no chip, works as normal except for starting car due to inability to switch off immobiliser but will activate/deactivate alarm.