Have just got back from what should had been a relaxing week at a French campsite with friends.
I will tell my little tale of woe but if you could kindly suspend all cries of STUPIDO until the end i would be grateful!
We moved house in April of this year which cost us a bleedin fortune and meant we needed to sell our car (was too big and expensive to run and being changed anyway) to cover the cashflow until we could raise dosh from another remortgage which we were assured would only take a month or so. In the meantime we have been using my Dad's car (he is unable to drive at the mo) which kind as it was of him has been crippling us in petrol - it is the most uneconomical car EVER!
The remortgage has turned into the slowest one ever in history and it got to the point where we were faced with a 900 mile drive to the south of france and no car to do it in. We couldn't poss take dad's.
We looked into hiring etc but they stiff you when they know its going out of the country so not economical. Course dear old hub wanted to cancel but i said no way! Got to Sat 2 weeks ago and with the mortgage offer all through and just had to wait for 2 weeks for completion we decided it was safe to buy a car on my empty credit card as the money would be through no problem.
We had done loads of research and found a fab dab car - diesel not far away - went to look, loved it, bought it and congratulated each other on our luck.
Can you see where i'm going with this?
Next day an alarm went off telling me it was out of coolant. No sweat - filled it up.
Later that day the alarm went off again. Checked the reservoir and it was empty! (For anyone remotely mechanical it didn't do this when the engine was hot - coolant full after a journey and then disappeared over the next 3 hours - no visible leak??!! WTF?)
Took it back to the garage - they were lovely - told me that it was evapourating out of the coolant filler cap and they changed it.
Next day did the same thing. By this time i am getting a tad anxious as we were leaving for france friday night. They said fair enough - the reservoir bottle can become distorted and changed that - this was Thursday pm.
Set off to my parents which is on the way to the tunnel friday night - arrived, checked it - nice and full. Hub popped out 2 hours later - alarm went off! He called the garage who said ok - as the temp was fine (never budged off normal) to just keep it topped up every 2-300 miles and drop it in when we get back.
We had decided on a night crossing and drive (big mistake) and off we set! As we got further into our journey the alarm became more frequent - started going off every time we slowed down at a peage - culminating in it going off whilst driving along the motorway and when we looked down the temp had rocketed! We weren't prepared to carry on with thee temp now playing up so called the RAC (i took out cover the day before just in case hehe) - had to speak to the French police (us not a word of french) who sent a surly recovery bloke to took us off into the back of goodness knows where - topped it up and ran it (stationery) for 10 mins and said it was fixed! We spoke to the RAC - told them we were unhappy but they said we had to take the car.
40 miles down the road - same thing happened. Pulled over - at this point it is beyond peeing down, it is what's known as "Black Saturday" in France as its the weekend of their major bank holiday and the roads were packed. Hub went to use roadside phone - got an electric shock off the button with all the rain and managed to speak to the police again.
Another recovery vehicle was sent - this guy didn't speak english or french for that matter so we just trustingly hopped in and off we went! I had already taken pictures of the girls in the cab on our first "exciting holiday adventure" recovery so didn't bother this time.
He took us to a service station where he proceeded to pick up another broken down car and took us to the smallest village furthest from anywhere in france. Luckily the other family he picked up could speak english and translated everything so lines of communication were at last open!
In liaison with the RAC - was decided the car had to go to a main dealer for diagnostics which wasn't going to happen until Wednesday due to the bank holidays - they eventually tracked down a hire car and got us a taxi to take us to it 40 km away.
Off we trundled again - having told our friends to not to wait for us for first lunch and then dinner and finally made it to our campsite at 11.30 pm - after being on the road 26 hours!
Phew - thats just the journey down there!!!!!!!
Hels x
I will tell my little tale of woe but if you could kindly suspend all cries of STUPIDO until the end i would be grateful!
We moved house in April of this year which cost us a bleedin fortune and meant we needed to sell our car (was too big and expensive to run and being changed anyway) to cover the cashflow until we could raise dosh from another remortgage which we were assured would only take a month or so. In the meantime we have been using my Dad's car (he is unable to drive at the mo) which kind as it was of him has been crippling us in petrol - it is the most uneconomical car EVER!
The remortgage has turned into the slowest one ever in history and it got to the point where we were faced with a 900 mile drive to the south of france and no car to do it in. We couldn't poss take dad's.
We looked into hiring etc but they stiff you when they know its going out of the country so not economical. Course dear old hub wanted to cancel but i said no way! Got to Sat 2 weeks ago and with the mortgage offer all through and just had to wait for 2 weeks for completion we decided it was safe to buy a car on my empty credit card as the money would be through no problem.
We had done loads of research and found a fab dab car - diesel not far away - went to look, loved it, bought it and congratulated each other on our luck.
Can you see where i'm going with this?
Next day an alarm went off telling me it was out of coolant. No sweat - filled it up.
Later that day the alarm went off again. Checked the reservoir and it was empty! (For anyone remotely mechanical it didn't do this when the engine was hot - coolant full after a journey and then disappeared over the next 3 hours - no visible leak??!! WTF?)
Took it back to the garage - they were lovely - told me that it was evapourating out of the coolant filler cap and they changed it.
Next day did the same thing. By this time i am getting a tad anxious as we were leaving for france friday night. They said fair enough - the reservoir bottle can become distorted and changed that - this was Thursday pm.
Set off to my parents which is on the way to the tunnel friday night - arrived, checked it - nice and full. Hub popped out 2 hours later - alarm went off! He called the garage who said ok - as the temp was fine (never budged off normal) to just keep it topped up every 2-300 miles and drop it in when we get back.
We had decided on a night crossing and drive (big mistake) and off we set! As we got further into our journey the alarm became more frequent - started going off every time we slowed down at a peage - culminating in it going off whilst driving along the motorway and when we looked down the temp had rocketed! We weren't prepared to carry on with thee temp now playing up so called the RAC (i took out cover the day before just in case hehe) - had to speak to the French police (us not a word of french) who sent a surly recovery bloke to took us off into the back of goodness knows where - topped it up and ran it (stationery) for 10 mins and said it was fixed! We spoke to the RAC - told them we were unhappy but they said we had to take the car.
40 miles down the road - same thing happened. Pulled over - at this point it is beyond peeing down, it is what's known as "Black Saturday" in France as its the weekend of their major bank holiday and the roads were packed. Hub went to use roadside phone - got an electric shock off the button with all the rain and managed to speak to the police again.
Another recovery vehicle was sent - this guy didn't speak english or french for that matter so we just trustingly hopped in and off we went! I had already taken pictures of the girls in the cab on our first "exciting holiday adventure" recovery so didn't bother this time.
He took us to a service station where he proceeded to pick up another broken down car and took us to the smallest village furthest from anywhere in france. Luckily the other family he picked up could speak english and translated everything so lines of communication were at last open!
In liaison with the RAC - was decided the car had to go to a main dealer for diagnostics which wasn't going to happen until Wednesday due to the bank holidays - they eventually tracked down a hire car and got us a taxi to take us to it 40 km away.
Off we trundled again - having told our friends to not to wait for us for first lunch and then dinner and finally made it to our campsite at 11.30 pm - after being on the road 26 hours!
Phew - thats just the journey down there!!!!!!!
Hels x
