In the past 5 years my clock and trip odometer have reset themselves 3 or 4 times. But it has only happened in a particular strip mall parking lot. I visit this parking lot about 4 times per month. When I pull into the parking lot I have the choice of 3 rows, I usually try to go down the row that is farthest from the stores, but sometime am forced to go down one of the other rows. The resetting only happens when I have gone down the 2 rows that are closest to the stores. I am not sure when the actually resetting takes place-but I think it happens either when I turn the car off or on, maybe it is while is off. In addition to the resetting, the first mystery that happened in this parking lot was my battery died here- nothing was left on and it had only been parked for 5 minutes. It turned out that my 5-year battery was about 5 years old but this is too freaky, This is too much of a coincidence, it has never happened anywhere else. There must be some sort of electrical or magnetic interference.
I believe self-opening doors use radar. I know it can set off a radar detector, but I’ve never heard of it causing your problem.
Yeah.
I hate it when i go to Wally World, and forget to put on my armor.
Tester
LOL…apparently, that problem has been superceded by avoidance radar. From the Valentine One web site:
The frequency range for K-band radar, 24.050-24.250 GHz, has recently become a free-fire zone for various transmitting devices. The newest offenders are the lane-change or blind-spot warning systems in cars. These are far more troubling than the old problem of automatic store-door openers; blind-spot systems move, and they may tag along in traffic with you for miles.
They don’t use radar in automatic doors.
They use motion sensors/detectors.
Tester
Well, Mike Valentine thinks otherwise…
Also see:
;-]
Tester
I always have thought those grocery store self opening doors used ultrasonic waves to detect the motion. But radar (electro-magnetic waves) could be used too, and might be more reliable. I doubt the OP’s problem is associated w/either however. More likely some kind of battery problem, or bad connection. Suggest as a starting point, to replace the 5 year old battery with a new one, clean all the battery connections in the process, and see if that solves the problem. I’m guessing it will. But if it doesn’t, come back and we’ll do some more brainstorming. There was aforum post here, or maybe it was a blog post here, quite a while ago where the car wouldn’t start when it was parked in a particular spot. That turned out to be related to an e/m problem as I recall. There was a big commercial antenna array nearby that was causing it I think.
There are a couple of stores nearby that have sensors on the doors, but if this were the cause, it would happen more often in different locations. I also think there are cell towers on the buildings, but why does my problem only happen here. Regarding one comment, yes, I replaced my battery when it died. If it were a bad connection, it would show up in other places. That e/m problem sounds more like it except I wonder where. Maybe a ham radio operator. There is a UPS store- I am not sure if they use some sort of radio equipment that might be unusual in nature.
Try parking oriented 90 degrees to what you usually do. So if you usually park facing North, try parking in the same area, but facing East. Or West. If it is an emi problem, that might be enough to solve it. I have to keep the AM radio in my kitchen turned 90 degrees, otherwise I get a lot of buzzing in the audio, caused by the microwave oven.