Excerpt: "This is an update – a final report – about the issue I experienced with a new car (2024 Dodge Hornet) I was test driving last week. It should have been a small issue, easily dealt with. Just a dead battery. And not even that, actually. The battery in this car was merely a little weak. For whatever reason (and we’ll get into that shortly) its charge was less than the 12 volts most modern cars won’t start without. More about this, here. Anyhow, the fix – or so I thought – was to charge up the battery or replace it. As it turns out, that’s a whole ‘nother issue. The car had to be flat-bedded to the dealer to deal with it. According to the service advisor at the dealership – which I visited to try to get what I assumed was the secret series of tapping the “panic” or “lock/unlock” buttons on the key fob – or some similar process necessary to get the car’s computer to recognize the battery, and to recognize I wasn’t trying to steal the car. This is necessary because once the car’s computer registers a voltage fluctuation it can (and did) trigger a cascading series of electronic apoplexy that renders the car undriveable. It is an issue that cannot be dealt with by the owner or even by roadside assistance (we tried that, too). The vehicle must be taken – that is, hauled – to a dealer, where the Big Time Cray-type supercomputer equipment that is the only way to reboot the computer is on hand. And that is where the little Dodge is. It is where it will sit, too, for at least several days – because the dealer is back-up with other work that’s ahead in the queue. You cannot – as the saying goes – make this shit up." ---------------------------------------------- D.C. is at fault for this s%^t. NIFO. The world would be a better place without it.