Posted on 07/25/2018 5:59:20 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
..., and realize you have no recollection as to where you actually parked the car in the first place.
Upon exiting the store, she climbed in a black Nissan — the vehicle was open and the keys were in the ignition — and drove home. Soon after, a local man exited the store and began wandering about the parking lot in an increasing state of agitation, before concluding that his black Infiniti had been stolen, and calling police to report the theft.
...She informed the manager that she wasn’t entirely happy with the car. For one, it was messy when she picked it up — and there was a set of golf clubs in the trunk. The rental car manager examined the woman’s keys and noted that, in fact, she had rented a Nissan Sentra, while the keys in her possession belonged to an Infiniti.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
I suspect that there are at least a few places in the US (and Canada) where doing that kind of thing might not be totally crazy.
Thanks for bringin’ back a few good old memories, FRiends.
Hey, we’re not here to judge. LOL
When I was a kid another family in our very small town had the same station wagon as us-they were identical.
One day my mom left the grocery store and got in the car, frustrated because she couldn’t turn the key in the ignition. She then noticed the small burn in the seat and got even more irritated. A moment later she saw a lighter. No one in our family smoked but the other couple did. It occurred to her that she had just talked to the owner of the other car while in the store. She then looked up and saw our matching vehicle in the other row of parking spaces.
She felt foolish, but it was pretty funny.
Happened to me with a Chevy Imapala(?) 25 or so years ago,
Got in an identical car. It started right up with my key. Drove home before I figured it out.
I drove up to the cops in the parking lot.
FR is endlessly informative.
About 1954 or ‘55, Mom and Dad came out of a cocktail party in LA and drove the wrong baby blue Ford station wagon home. The key fit and turned the car on just fine. I’m sure Mom & Dad weren’t in any shape to identify the right car.
Ah, there’s nothing like the smell of lukewarm air blown over cylinder cooling fins tinged with the aroma of motor oil, gasoline and cast iron. Such great memories!
Ha, ha, ha, ha....pant, pant, pant.
Car dealerships in smallish towns often sell numerous identical models, and then the buyers go to DMV for tags. We left Oregon for a trip across the Plains to Missouri one summer. We’d play license plate games, looking for different States....anything to keep us kids out of “Are we there yet?” mode. Somewhere in Nebraska, we passed an identical VW van with an Oregon tag that was consecutive with ours. It took them awhile to figure out the kids in the window, looking back at them and pointing down to the plate.
“Somewhere in Nebraska, we passed an identical VW van with an Oregon tag that was consecutive with ours”.
—
What are the odds of that happening???? Wow!
.
Back in the 70s some keys were still interchangeable. While I was at the AF Academy a cadet was borrowing his roomie’s Corvette (a popular model with senior cadets). He wandered out to the parking lot, found a Corvette that looked like his roomie’s car, hopped in, turned the key, and drove away. It turned out to be another cadet’s Corvette, who reported it stolen. The matter eventually got straightened out.
Ha ha.
The wind tunnel has destroyed beauty and left us with mere efficiency.
Years ago, we went to a child locked in an early 90’s Ford Explorer. I pulled out the key to my wife’s ‘94 Explorer, stuck it in the door lock and opened it.
I think the guy had to spit the dirt out of his mouth after his jaw hit the ground.
There was only about a dozen different keys back then.
Some companies sell hundreds of thousands of cars each year. Imagine back when it took just 2 years to sell 1 million Mustangs.
Now consider that your traditional car key of yore without a computer chip was capable of about 4,000 different combinations. So you have a 1 in 4,000 chance that your key will start any other car made by the manufacturer who built your car. Long odds, but man that is LOT of people with the same key.
The Infinity had actual keys? That’s odd. The last Nissan I rented about four years ago had the keyless push button type. Do they still make both
“...the vehicle was open and the keys were in the ignition...”
Idiot. He deserved it.
“What a hoser!
Is that good, or bad?”
Yes.
I’ve done that, too. It seems quite a lot of people have a car like mine!
My mom and dad’s car was in the shop, so they asked to borrow my Toyota Corolla so they could go to bingo. My car was an 1980 something model.
When they got back, they told me they liked the sunroof.
My car did not have a sunroof, but the one parked in the carport a couple stalls down sure did. Would have been interesting if they got pulled over!
An Infiniti probably has a fob and push start. Leave the fob in the car and anyone can start it up and take it. My wife did that with her Subaru at Walmart. She hadn’t put the fob back on her wallet, so it was inadvertently left in the car. When she was finished shopping, the car was gone. This is a new 2018 Subaru Outback Touring that’s only a few months old. So I go to Walmart to get her and lo and behold, I find her car! She had gone in one door and come out another and just hadn’t gone down enough rows. But she was very lucky the car wasn’t stolen or even rummaged through. On the bright side, as I was about the leave I was approached by a Vietnam vet Marine who saw my Marine Corps license plate and invited me to a gathering of former Marines that occurs every week. So now I have a bunch of new friends.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.