Why steal my neon

I have a 95 2 door neon. The car is in good shape, but needs a paint
job.
Anyway, I woke up Saturday morning to find the car sideways in the
drive way, against my 2001 neon and almost touching the other car to
the left.
Now, they did not get it started. The messed up the key lock. I was
able to drive it to the dealership by taking off the ignition switch
on the left side of the steering column and using a screw driver to
turn it to start the car.
Got the dealer to fix it as I could not get the key lock out by
pressing the button on the bottom of it.
Now my question is, once I got the car back, the door now beeps as
though there are keys in the ignition, when there is not, and I have
since noticed that the turn indicator no longer works. (The door did
not beep and the indicator worked when I drove the car to the dealer.)
Any suggestions?
What did they mess up?

Mike

 

Yes, go to your local SCCA meeting and look for furtive-appearing
folks in "Neon Racing" shirts. The Showroom Stock rules were just
changed to give your car one more year of eligibility

 

Showroom stock rules?
One more year of eligibility for what?

 

Eligibility to race. It's totally arbitrary.

 

SCCA Showroom Stock road racing. For many years you could not run a
Showroom Stock car more than five years; the intent was to make sure
the cars on showroom floors were the same ones out racing. The Neon
slaughtered SS - so much so that other manufacturers were granted
"trunk kits" of racing-only special equipment to keep up.

Anyway, for reasons known only to themselves the SCCA just extended
Showroom Stock eligibility from five to ten years. So a lot of
decomissioned SS cars have a new lease on life.

In truth, the Neon in question isn't an ACR (probably) and therefore
wouldn't be much use; but I liked the conceit of SCCA road racers
everywhere sneaking out in the dead of night to "repossess" cars
recently made eligible again.

 

Probably because they have realized that stock car racing is dead. NASCAR
killed it. None of the stock cars you see racing on TV anymore have
anything
to do with a real "stock" car, they all run modified vehicles.

Stock car racing should have a simple rule:

You drive it off the dealers lot and right to the racetrack, and you DON'T
TOUCH IT, you just race.

Once they got away from doing that it killed the sport. Stock car racing
today
is just another rich man's toy car race. I personally have found Indy car
racing much more interesting now. They at least don't pretend their cars
are "stock"

Ted

 

Are they even modified? "Modified" to me implies that they start with a
stock vehicle and replace certain major components. Do they even do
that, or are they 100% scratch built from custom or specialty catalog
items, question being, what parts are from a factory car?

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

A brief moment of clarification:

Showroom Stock racing has nothing to do with NASCAR, ARCA, or any other
"stock" car racing.

Showroom Stock consists of buying a car off the showroom floor,
putting a limited cage, fire extinguisher, and safety equipment on it,
changing to lighter wheels and R-compound tires, and going racing. It
is run by the SCCA; it is primarily for amateur and hobbyist racers.
The SCCA Runoffs will be televised Speed Channel this year and features
"real" cars in competition. It's great to watch and while you might need
$30-40,000 to compete for a year in it, that kind of money won't get
you anywhere near a single "stock car" grid.

 

"Showroom Stock" sounds a whole lot closer to what my Uncle J.T. Putney
used to drive (#19 Chev. Impala) in the 60's as a Grand National NASCAR
(evolved into Winston Cup/Nextel Cup) driver than todays NASCAR "stock
car".

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

I have a Neon ACR for sale in Syracuse NY if anyone's interested.

 

Mike,
There are a couple things you can do.

1) have you tried to go back to the dealer and explain to them that
these problems have come up as a result of their work? If so, what
outcome did you get?
2) If you have the Haynes Manual for the car, have a quick look at the
wiring connections and color codes to see if they are correct for the
ignition switch

3) if you have the old ignition switch, compare both of them to ensure
contacts are correct and identical, sometimes (very rare) contacts can
change from year to year.

4)for the door beep, there is a contact on the keyswitch that will
activate if there is a key present. check this contact out with a
multimeter. The beep will also occur if your headlights or parking
lights are on. something else to check out.

Also, if the turn signal indicators arent working, check for any
pinched or broken wires or contacts in the steering column, but first,
check the fuse for this and make sure it isnt burnt.



I know after my chrysler dynasty got broken into and ignition damaged,
my overhead map lights function oddly, for instance, you turn on one,
and then turn the other one on, both go out, but leave one on and open
the door, and it goes out again. Never did that before the mishap.


Tom Sajnovic
usenet(AT)djphuze.com