cwspellowe the car killer

[cwspellowe]

what a night.

Linzi's brother David has flown over from Oz for a month for Xmas, first time he's been over for 6 years and it's a big surprise for their Mum and Dad, so the plan was for us to go pick him up last night in my motor and have him stay with us for a couple of days first.

As you may or may not know, the estate is a combination of broked and untaxed at the minute, me killing what looks to be a second turbo in the space of a month, this time through overly chronic boostz. So, we were offered the use of Linzi's mum's new car (after the Seicento of doom died a horrible insurance based write off two weeks ago, not my fault I must add although I hated that car).

The replacement? An actually pretty tidy 02 plate Ka 1.3 Luxury, leather seats, aircon, massive step up from the Seicento. "Great little runner" according to her. We'll see..

Told her we were, erm, "going to Toys R Us to collect something that couldn't be delivered" and spun a massive web of lies which looked suspicious as hell but anyway, she bought it, and off we went.

Now, Glasgow airport's about 30 miles from here. After 5 miles or so, I heard a weird rattley noise coming from the engine bay. I put it down to new car random noise as i'd been assured it was a "great little runner". See where this is going?

5 miles later, the rattle gets louder with the throttle and eventually, at 65mph on the M74, nae power, car grinds to a halt at the side of the motorway. Brilliant. Nae warning lights or anything, just total loss of power.

Steam everywhere, bonnet open, guess what? Rad cap off. All the coolant had boiled away and the engine cooked itself. Not only that, the coolant sensor had been unplugged so there were no temp warnings on the dash, all Ka's have is a light that flashes up if it's overheating or low on coolant. Reminds me why I love the estate with its plethora of gauges, hate driving a car and not knowing what's going on with it.

Left it to cool down, ran it off the motorway to the nearest shop and f*cked in 6 litres of Volvic. Cap back on, everything seemed fine, made it to the airport.

Filled the bottles with water again as history has a habit of repeating itself. Picked up David and thought i'd better check how bad the head gasket's knackered. Poured more water in, took another 4L. No leaks anywhere. So in the space of what, 15 miles? It had eaten 4L of water, bit worrying. Started to run a bit rough surprisingly hahaha.

FIgured ah it'll be fine, we'll limp it home, David's just off the back of 36 hours of travelling so let's just get him home.

10 miles later, rattly noise came back. Linzi's mum said she thinks it's the bonnet strut rattling about under the bonnet. Nope, diagnosis is the car's cooking itself, burning off the oil in the head and the tappets are rattling like f*ck.

Finally admit defeat just outside Glasgow, phone the RAC and home we go. At the cost of £25 to add an extra car to my policy at the roadside as I stupidly never took out 3rd party cover, only my car is covered by it. Still cheaper than 911 who wanted £150 to get it home, although funnily enough RAC contracted the job out to 911 anyway and I have to say, the driver was a star. Supposed to finish at 9pm, took the job at 8.45pm, didn't get us home til 11pm due to traffic and still took Linzi, wee man and David to our house, took me and the car to the inlaws' house, and me back up to my house too. Great service from him.

So yeah, 2012 - i've ended the year putting two cars off the road and i've had 4 breakdowns in two cars in 6 months. What a year.