The Car Kit Phenomenon

My wife came up to me the other day and said "my phone isn't working."

I ran through the possibilities - dead battery, no signal, software lock up, physically broken? This is an LG VX6000.

No, the culprit was the Car Kit mode. The phone was in Car Kit mode, as displayed on the main screen, and in that mode you can neither hear nor say anything into the phone (although you can dial). Apparently if it's connected to some "Car Kit" then all works well.

I went through the software menus to disable Car Kit mode and discovered . . . that there is no Car Kit setting on the phone! Uh-oh. After some sleuthing I determined that if you shorted two pins on the power socket of the phone (at the end beneath the microphone), then you can toggle it out of Car Kit mode.

Chalk it up to a freakish occurence.

A few days later I'm in Target and I notice that I can't hear my voicemails. Lo and behold, mv LG VX7000 is also in Car Kit mode!

What the?????

Trying the "shorted connector" approach, I walked to Target's kitchen aisle and carefully stuck a fork into the end of the phone, hoping to make a short. Target puts little plastic "tong protectors" at the end of their kitchen forks - is that some kind of weird liability strategy?

After a few attempts and weird looks from a Target shelf stocker I determined that the perhaps the fork wasn't the best electrical conductor. I carefully opened a roll of aluminum foil and tore off a small piece.  In MacGuyver-like fashion I jiggled the piece of foil in the power socket of the VX7000 and . . ta da! I disabled Car Kit mode and the phone worked fine.

But how did both of these phones get into Car Kit mode? How could both get shorted like that?

I thought back to my 8 month old's fascination with cell phones (takes after her Daddy). She loves to press the buttons, play with the hinge, puts the phone in her mouth . . .

Ah ha - somehow the baby saliva was shorting the connector and getting the phone into Car Kit mode.