Hello, Mazda Folks! I need your help with a fairly unorthodox request.

My mother has dementia and her license has been revoked; it's very sad and been a tough time for us as she LOVES her 2008(?) Mazda3. Unfortunately, one of her car keys is missing and I think she has it hidden away. I'm leaving her with some lovely daily caregivers but I need to disable the car in some way before leaving to be sure she can't drive it.

A couple factors:

• I'm not very car savvy, so it needs to be easily done/reversed.
• She lives in a cold climate.
• I will be gone 4-5 weeks.
• One of my neighbors is pretty mechanically savvy, I could get him to help out if needed.
• I'm prepared to get a neighbor to jump the car when I return if the battery dies (if that's of note).

So...any ideas? Thank you all so much...stressing out about this one, but I bet there's an easy solution. (I'm also taping a note inside the hood telling AAA not to fix things if she calls them out!)

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Happy holidays to you kind folks.

 

Pull the spark plug wires; problem solved.

 

This is great! Can you tell me how to do this?

Is this a good tutorial? How-To: Replace Spark Plugs - Mazda3 Forums : The #1 Mazda 3 Forum

 

Remove the ground battery lead (yes you will need to reprogram the radio etc after)but will not start for her with no power