Now the Ford dealership doesn't know what happened either. The key shown apparently is the correct key and it does not have a chip, but no one has ever known of a Ford that has an anti-theft device with an unchipped key.
The forester is still at the dealership and my friend is on her way home and this is TBC another day.....
What a pain in the butt!!!!!!
ETA: one strange thing is the generator clicked off while they were at the soccer field, even though they had a full tank of gas (the RV engine was off). They don't think the generator was overloaded because they didn't have much stuff on, but after the generator tripped then the RV wouldn't start and the anti theft alerted.
So they are wondering if it was a computer/communication issue.
