... I'm sorry, did you say 3?

So, when I bought my Honda Element, the door lock on the driver side was a bit tricky. Key wouldn’t go in so great. Took a little finesse, but I was always able to get into my car. I asked the car salesman when I bought my car if it had a keyless entry system, so that I could avoid having to use the sticky lock. He said yes, but he didn’t have a fob for it, but that he’d get one. Well, eventually, after much harassment, he did track down a fob for me… only to find out when I went to have it programmed that the car didn’t actually have a keyless entry system installed for the fob to work with… nice. I asked if the dealership could install one for me but the one in Bellevue where I got the E, said that it’d take about an hour and they didn’t have any openings, blah, blah, blah. Ok, whatev’ I have to get to Canada (this was back in December).

So, the lock has been getting progressively more sticky and more of a bother. The poor guy at Les Schwabb couldn’t even get the thing open when I took my car there to have a flat repaired (which they did for FREE! I love Les Schwabb). I had to come open it for him. I hadn’t wanted to bother with the keyless entry thing cuz it was gonna cost like 300 bucks and a bunch more time than I wanted to devote to the venture as of yet. Finally this morning, the lock jammed up so good that I couldn’t get the key in. Had to get it unlocked from the passenger side. Yup, definitely time to get the keyless thing. (I know, I could have just had the lock repaired, but that’s beside the point, I wanted the keyless thing anyway.)

So I call up the Honda dealership here in Bellingham. They say they have the part, but can’t get me in until Friday. It’ll be $244 installed and it’d take them like an hour and a half. Sounded a bit cheaper than what they quoted me in Bellevue, so I’m like, “sign me up”. Then I started checking on the internet to find out more about this keyless entry thing and see if anyone had it cheaper. Ran across the exact thing I needed for a good price on the internet, but didn’t feel like waiting for it to be mailed so figured I’d still go with the dealership. But, what interested me most was the little PDF download of the instruction manual for the keyless entry system that they had on the internet site (God bless the internet). Checked it out… the entire system consists of 3 yes THREE small pieces. One bracket, one bolt, one module.

… uh… huh? Am I missing something here? Read the instructions… read them again… yes, it truly is as easy as it looks. You have got to be kidding me! They were going to charge me $86 and an hour and a half of my time for this?!?!?! Forget it! I bought the part from the dealership. And “installed” it myself in the parking lot in, literally, 10minutes! TEN!!! And by “installed”, I mean I plugged in ONE wire to the ONE module, screwed ONE bracket in to prefabricated notch under the dash with the ONE bolt.

*huffing and fuming and grinding teeth*

Who are these people?! It’s ridiculous. Wow, they do prey on the uninformed.

NEway, that was my little rant for the day. Overall though, I’m actually quite happy. I saved some money, learned a new thing and best of all, got my keyless entry system hooked up! Nice.