Shiny Things

Car falling to pieces already

Well, it's happened sooner than I thought.

I've been told by my various advisors (whose very sound advice I've been paying close attention to) that I should expect my car to break since it was so cheap.

I was hoping to have it for more than 6 weeks though.

The exhaust broke properly last week. I knew the back section was blowing (hark at me, I sound like I actually know what that means - actually I do! Observe my surprise!). Well, it started to really make a racket and then it fell down and dragged on the ground, threatening to fall off in pieces. The bit of the undercarriage that it attaches to is falling to pieces and needs to be replaced - a welding job, I'm told.

The garage I was at to have the exhaust fixed urgently, had no welding facilities so they made a temporary fix for me to keep the new, shiny exhaust from trailing along the ground.

Unfortunately it didn't last long.

2 days later I was on the way to the shop (9.30pm) and got about a mile away from home and it fell down again.

I had to improvise a means to keep it off the ground, in the dark with no source of light, by the side of an unlit main road going out into a village with no streetlights.

The only thing I had to tie it up with was the black belt I was wearing.

Had to drive very, very slowly home and had a really, really long queue of shiny, silver, working cars behind me when I turned off the main road. (And before someone asks, yes I have breakdown cover, yes I called them out, and yes I went through almost 30 minutes of repeating my details because they couldn't find me and then when they did it was a 60 minute wait for a van to get to me).

In the boot of the car you will now find a very clean and shiny towrope, a large maglite torch a couple of bungees and a set of jump leads. I'm trying to get prepared for further breakages.

I will be investing in a petrol can for when I push it too far before filling up. This is likely to happen because I have serious issues removing the petrol cap. It's tricky and so far I've only managed to fill up twice without someone stopping to ask if I'm OK - in fact the 1st time I tried to fill up it was freeeeeeezing cold! I absolutely couldn't get the cap off and I couldn't feel my hands, I'd been at it for 30mins. Thankfully the guy who stopped to help also had trouble with it! Phew! I didn't feel quite so girly and crap after that. Although being offered assistance on the next 2 filling occasions did nothing for me.... I said I was OK though - it wasn't half past midnight and freezing cold and I was determined to get the damn thing off!!

OK, rant over.

posted by bugexplorer @ 1:20 AM