Key role in a safe trip home
A man and his van of tricks helped Campbell Spray gain access to a car after a key went missing
SO picture this. It’s wet and cold, bitterly so, and you have just walked your dogs for an hour across the fields of Phoenix Park. You arrive back at your car and discover that somewhere out there on your travels you have dropped your car key. You retrace some of your steps but the day is catching you up. You must return home, change and be ready for the first appointments of the day.
So that was my wife’s situation a few weeks back when she phoned me to see if I could pick up her and the dogs. Luckily, I was quite near and 15 minutes later, I was there and after some more searching I took three cold and bedraggled beings home.
But what then? There was the car in the Phoenix Park with my wife’s handbag and purse still in it and unfortunately we had lost the spare key some years back. A quick google for help came up with the number for Car Keys Dublin and it was agreed to meet at the car at 3pm.
So I cycled down in an awful headwind and watched as Brian Donagh took the chassis number from the plate on the windscreen and went to work in his van of tricks with laptop, cutting equipment and drawers of keys and remote fobs.
In just half an hour he had the car opened, the electronics altered and a new fob and key handed over.
I folded down the seats, put my bike in the back and headed home. OK, I parted with €220 but an industry source told me the following week that it would have cost most of that and a day’s delay for a dealer to make up a replacement key.
Brian Donagh also said that if the old key and fob turned up he would, as part of the service, alter them to the settings of the new one. And that’s where the spirit of our old dog Sam, who died two years ago, took over.
He had walked Phoenix Park every day for eight years and his collar disc with his name and our phone numbers was attached to my wife’s keys.
A week after she had lost them they were found by another dog walker. We picked them up and a couple of days later Brian Donagh took his van down the lane at the back of the house, out came the laptop, and in a few minutes old and new keys were in harmony.
There are other companies doing the same thing, but I’m pleased we found Brian. His calm, professional approach took the heat out of a crisis. It is easy to remember his website www.carkeysdublin. ie. You might need it some day. Last Monday, I had my first experience of the new Ford Puma, the company’s smart-looking small SUV-style vehicle which is picking up an immense amount of positive coverage.
On a brief test up the N7, I could see why. It drives well, sits high on the road and has some brilliant storage and carrying solutions which would enable you to carry, for example, two sets of golf clubs upright in the load area.
Using a mild hybrid system, it is relatively clean, has nice acceleration and a whole raft of safety equipment from the off.
However, top-of-the-range models have everything you would want. Space in the rear seats might be a bit tight.
Prices start at €24,465 for the Puma Titanium and at present there is only one engine available here, a 1.0turbo EcoBoost petrol mHEV 125PS.
I will give a full report after a week’s test over Easter.