My promised update

July 22, 2015--Late last night, as we were getting into bed, Jim looked like he was pondering a problem. It was, of course, the recalcitrant car.

In my last post, I said that even if he could not fix the starting problem, we would just tow the car and "tourist" with it behind us. Well, the pondering Jim was doing concerned the towing. You see, when the car did not start for me--no power at all to the ignition--Jim got in and put it into park. Just as he was doing that, I yelled, "No! Don't do that!"

"Why not?" he asked. I answered, "Because when there is no power, you cannot take it out of park. The shifter becomes locked in place." (When the car is towed, the shifter is in neutral.)

A car cannot be towed in park; the wheels are locked. So, what were we going to do?

It was about midnight, but I got out of bed and started googling "how to take car out of park with dead battery." I found some videos and some blogs on how disengage the shifter. None was specific to our Ford Edge. Then I suggested Jim look in the owner's manual, which did reference what to do, but not in specific detail.

It was too late to do much about the problem at past the midnight hour, but in the morning that was Jim's first task.

Within a short time, he had the shifter console taken apart and unlocked the shifter. He was then able to put the car in neutral.

The story doesn't end there, however. He continued to test connections and fuses, and he now believes he knows the culprit: a bad connection to the battery. With the connection tightened, the car started up. (He had already recharged the battery.)

The end result: We had a great day. But I'll write about that tomorrow.

Until next time,

Your Reluctant RoVer,

Linda