luckykaa: (cortina)
Poor [personal profile] flickums just wanted to do something nice for me. We were driving home from a visit to Sussex. Wanted to swap drivers at some stage. And Flick wanted to buy me a coffee beforehand.

So, pulled off the M6 Toll, into the Norton Canes services, entered the car park, and there was a nasty loud crunching noise, as the car hit the raised kerb at the car park entrance that Flick couldn't see because it was dark. Tried backing away a bit. Turns out one wheel was pointing one way the other pointed another.

Oh dear. The other issue was this was blocking the entrance to the car park a little. People could get past but not easily.

I went in and spoke to the receptionist at the on-site hotel to find out if there was an admin office. Debbie at reception was extremely helpful and called the duty manager, impressed on him how urgent this was. Phil the duty manager and a colleague came out in high vis and directed traffic as we waited for the AA. Phil was very understanding.

The AA man was a very nice man. But unfortunately wasn't able to do a lot except shift the car into the car park proper.

Called the insurance company. After a lot of work trying to establish whether flickums was covered, we eventually got a tow truck sorted. And then waited. Went inside to get something to eat. Flick attempted to buy a coffee for me but left her wallet in the car and phone payment wasn't working. A very kind stranger offered to pay after hearing what a rubbish evening we were having.

Tow truck driver eventually came. He was grumpy and didn't seem very nice. He told us they'd arrange a hire car which contradicted what we'd been told, so he gave us a lift back to the depot. And drove like an absolute idiot! There's no need to bully someone approaching the toll plaza at 30mph in the 30 mph section. And the guy really wanted to fling the truck round corners.

Eventually we arrived at the depot and the receptionist said that we weren't getting a hire car after all... Thanks for that. But the insurance would pay for a taxi, so we booked an Uber. Tow truck man didn't give clear instructions about what to do when it came to unloading stuff from our car to his, so he waited down the road. Eventually flick walked up and explained the situation. Javid, the Uber driver zipped us along the motorways smoothly and quickly, and dropped us off outside home.

So that was the end of that adventure. It was late by that point but we managed to squeeze in a short cartoon.

Only remaining task is to deal with the insurance.

Have to say, aside from the tow truck driver, this really restored faith in humanity. Several people came along to try and offer help - they couldn't do anything but they offered. Debbie the receptionist was very kind and contacted the relevant person directly. Phil the duty manager was very understanding and even offered to buy us a coffee. The lady who bought us a coffee was very kind and the Uber Driver was eager to make us comfortable.

luckykaa: (cortina)
All I wanted to do was drive to an aerials class. Things were going fine. Turned onto Wilbraham road and clocked the Deliveroo bike edging out. Slowed down a bit but it looked like he saw me.

Clonk. BANG!

No he did not see me.

Got out to check he was okay. He got back on his bike and rode off. Guess he was fine. Poor Arachnia was less fine though. A couple of dents by themselves are kind of annoying, but nothing serious. The big annoyance is the active bonnet.

Sports cars these days have a safety feature to protect pedestrians. If the car gets hit hard enough at the front or side of the bonnet, two explosive bolts go off, push the bonnet up 15cm or so and give that extra bit of protection for the person the car hits. Great! That was the "BANG!". Downside is, the bonnet doesn't go back down again.

Got the car off the road and started to make some calls. First call; I had a card in with the manual that said "if you have an accident call us first" so I waited 10 minutes for the phone to be answered before I gave up and called the police non-emergency number. That was a bit quicker but still a while. They didn't do much except tell me to fill in an online incident report.

Then called the AA. I have to say, the AA was fantastic. They answered fairly quickly, and the lady seemed bright and helpful. Alas it seems my cover has expired. I was hoping it was still going to ba valid for a few weeks after downgrading my account. But she did offer to sign me up there and then. Seemed like a good idea. Then she told me that the car was registered with Ramp Recovery so didn't need even need to sign up. I had no idea what Ramp recovery was (and I'm still a bit vague on the details - something to do with the warranty) but apparently they were willing to recover the car to home and then take it to the garage. Seemed to be a single specific garage though (the one I bought it from, I think). Decided I really didn't want to wait though.

Meanwhile, some tit rode his bike (pedal cycle) into the car. "I was on the phone" says the cyclist.

[personal profile] flickums  had offered to come and provide me with snacks and company. She duly arrived. Gave me a bananas and yoghurts and a Diet Coke - we're on a health food kick so options were limited - But I took the opportunity to get a lift home.

Which just left dealing with insurance. That took all day. I want to use a Fiat approved bodyshop. Churchill put up a lot less of a fight over this than I expected. Finding one that was still operating took a while. Biggest problem is who to deal with first. I can;t really drive it with a bonnet coevering half my view. Bodyshop won't recover without instruction from insurance company. Insurance won't give instruction without an estimate. Bodyshop won't give estimate without a seeing it. Decided to cover the collection myself. I should be able to claim that back later.

Oh well. Car is now being looked at. Hopefully there's not much left for me to do.

New car!

Jun. 20th, 2021 05:02 pm
luckykaa: (cortina)
Poor Batsy was really getting worn out. Lots of annoying little problems,but what really made me decide it's time for an upgrade was the window stopped working. When I thought maybe disconnecting the battery might solve things I found the cable to open that had also broken.

So, time for a new car.

I've had my eye on the Fiat Spider 124 for a while now. Was reluctant to buy an expensive car just after moving house, and I wanted to save up enough of a buffer that I can afford to quit my job and go back to contracting. Now I have that (more or less) I can afford it. Went to Knutsford. Went for a test drive. After a little uhmming and Ahhing [personal profile] flickums and the salesman ganged up on me and persuaded me to buy it.

So, I bought it and named her Arachnia. Because she's a Spider.

A few days later, I picked it up, signed all the paperwork, got keys, and unwrapped it (pandemic means they need to sterilise before handover) drove down the road and there was a nasty flapping noise. Turned out they'd forgotten to screw a part back on. Little unhappy about that. But they fixed it quickly, and I zoomed home.

First trip was driving to Trapeze class. Not much of an opportunity to drive shuffling through Manchester traffic. But the weather seemed to be improving, so I had to find somewhere to drive. As luck would have it, I found somewhere. Jodrell Bank - and the Lovell radio Telscope is reopened for visitors, and it's a 30 minute drive mostly on country roads. Had to pre-book visits, but as even more luck would have it, there was exactly one visitors slot remaining. The booking website absolutely sucks on mobile but I finally booked a ticket.

So, Jodrell Bank.Pride of place is the big Lovell Telescope. A humungous dish 250ft in diameter, sitting on some huge rails, with rollers moving at a breakneck speed of around 0.0087mph (14 metres per hour). It moves but you'd never know. Apparently there was a talk at the Tipi at 14:15 but I turned up about 14:16 to see everyone leaving the tipi. Later realised that they were going to a nice outdoor seating area for the talk. So I saw the speaker speaking and though I'd catch the end of it. Fortunately the talk was repeated an hour later so I caught the start of that one.

The other attraction was a display of the space photographer of the year competition, and a short video explaining a few of them, including an explanation of the really rather good Tilt-shift picture Andromeda Galaxy At Arm's length. For some reason that wasn't in the main display.

I enjoyed it. Not sure if there's enough there that would have justified a longer trip. They are building a new pavilion though. Promises an exhibition space and a 130 seat auditorium. Might be worth another visit when that opens.
luckykaa: (cortina)
Batsy is really starting to fall apart. Window doesn't close. Bonnet doesn't open. This is after dealing with a really annoying moisture issue over the winter.

It's a 14 year old French car. It's surprising it's still running to be honest. I think it's time I buy something new. Just need to decide what.

I have had my eye on the Fiat Spider 124 for a while. Really nice sporty little roadster. Or a "hairdresser car". I don't care though! I like natty little 2 seater convertibles. (Also I care far too much about hair for a straight guy). Is it finally time to buy one?
luckykaa: (Exterminate)
I really am getting my money's worth from AA membership recently.

[personal profile] flickums  said "let's go for a picnic on the beach!", because she's awesome and knows I like eating and I like beaches. So we set off, got onto the M6 and the road seemed very shaky. After a few hundred metres I decided it probably wasn't the road, and was instead the car. Seems that the front tyre was shredded.

Really grateful for AA membership!

Waiting on a motorway is a miserable experience. It's noisy. There's nowhere to sit. There's nothing to do. Cars whizzing past at 70mph or more are frightening, and the trucks doing the same are terrifying.

Eventually a very nice man arrived, and swapped the tyre over. And we set off.

The smooth ride didn't last. The main road to Southport was closed for repairs. All traffic is filtered down to a single lane which is then stopped at a light that really doesn't give a lot of time fro cars to get through. I probably should have turned around and found somewhere else. There are other beaches nearby after all. Still, eventually we got there, just 3 hours later than we wanted. My mood improved as soon as we got to the beach. And even more so as soon as I ate some picnic. And more so as I finished a half bottle of Prosecco.

Got a new tyre the next day. they looked at the other tyres, and then needed to be replaced too (or maybe I'm just too trusting of mechanics), but it's a while you wait service. I had the chance to read a bit more of the book I'm reading.

On the plus side, Batsy now has a new set of shoes, and we should avoid a repeat of the blowout.
luckykaa: (Wolf)
Poor Harrison had been a poorly car for a while. The nasty loud clatter at low revs was always a little worrying. The way the car shook between 65 and 70mph was a little disconcerting as well. I think though, that after the handbrake went weird, and the rear tyres seemed bald, and given that we needed a new brake light, and the fact that one of the panels was held on with gaffer tape it was probably time to buy a new car.

I quite liked to the look of a Mercedes A class. There was one for sale. Pretty good price. So we booked a viewing after work. After struggling through Manchester city centre, and finding the place, we found that the sales staff weren't there. A friendly helpful mechanic called them up and it turned out that the car had been sold. Well, thanks a bundle! To be honest we probably didn't want the car anyway. It was a bit small and the electric seat adjusters were sloooow.

The next day we had a look at another car. This one seemed more promising. We both liked it and after a short tea break, where we discussed pros and cons, we went back and bought it. This time I remembered to check the MOT certificate.

It's black and has 4 seats, so that ticks Flick's desire and must-have. It's a convertible and has reasonable boot space, so that ticks two of my boxes. Named it Batsy (short for Batmobile). Drove home with the roof down. Got caught in the rain. This is a downside of a convertible. On the plus side, the weather has been lovely since. We've had a lot of fun driving places and chilling out.

Was amazed to find that the CD changer still works! Also pleased that it is a lot more manoeuvrable than a Ford Mondeo. 

Alas, this did mean saying goodbye to Harrison. We called up a scrap merchant. He took it away to the farm. I was sad to say goodbye. He was a rustbucket that kept breaking but he was our rustbucket!

luckykaa: (cortina)
Being quite hands-on, I like to fix things if they're not working well. Something that has been bugging mefor a while is radio reception in the car. It's awful!

My assumption was the radio cable had been dislodged. This should have been a simple process:
  1. remove radio.
  2. diagnose problem
  3. fix problem
  4. test.
  5. replace radio
It's never quite that simple.

Stage 1 required that I get the radio removal tools. Easy enough. I can get them from ebay. I'd also stuck my FM transmitter over the radio so had to pull that off, but that was easy enough.
Stage 2 - Well, I found the aerial was not plugged in. But there didn't seem to be a spare socket for it. Fortunately manuals for everything are available online. Turns out that the numpty who installed the radio plugged the remote cable into the aerial socket.
Stage 3 - swapped the plugs. Not sure what the remote cable is the remote to, but it doesn't matter.
Stage 4 - reception was suddenly really good!
So onto stage 5. I pushed the radio into the slot and... it stopped working! Dammit!

Obviously a blown fuse. A bit of a pain because the fuse box is really fiddly to get to. And I had no idea which fuse. Fortunately the manual for a Mk3 Mondeo fuse box is also available online. So, F69 operates the radio. Pulled it out, Swapped it with a random alternative. Still broken! Dammit! Time to attack it with a multimeter. Fuse is fine. I found another fuse in the radio. That too was fine.

So, back to the fuse box diagram. There is another radio fuse. Pulled that out. Tested it. Seemed fine. And we seemed to have power going to the radio, which is odd. So after ages prodding various components, I finally had a revelation!

I picked the wrong fuse!

Turns out that fuse I tested was the one for the electric sun roof. The radio was next to it. Now, we don't have an electric sun roof. I pulled out the correct fuse and could tell by looking it was broken. Swapped them round, and the radio worked! Electric sunroof presumably doesn't, but I don't have one of them.

I still have no idea how there was power going to the radio. I guess I was just testing the battery input rather than the switched input. Still, I feel a great sense of accomplishment having fixed my own cock-up!

New Car

May. 29th, 2017 04:16 pm
luckykaa: (cortina)
So we bought a car.

[personal profile] flickums  suggested buying a rustbucket. It would mean we could get around easily, and she'd be able to practice driving. So we looked around and bought a Ford Mondeo more or less on impulse, for £400.

Flickums has named him Harrison.

In hindsight, we rushed into this a bit. Dealer did replace the battery but it was a dud. Kind of old, and too low ampage. We could have taken it back, and he probably would have swapped the battery back, but that would have meant waiting until Tuesday, he'd probably only pick a battery that was just about adequate if he did fix it, and it seemed way too much hassle, compared with getting the AA to fit a new one.  Also thought that the MOT was until December but it wasn't. Really should have checked the paperwork there. Wondering if I should fight on this one... But I think when a car is that cheap it's a case of caveat emptor.

Also needs a new beam headlight... But those are cheap and I can fit it myself. And the lighter socket didn't work but I managed to tinker enough to get that behaving.

With the car fully armed and operational, it was time to put Flickums behind the wheel. I thought it went okay. Although we do keep losing L-plates. Perhaps we should just gaffer tape them on. Flick seems less certain and didn't like roundabouts. I think we need more practice on quieter roads to get some confidence up.

We drove up to Poynton, where they have a miniature railway. That was fun. Had a look in the model shop and had lunch at the cafeteria in the attached garden centre. I had a fun day out.

luckykaa: (cortina)
I have no real need for a car. I get the tram to work every day, and I am now living walking distance from Flickums (it's a very short walk from my flat to my flat). But occasionally it would be useful. For example, I want to get some dead bed to the dump. I'd like to carry lots of stuff to the dump. It would be nice to be able to visit other people more easily.

So I need to decide what to get. As ever indecisiveness overwhelms me.
luckykaa: (cortina)
Today I say goodbye to my loved but unreliable car, Thunderbird.

It was never a particularly good car. MG-Rover was not renowned for their reliability. It took a while to actually get it because getting it past its MOT cost a lot (I reckon that pretty much clobbered the dealer's profits). And it didn't take long before it needed a head gasket replacement. And then after I'd had it a year, it was back in car hospital for another couple of weeks to sort out remaining issues. And it never really had the performance a sports car should have. Plus a couple of niggling issues like the window randomly winding down when it rained. At 10 years old, poor Thunderbird's age was showing.

Nor was it a particularly practical car, although unlike the MR2 it did actually have a boot, and a large enough boot to squeeze in my suitcase.

But I was fond of it. It was my car! It got me to and from Chez Flickums. It let me take trips to places public transport didn't reach! It allowed me to pose and attract the laides (no it really didn't. [livejournal.com profile] flickums thought it was a silly impractical car and never got the point of convertibles). And I had some good times with it. I loved driving out to nice places around Sheffield and Leicester, with Flickums. It was fun to zip down to other parts of the country to see friends, and to be able to just jump into my car and visit Flickums mid-week. And there was the time - where Thunderbird earned his stripes and his name - flickums was stuck at work, so I could swing by and pick her up. And another time, the train was late, the trams were crap and so I could collect a flickums at the station.

But Thunderbird started to make a tapping. The tapping became a knocking, and the mechanic said that it would cost more to fix than the car was worth. I decided to take the car home, and it died on the way back. The AA pulled it home.

Today the scrap man came to take it away.

Farewell Thunderbird. May you rust in peace.
luckykaa: (cortina)
So, I need a new car.

Actually that's probably overstating things. I don't need a car at all, I just find having one is often useful, and since Thunderbird is no more, I have to buy one.

Am considering buying another impractical 2 seater convertible. I could get a brand new one on hire-purchase, and therefore not dig further into the house deposit fund. Do quite like the MX-5 although that does have the "hairdresser" association which worries me more than it probably should. Of course there's also the Fiat Spider 124, which is essentially the same car and is very pretty.

Other options are a used MX-5. More practical than a MG-TF or an MR-2 (it has a boot that is big enough for more than a small case), and probably more reliable. Or there's the gorgeous BMW Z4

Loking at more practical cars that can still have the roof down, I could get a slighlty less impractical 4 seater convertible. Renault Meganes seem to be going cheap, and there's plenty of Peugeot 207's. I quite like the VW Eos and the Saab 9-3 which are ragtops; which means I'd still have boot space with the roof down.

Final option is the cheapest possible car that has 4 wheels and an engine. Gets me from A to B, and even to C (car dealers).

The real problem I have is that the dealers are not easty to get to without a car. But I have time to mull this over. I think I need to book a test drive or two.
luckykaa: (cortina)

My poor car has breathed his last. Engine started to rattle a couple of weeks ago. Put in oil. Took him for a run. Rattle got worse. Took it to the mechanic. "Not heard a noise like that before".

Verdict was that the engine would need a rebuild. Not sure it's worth it. So I  drove it home assuming it would get me to a used car dealer a couple of times. Sadly it didn't quite manage that trip either.  Conked out with 3 miles to go.

Fortunately I was right by a parking bay, and  managed to guide the car in. Then got out quick because smoke is not a good sign.

Called the AA  Finally got to use Holly the evil Satnav's "Where am I" feature. A very nice man towed me home.

So I need a new car. Not sure what to buy. Really didn't want that expense on top of everything else this month.

luckykaa: (Wolf)
Much as the weekend was frustrating, I seem to be feeling a little more cheerful now. I did enjoy the parties, and catching up with friends at the convention. I had a chance to go into the sea at least briefly, and it wasn't horribly cold. Blackpool does have nice sandy beaches.

Also I got a lot of likes on the photos I uploaded to faceache which is always an ego boost.

Couple of agents have called me about possible contracts. I'm actually quite optimistic about one of them. They seem to want a lot of dispirate skills (is that the right word?) but I have a bunch of them.

And the mechanic seems to have got the bolt he needed at last.

In other news final (I believe) Temraire book comes out in a couple of days.
luckykaa: (cortina)
My car made a "hrum-phumb-brr" noise and completely failed to burst into life. Seems that a week of not being driven drained the battery (which seems odd but maybe I left something on)

So I wandered to the hardware store to see if I could buy a charger. He didn't have one. I wandered to the other hardware store to see if I could buy a charger. She did have one. Then all I needed to do was remove my battery. The cables were easy enough to remove. Sadly, there was a tiny little bolt stuck by the side of the battery holding it on. Not enough room to turn a spanner. The local shops don't sell a good range of tools. Just basic cheapies. Still, I did get a selection of spanners. Some the right size (10mm rather than the nearest imperial equivalent) None of them had enough wiggle room.

Reconnected the battery. Set off the alarm. Ooops.

Gave up called the AA. Don't have home start. Maybe I should change my address back to my parents' place.

Asked some helpful Polish neighbours to give me a push start. It didn't work. I ended up in a worse position because I was stuck in a parking bay that I had to get out of before tomorrow morning.

Eventually managed to get the battery out. Blody hell, those things are heavy! What are they made from? Oh yeah... Lead! Lugged it home and plugged it into my charger.

Got bored waiting after a couple of hours. Lugged it back to my car, wired it up. It's alive!!!

I cackled a mad scientist laugh, as I drove Thunderbird around a little to make sure the battery got a little more of a charge.

Tomorrow, I think I need to buy a socket set.
luckykaa: (cortina)
I must remember not to park round the corner, under that particular tree. The tree seems to house the world's most incontinent birds. They did a real number on my car (the number being 2).

Still, not a problem. There's a jet wash round the corner. High pressure hoses make short work of birdshit. I have a few other things to do but it should be a quick job. So I drove around the block, and found that the last turning has no right turn. Or left turn. I can only go straight. That's the last direction I want to go. That road would take me into town and there's no turning off! And the traffic lights seemed to be taking forever!

One three point turn later, I take a different exit, and find that the garage is being rebuilt or refurbished or whatever. So, I turn round again and hunt a jetwash. I thught perhaps the esso along narborough road would have one. I really wanted to get this small task out of the way so I was a little impatient. For some reason, every other driver decided that they should drive 15mph below the speed limit. As it turned out there was no jetwash there. I headed for the M1. Surely a big motorway service station would have a jetwash. The slow driving virus had affected people here as well. Also, when are those damn roadwarks going to be finished!? So does the motorway service station have a jetwash?

Nope.

I looked it up on my phone. I found an address. According to google, there is one jetwash in the whole of Leicester. I headed down there as fast as possible. This turned out to involve crawling through some roadworks, but evenutally I got there. And they had a jetwash. So I went in to ask for a code or a token. "Nope". Why not? "It's coin operated".

So a 15 minute job took me abpout an hour.

But at least it's done now. And my tyres are pumped up.
luckykaa: (cortina)
So, after the drive to Coventry, my car started spewing out lots of steam and got very very hot. Stopped at a petrol station, refilled the coolant. Got me home. Checked the next day, the water was empty. So I booked it into a garage. I went for the one that answered the phone on a Saturday afternoon.

Perhaps I should have picked the one that had parking. Actually I found myself not quite liking the mechanic. Perhaps it was that he was smoking. I dropped it off anyway because I needed to get to work.

They checked for leaks and didn't find any. Apparently the emissions are way over where they should be. The diagnosis is a head gasket problem. While this is comon in Rover/MGs of my car's vintage, it has had the head gasket replace in the past. And the reasoning seemed very reminiscent of the symptoms that don't on their own indicate failure. Although I do have a few of them.

Now, I did get the used car warranty when I bought the car. Will need to look into that. I have no idea how that works in practice. Was hoping the mechanic would be able to tell me but sadly not.

Thing is, if it is a head gasket problem, and I do need to fork out some of my own cash, I wonder if it's worth it. It's an expensive job. Especially when the engine's in the middle rather than the more traditional and sensible front. It probably means there's a lot of hassle involved getting the thing out.

For now I'm travelling by bus.
luckykaa: (TV)
I was tired of slumming it in 720P land. Also I'd run out of HDMI slots. So I bought myself a new TV.

Went to Richer Sounds. Was delighted that the meter parking ended at 4pm.

Told them what I wanted. Seems the only real option with the number of connectors I want was a smart TV. I don't really need a smart TV. My Fire Stick has all the same functionality, and probably more. So does my PS3. And I don't trust Sony to keep the software updated, or support all the on demand services I might want, especially future ones. On the plus side, Sony Bravias do tend to have decent picture quality, haven't done anythign particularly evil in the past few months, and the 4 HDMI slots is as many as I can hope for.

Also, Richer Sounds were very accommodating. I wanted to see if the box would fit in my car. and the manager helped me. It almost did, so I thought I'd chance it and if not get a taxi back. So I paid, tried manhandling it into my car, and knocked the handbrake off in the process, thus almost rolling into traffic. And the steering wheel was locked. Ooops. Could have been worse. Decided to get a taxi. Asked Richer Sounds manager to call me one, but I ended up hailing one as it went past.

TV set up. I now only have one orphan unconnected device. I also have a huge pile of leftover packaging! And the taxi journey took forever! Was planning to drop TV off and ask drive to turn round but I couldn't be bothered with Leicester City traffic. Decided to set it up. Found that while there are hundreds of apps on it, there's no search facility! Still, it did have enough slots for most of my devices so I don't need them.

Satisfied, I wandered back to pick up my car. Realised I'd misunderstood the parking restrictions and rather than free after 4pm, there's no parking at all after that time. Ooops! I guess I just need to consider the parking ticket part of the price.
luckykaa: (cortina)

Decided to step up my search for a new car. I really love the look of the BMW Z4 in Burgundy. Checked Auto Trader. One had appeared just on the edge of my search radius (which is about 100 road miles). So I rang up and arranged to see it.

Had a look around. Paint was a little damaged. Alloys weren't in excellent nick. But then it is 12 years old. And that's all fixable. The price itself seemed pretty good.

Walked in, expecting an enthusisatic welcome. Salesman handed me the key with a grunt and let me look at it. Was expecting a little more of an attempt to, you know, sell me a car. Okayyyy... So I sat in. It's a very comfortable cosy car compared with the spartan MR2. Very BMW. Was a little disapointed that it was an automatic. Should have checked before but that's not a deal breaker.

Played with it a bit. Roof opened and closed nicely. Even the CD changer still worked, which was a surprise; this is the only time I've seen a 10 year old CD changer that still works! But I don't *want* a CD changer. I want bluetooth and a line-in. And a 12 year old car doesn't have those. Nor does it look like it's easy to change it.

Also the satnav wasn't worth having. Once again the problem with advanced 10-year-old technology. It becomes old fashioned incredibly quickly! No touch screen, rubbish UI. I have my Tomtom so it doesn't matter too much but it rubs me uop the wrong way to have satnav that I'd never use.

Still, was still considering it. Good price and nothing inherently wrong. It might be possible to replace the stereo. I know people do it although it might be model dependent. So I walked in and asked to take it for a test drive. The salesman grunted "£10 deposit", and pointed to a sign on the wall. Apparently they charge a tenner for a test drive that they only refund if I buy the car.

"Okay", I said, then handed the keys back, and decided he can get stuffed.

Is it too entitled to expect a little bit of respect when you're planning to give someone several thousand quid?

So that one's a "no". Which is a shame. But "no" while not very satisfying is still a valuable datum. And I learned a few more things.

  • I need to reduce my search radius. Welwyn is 2 hours drive in reasonably good traffic. I wouldn't have minded if I wanted the car (I drove 70 miles to look at the MR2 I bought last year)
  • I need to check what sort of transmission a car has before going to look at it.
  • I'm not so sure a Z4 is the car for me. Still a contender - Apart from radio and satnav it was a nice car - but I need to compare with others.
  • Ask about test drives before going to see a car.
  • Research aftermarket stereos.

And I got to drive my mum's car with the roof down which is always fun. So it was a fun day out.

luckykaa: (Car)
Last year sometime I bought myself an impractical Toyota MR2. I knew it was impractical and I knew I'd get sick of it after a few week.

Turned out I loved the thing!

So now I want another new car. Something impractial but possibly with a boot this time. Something I can squeeze a medium sized case into. That was literally the *only* problem I had with the MR2.

Quite like the look of the BMW Z4. Especially in Burgundy. Seem few and far between though. Plenty in silver (why is that such a popular colour!?). Saw a gorgeous one going for a good price, but that would involve getting to Southend. Maybe a black one.

There's also the Audi TT Quattro. Don't want a front wheel drive. Feels like it's just a pretender, but the Quattro has 4WD. There was one for sale a few doors from my parents for a whie but it disappeared just as I arrived back.

The MGF and MG-TF I think is one of the most gorgeous cars made in the last couple of decades. Tempting...  Must be green. It's the law!

And an outsider is the Porsche Boxster. I'd have to go for a much older one than the others. But everyone agrees that this is one of the best sports cars there is.

Of course I could look at the same as last time. The boot space is an issue but I did love the car.
luckykaa: (cortina)
So, having taken my car in to be fixed, I get a phone call. Apparently there's yet more wrong with it. Except it's hard to communicate exactly what. I ask a collague to talk to him. Turns out that the part that the connects the brakes to the chassis is also rusted and needs to be replaced. I find out if it will be fixable by Saturday since I've already booked tickets and if there's anything else wrong with it. The answers are no, and yes respectively. I decide it's not worth fixing it. He does say he'll buy it from me.

So I head over to Dusseldorf. Accept whatever he'll offer me. Actually €400 isn't too bad, but then we hit the stumbling block of non-German paperwork. He asks me to come back when his boss is there so we can deal with it. I grudgingly agree. So I need to get to Dusseldorf again in a couple of weeks. And the only reason I agree to is because I don't want the car to be stuck in limbo.

Rather stupidly I booked a 13:00 train back. this meant a long wait.

13:00 comes. Train is cancelled! Another hour wait, as well as anxiety because I'm not 100% sure that that was the problem, and the person in front of me had one of those extremely long queries.

Really I just want this car saga to be over. I can't keep pissing about going to and from Dusseldorf.

Maybe I should hire a car next time. There is a SixT office right outside my office... 
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