Forsaken Renault Laguna

Few days ago we have been called out to help a 2002 Renault Laguna owner. The car didn’t wanted to start, my initial thought was that the card reader is faulty as it is a very common issue in this Renault model. The owner thought that the key card was to blame as the message on the dashboard was asking to insert the key card.
When I heard about the message on the dashboard I thought that the owner may be right as there would be no message and the dashboard would not light up if it would be the card reader fault. We scheduled the time and was soon on our way.
When we got to the location we have started the initial tests of both key card and the card reader. To our surprise both test came back with negative results meaning that both the key card and the card reader were faulty. It seemed strange to have both components to stop working at the same time especially that the key card was not damaged, the shell of the key card was solid and there were no cracks on it which could break the hatchet in the card reader.
We decided to start with exchanging the card reader as we always carry new card readers with us just in case. After 10 minutes of work the new card reader was installed, we tried to start the car up but with no luck. Before programming a new key card we have run a test of all systems including battery health check, all came back ok.
I programmed a new key card and started up the car. It started but the dashboard kept showing error messages. When I turned the car off and tried to turn it back on it didn’t worked. I run another test and this time it came back with steering locking issue. My partner reminded me about a Renault Espace we done few months ago which had the same issue. To cut the story short a blade fuse responsible for activating and deactivating steering lock was gone. I locked the car using the new key card and tried to turn the steering wheel, in theory it should now move at all, reality was totally different, I could easily turn the steering wheel.
As you can assume we are also always equipped with new blade fuses, 20 minutes later the fuse was exchanged and the car worked without any issues. We were worried that it could have been the initial issue so we decided to install the old card reader and test it. The card reader was faulty and didn’t wanted to work with the new key card, we changed the readers again, the car worked fine, we reprogrammed old key card and it started working fine (don’t ask me why as I have no clue)… The owner was so happy with the outcome that he asked for another card to be programmed.
In the end we have left another happy customer with a working Renault Laguna and 3 working key cards. Mission completed