Car Troubles In Dublin

We spent the week after Christmas in Dublin, Ireland. It wasn’t our first time so booked a hotel far enough from downtown to keep the prices down for New Year’s Eve and rented a car just big enough for the two of us and our two travel friends.

We spent first day trying and failing to go to Kilmainham Gaol and then visiting the Jameson Distillery. Guinness was closed by the time we arrived that first evening night so we used their WiFi to prepay for tickets the next morning. We intentionally booked the first available time in the morning because we figured the crowds would be smaller and it was cheaper.

Arriving back at the hotel, we parked in the underground structure and returned to our rooms. The first clue we had to trouble was when the car didn’t respond to unlocking with the key fob when attempting to leave the following morning.

The rear hatch wouldn’t open and when I inserted the key in the ignition nothing happened. No lights, no sounds, no start.

Now what? We were going to miss our window of prepaid tickets to the Guinness tour if we couldn’t get the car to start. And to top it off we didn’t get cell coverage in the basement garage.

First we attempted to get the garage security guard to jump us. He didn’t speak English well, so when he agreed he didn’t realize we were asking if he had jumper cables. He pulled up in his car, popped the hood, and then realized we didn’t have anything… Sorry about that.

Our second step was to call Budget/Thrifty, whom we rented the car from, and get their road side assistance engaged. The promise was “within the hour”.

Next step was to call Guinness and let them know we were going to miss our tour window. They promised to honor our tickets whenever we arrived and told us to take our time.

I sat in the car and asked everybody who drive in if they had jumper cables. One guy thought he did, but it turned out they were in his other car. He mentioned that he had seen our lights on when he arrived the night before.

The headlight switch on this particular Kia has an auto function but I guess I wasn’t familiar enough with the car so I was afraid it wouldn’t go off on it’s own. I reached back in and spun the selector until the headlights went off, but left the parking lights on. How did all four of us not see the lights on? Unfortunately the cheap car didn’t have a chime to alert us we left them on.

Eventually a nice lady pulled in who had cables and was willing to let us jump from her car. We called the roadside assistance folks to notify them and we were on our way.

The unforeseen benefit was that the tour tickets we purchased were at a reduced price because one of the tastings didn’t open until noon. We were now late enough to partake without being charged for it.

~ Freddy