I guess I just took this tactic for granted: you lose your car in the parking garage but you know you’re within 50yards horizontally or vertically where you parked- hit your panic button on your remote and follow the alarm sound. I thought everyone used this method when they lose their car but yesterday a frantic lady approached me in a parking garage. She was beside herself because she had lost her car, didn’t know what to do and wanted me to help her track it down. I took her remote, hit the button and pointed upwards. Sure enough she was off by one level and she thanked me profusely awestruck by such a simple, readily-available method to locate her car. It’s even more effective at night in big parking lots because the flashing lights allow you to immediately spot it.
As a little bonus tidbit- you can extend your range on your remote by holding it to your chin. The human body is about 70% water and becomes an enormous antenna for the radio signal when you do this. Try it next time when you’re approaching your car, find the range at which you’re just beyond where your remote will work and then try again holding it to your chin. I guarantee you get better range using the chin method. And, no, I’m not sure why it works with your chin and not by virtue of the fact you’re holding it with your hand… that’s a Mr. Wizard question right there.
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I’ve used that trick as well at the airport, Though I prefer the lock button, since it produces single horn honks.
Wouldn’t it be great if your cell phone had gps and your car had onstar, and you could call onstar and have onstar map you from your cellphone to your car.
So if I am in a garage and I hear a car alarm go off. I should not worry, as it is not a car being stolen or someone in a safety threating situation.
It is just some idiot who can’t find their car and can’t be bothered looking a bit harder.
Trent,
how many times in the past month have you dropped everything to run to a car where the alarm going off in order to ensure it’s not being stolen? c’mon.
sean
I’ve actually just used the Arm/Disarm button repeatedly to find mine. Although the "panic" option might work a little quicker!
This really is very annoying advice. My apartment is within earshot of a large parking lot, and every evening these things start going off. To me, this is behaviour diagnostic of a total lack of concern for other people.
I agree – really irresponsible to use this trick routinely when a lock/unlock will work fine on most vehicles. People who do this are jerks.
[…] If you’re like me you have a janitor’s key chain with twenty things on it. At least once a week I set off the panic alarm on my truck by accident because one of the gadgets on my key chain presses the button. In fact the only time I ever intentionally use the panic button is when I’m trying to locate my truck in a parking garage. But I’ve realized I can get the same honk and light flash by clicking the arm button twice and since I rarely panic anymore I now have zero use for this button. Here is the trick I came up with this evening to eliminate the annoyance of accidentally triggering the alarm: […]
Eldan, welcome to Earth, where no one cares about anyone but themselves. =)
I've actually just used the Arm/Disarm button repeatedly to find mine. Although the "panic" option might work a little quicker!
This really is very annoying advice. My apartment is within earshot of a large parking lot, and every evening these things start going off. To me, this is behaviour diagnostic of a total lack of concern for other people.