P
pkboyd
UPDATE EMAIL ADDRESS
It takes some humility to write this! Yesterday, I took off from work and my wife and I planned a fun day to run errands in the convertible mode of our treasured Yellow,premium,full interior T-bird. I keep it covered in a carport, and as I removed the cover, I noticed the trunk lid was open. I immediately sighed knowing the battery was probably dead. It was. I shut the trunk lid, and figured there were some good lessons to learn here. First, one of us likely trigged the trunk release accidently on the remote control as we passedd thru the carport to our other vehicle, therefore teaching us to remember to check the trunk when the T-bird is covered, and second, be more careful with the remote control. Second lesson, was we could learn how to jump start the T-bird. This really became the big lesson. Of course, everything electrical was dead. I was able to pop the hood, and lo and behold, I couldn't find the battery. After a long incredulous look under the hood, I realized I should have paid more attention in my first perusal of the owner's manual. Oh well, to the trunk, where we keep a packet of the manual and registration documents, but some of you may have guessed, I couldn't find a way to get into the trunk! The door panel trunk release of course was dead, and for the life of me I could not find a way to access the trunk. Again, I became incredulous, concluding Ford really went too far securing the car leaving no conventionally key access at the trunk, or another way to access otherwise. To shorten this story, I did call on my service contract with Ford, by the way, excellent response time,ie 35 minutes. Even stumping the tow service man, he had to call a local Ford dealership to learn the trunk release was behind the driver seat, requiring activation with the ignition key. The battery indeed is in the trunk! Many lessons here, probably too many! But if in case there is another new owner "studpid" like me, beware of these valuable lessons...check your trunk periodically even if you don't keep your car covered. Read the manual, and note that the battery is in the trunk, that you can get to it only with the ignition key at a location on the panel behind the driver's seat, if the battery is so dead so as to prevent trunk release from the door panel. A footnote, we did finally get our errands done, but halfway thru our mission, unexpected rain forced us to put up the soft top. However, all is well because we are in that special number who now possess a 2002 TiBird!
