On the Road Again!

When it comes to MoT time, unless you have a fantastic car or motorcycle, then there is always that heart in mouth when it goes in to test. Even when you know there is nothing wrong, or assume, as it drives, steers, stops, starts, brakes properly that there might be something it will fail on......  Today is that day for me. The car is at Caffyns in Ashford for the MoT and service.  It will be there all day I expect. I asked for it to be ready for around 3pm in the hope that it would be ready before the evening rush hour starts, My Insignia is what I call a bump-magnet.  It has three corners where someone else has been so crap at parking in the marked spaces in car-parks that they have made some contact.  If I was that shit as a driver, then I would accept it and at least leave a note to say I had bumped into another car and caused damage. Sadly the drivers of Folkestone and Hythe prang your car and piss off.  What a way to live your lives eh?  Dishonest sku...

It was booked in for 8am and so given the "limp mode" situation, I set off at 7.20am. The plan was to take the A20 but as I left Hythe the "road closed" signs were still up on London Road and so I had to go through Saltwood.  As a result I ended up on the M20. On two hills out of Hythe I was down to 8mph on one and I managed 10 on the other,  flat out. Once on the motorway I got up to 45mph. As there are long term roadworks to build a new junction that wasn't a problem. It turns out that the problem was that the pipe to the turbo had split. Parts came to about £240 and labour even more. With VAT added, the bill came to £670.03 Gulp. At least it is back. * I had no ideal that "limp mode" was a real thing!

The day before we are due to set off on holiday, this pops up. Oddly, a few days before we went in holiday last year it threw the timing belt and me and the RAC man managed to get it back on. My neighbour John has a garage and they checked it over. Just in time. Of course it's not due a service. Only having done 4000 miles since it was done in February. I rang Caffyns and they say it is not only that but they need to see it. I have it booked in on August 12th when we get back from Devon. Luckily we have Claire's Corsa. It's much smaller but we will have to see that we can squeeze in. posted from Bloggeroid