Christmas Eve 1990. Nearly five hundred miles from home, 30 miles to go to the relatives we were due to stay with. It was 4.30 pm. A last present is required. A swift diversion into a city centre to catch the shops before they close. Park on a meter. Car full of holiday kit and presents. ( A then one year old 1989 BMW 318i 2 door if it matters )
Present bought. Time now 5.00. Dark. Get back to car to complete journey to rural location. Turn engine on.........nothing. Try again.........nothing. Call AA. Wait for ages. AA man declares nothing to be done other than relay car to BMW garage forecourt.
Time now 8.00pm. Standing on forecourt of deserted BMW dealers with car full of kit and fairly ticked off wife.
Try to get taxi to take us remainder of journey. It's Christmas Eve....."no chance mate"
Call hosts from call box ( no mobile in those days ) "We've all been drinking, sorry"
Try calling car hire companies. All closed. Have brainwave. Get taxi to airport. Trawl round rapidly closing car hire desks. "sorry sir, nothing left". Last desk, shutters coming down, plead with lady. "Well, let's see, ah yes we do have just the one Ford Escort left".......
Praise the Lord !!!!!
Never has anyone been so happy to pay so much for the use of a duck egg blue base model Escort 1.3
;-)
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What a nightmare! Another advantage of the company car - the lease company get hire companies to open up out of hours for you. Not tried it on a Christmas Eve though!
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Yep and it got worse. The car took 3 weeks to be fixed. Had to go home in the hire car and fly back mid Jan to collect it. Fortunately it was a warranty claim but it became a fairly expensive Christmas trip with the ancillary costs !
What were other people's most inconvenient examples of car/holiday woes ?
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 24/12/2008 at 16:07
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A few years ago I was staying at the outlaws in Worthing over Bank holiday with 2 X offspring + a little tortoise and loads of stuff (oh and SWMBO).
Car got stolen and written off. I still needed to get back to north Surrey.
None to call on to assist. I needed a one way hire on a bank holiday cos need to back in office the next morning.
Finished up by bus to Brighton Marina, collect car, return, load up and deliver contents to home. Then to Heathrow to return car and that left just a couple of hours on the bus to get home. At least it was sunny and I saw less of Ma in law so it was not all bad. :-)
So a long day to in effect cover a 50 miles /75min trip.
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20ish yrs ago got up with young family Sat 4am to beat the traffic to Cornwall.....clutch cable snapped just beyond Aynho crossing the Cotswolds [Passat GL5 - rhd version sends it round a pulley so it got metal fatigue every 40,000 miles or so]. Gingerly nursed it over to Cheltenham and waited outside VW garage till it opened - thankfully they had a spare and fortunately I was able to fit it myself......and then join the jams on the M5!
Great car apart from that - went on to over 190,000 [just the one replacement cambelt - when the water pump leaked at around 130,000] before getting another less characterful Passat. Still, more than 400,000m out of two secondhand Passats was good for the wallet.
Merry xmas - if it works, don't mend it!
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Nooo!!!!!
Your last sentence has caused my cup of earl grey to meet keyboar &*S jkl 09/0;-0
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Being involved in a crash within minutes of leaving Milan Malpensa in a hire car was not a brilliant experience. Hire car to be used to get to Bellagio quicker and easier than public transport. Ended up hospital all afternoon before they would let us go and then had to pay a fortune for a taxi to get us to the hotel.
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Christmas Day, late 1980s.
Ford Cortina water pump failed on the M1 on the way to Wolverhampton from London.
AA Relay on the scene within the hour and I was barely late for Christmas dinner.
Worst bit was messing around changing the water pump on Boxing Day/Dec 27.
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Oops FD, sorry, have I touched a nerve or something?
;-)
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1975 christmas eve. All presents delivered around home area of East Anglia so we headed to our intended destination of The Cotswolds for a few days. We were in my rather smart 1966 Rover 2000, lovely dark green with beige leather. Home designed quad hi-fi fitted and a set of low profile Dunlop SP Sports fitted just days before.
About halfway there in the Coventry area we were crossing a normally busy dual carriageway with one of those "refuges" in between carriageways. As I pulled out a front suspension balljoint sheared causing the wheel to crunch up under the arch and the front subframe to hit the road. It was stuck fast.
No hazard lights in those days and there the car sat sideways across the fast lane, I was acutely aware with its dark green paint it could be hard to spot and cause a terrible accident.
I ran to the nearest house and phoned for the police who thankfully were very quick to arrive and get cones and blues to save the day. The copper was a little wary of a youngster with a large car but cheered up to see tax, insurance, MOT and car overall condition all OK.
Once it was recovered to a garage a few miles away he took us to Coventry police station giving me the fastest ride I'd had to date... near 100mph in a Consul 3000GT (I think). At the station we were supplied with drinks and mince pies while the relatives at our destinaion argued over who would turn out and collect us. In the end collected in a new Austin Princess (wedge) which was roomy and comfy.
The Rover repair costs equalled its value so I called in to remove the music system and they gave me £50 for it writing off the tow-in charges.
Our ride back to East Anglia was in Dad's company Daimler Soverign 4.2 LWB which was a very nice motor.
I went straight out and bought a Triumph 1500 fwd which only lasted 6mths before it threw a conrod and destroyed the engine plus smashing the gearbox located under the sump.
Ahhh motoring memories!
David
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That Rover sounds gorgeous MM. Sort of want one now.....Santa ?
Edit - Nah 3.5
;-)
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 24/12/2008 at 19:13
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Same night, Christmas Eve 1990, different breakdown.
Company I was working for had sold a large server (250 user license) to a well known windscreen repair outfit. The first of it's kind in the UK and it had been flown in from Germany and installed directly at the customer site without any testing or commissioning. Revenue gets billed in 1990 not 1991.
Morning of Christmas Eve the thing goes down with disk errors. Diagnostics run clean and there are no spares in the UK so Engineering can't fix it and the customer is going nuts. I'm the UK national support for these systems so I get called out to see what I can do.
Spend hours re-seating all connectors and reformatting the drive (a big, for the time, 470MB Fujitsu) then reinstalling the OS, applications and data. Fire the thing up and it promptly dies with same disk errors. Low-level diags still run fine so try various levels of microcode, none make a difference so charter an aircraft to fly in a new disk plus controller and other spares from Germany. It's now about 9pm.
New disk fails during formatting. New controller, cables and terminators tried - still fails. Strip the machine completely, big 19" backplane out and every connector pin inspected with magnifying glass. Put machine back together, disk still fails during format. Now about 2am Christmas day.
Decide to re-install original drive. Format runs OK. Reload everything and go multiuser. Sit and watch it for a couple of hours, no problems.
Jump in the car and eventually get home about 8am Christmas morning.
A huge bunch of flowers arrives for the wife on Boxing Day from customer's IT Director.
System runs fine for years with all the original parts. The replacements flown in from Germany all check out OK too. It's the only system I've ever fixed and not known what actually fixed it.
Kevin...
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>>Car full of holiday kit and presents. A then one year old 1989 BMW 318i 2 door .....>>
Yes, that was one full car then. Go on, tell us what was amiss with it that took 3 weeks to repair. Then I can gloat over our 1986 316 (ours since 1988) instead of still feeling sad about its departure 18 months ago. Incidentally, 1986 was one of those years when the exchange rate went bonkers, and a BMW 316 was very nearly the same price as an Escort.
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Valves apparently. Would have had a cambelt I think?
:-(
Delay mainly due to the location. Edinburgh, it shuts down for Christmas as per but New Year goes on for rather longer......
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I'm sure Betsy the Ford has never done that to you.....
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Certainly not!
Pulling out the the old stops tonight I trust? We are trying to work up the energy to toddle along to our local midnight thingummy. Will just pour another "Scottish wine" while we think about it.....
;-)
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Been at work for 12 hours today. Never seen so many cars on the hard shoulder.
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Gingham table cloths atop the picnic tables popular this year or the more traditional tartan MLC ?
;-)
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 24/12/2008 at 20:13
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>>That Rover sounds gorgeous MM. Sort of want one now.....Santa ? Edit - Nah 3.5 ;-)
We did have rather a lot of interesting Rovers in our youth... they included a 1972 2000SC, a 1969 3500 auto, a 1975 3500 auto and the best a 1972 3500S manual as used by the traffic police of the day. That big V8 in such a modest sized body made them cracking cars.
Dad also ran a 1974 2200TC for a while as a temp company car.
David
Edited by M.M on 24/12/2008 at 20:55
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Only thing I ever had with that engine ( 3.5 V8 ) was a Land Rover 90. Not terribly fuel efficient but a hoot all the same. That noise.....
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 24/12/2008 at 21:07
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Transported a classic car to London by Range Rover and trailer, had a rare return load, a pre-war Hillman to go to Bramhall in Stockport. Loaded up somewhere around Sloane Square. Range Rover started smoking under bonnet in a nearby mews. Bonnet up ( no fire ) battery unclipped and saw it was a dead short on live lead to chassis.
Pulled it away and insulated it but no electrics to start. A van coming towards me couldn't get through so I got my big leads out and he jumpstarted me. I kept it running, got out of London OK and onto the M1. It started raining near Dunstable and I put the wipers on....everything died. I think the battery was goosed. I was approaching a slip road so drifted down and left it on the hard shoulder with a note on the screen. Believe it or not there was a Kwik Fit 100 yds up the road. Walked up, bought a cheap battery, walked back, fitted it. No further trouble encountered....How lucky was I ?
Happy Christmas
Ted
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How lucky was I ?
Ah the joys of no ecu's.
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When i read the first sentences of your first post Humph, i really thought the Mondy had bitten you on the bottom for having uncharitable thoughts over Yuletide about her future.
Quite relieved to hear the historic content unfold.
Been lucky over the years, and thats all i'm saying, not tempting whichever mischievous presence may be out for fun.
I had 2 of those P6 Rovers, a 71 2000tc manual and a 73 3500 auto, the V8 was a lovely cruising car of its day, and still one of the most comfortable rides this side of a XJ Jag.
Overhauled the DeDion tubes on both of them, the bellows always split, the extra damping action made for very stable high speed progress.
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When i read the first sentences of your first post Humph i really thought >>
I really thought you'd had some form of personal crisis....something along the lines of beating one of your cars with a tree branch.. and then having the men in white coats turn up and whisk you away
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Nothing so dramatic WP ! Stoicism was beaten into us from the age of five !
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Re the Mondeo GB.
Mrs B has now hidden the spare key and has steadfastly refused to be parted from the master one since "that" morning. She has been using the car ever since. My son also declares the matter closed. I think I shall, in the short term at least, have to go along with that situation.
The Ka, however, is now looking surplus to requirement.......
Incidentally, I filled the Signum with unleaded today from less than a quarter tank for £30. Almost feels cheap for now. Can't last can it?
Off now to spirit gifts out of the garage into the house. Major undercover operation. Not looking forward to gnawing a lump out of the carrot but the whisky and mince pie for Santa won't be too painful...
Merry Christmas !
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Humph,
I know what you mean about the fuel, and there really is something so enjoyable about a smooth quiet and powerful petrol engine, certainly compared to the modern cr diesel, which admittedly efficient and powerful, there's no nice sound or feel to them, in 4 cyl form anyway.
Dodging around after the non too sleepy kids have gone to bed, trying to be quiet and failing miserably, remember these days well, they go too quickly.
Edit, the Lady B sounds like a woman with good sense and feeling.
Merry Christmas one and all.
Edited by gordonbennet on 24/12/2008 at 23:07
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This is the car ( BMW 316 2 door ) that had the best advert ever, which I mentioned here before as I'd love to get a copy of . It must be good if I remember it 22 or so years on ;
The car travels along a production line , the doors are wide open with thick steel chains looped through the open windows. The voiceover reads : " after we hang the doors on the BMW 3 series - we can hang the BMW 3 series by the doors "
the camera pans back to see the car suspended high up in the air merely by the chains through the window frames .
Any ideas on how to get a copy - it would settle one bet at least.. and £25 to the finder's fav charity ???
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Late 1960's driving Austin A35 to London for crimble.
New remould decide to let the part of the tread to part company from the rest of the tyre. I had to stop twice before I found out what the noise was.
Brakes started playing up. I spent the early part of Christmas day stripping down the front nearside to find the drum full of slush (the temperature was at or below freezing). The coefficient of friction of ice isn't too good, and water's not much better.
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Friday 26th December 2008
Central Heating Combi Boiler packs in and it's below freezing. Damned thing's only two years old and I don't rate my chances of getting an engineer out before Monday. Fortunately I have a very warm wife so probly sped the next two days in bed.
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