Rip Off Breakdown / Recovery Garages

[Lord Pig-Pen]

This may be a bit boring but worth a read, especially if anyone in your family drives any distance.
Today the Chavalier split a hose and dumped her water while in Pompey.
I had taken all my tools out for my Brethren Stag trip on friday nite (stupid) as the chav had been superb for 1000 miles so a quick blat to ealing should not be a prob.
5 hours in traffic proved otherwise and she got hot... obviously now to water loss.
All ok until today until it went big style.
Found spraying hose.
Rang Breakdown.
Bloke arrived (decent chap)
No hose on board so tow to depot.....
arrive... car in strait away.
Wont be long... its an easy one

Half hour later... its not the hose we thought... its a dealer only one..
5 Mins later... you need all the other hoses on the rear of the engine changing. they are all perished.
Just do the one.. just to get me home... I dont care about all that, will sort it at home.

Its not that easy these are not standard.. the hose has different sized ends. (f**k me, rubber stretches). Vauxhall made tens of thousands of Chavailers, all using similar ish hoses for each model... we can all make something fit...

Cant you take one off the 2 scrap chavs I can see out the back...

Can't touch those sir. Insurance claims.

Cut a long story short.. once they had spoken to vauxhall on the phone and realised they had a disabled car on the ramp as no hoses were on the shelf , send nipper out to rob a hose off one of the others in the yard.

End result... 3 wasted hours, £68 bill and no charge for the secondhand hose... but...
The very posh Lady that arrived while I was there with a screw in her rear tire, on an A Class Merc had a different story.

You have a puncture in one back tyre Madam, the other is worn on the outside and both fronts are worn on the inside edge. As you have continentals on the front, which are very hard to get and Bridgestones? on the back it would be best to change all 4.

To which she replied... with alot of choice words and waving of an MOT certificate..  they had done an MOT on the car 4 days earlier! Had 3 of the tyres been worn then surely that would have been picked up. Matey tried to argue his scam but failed miserably when confronted by a female of far higher mental ability.

She had her puncture repaired in minutes and there was alot of stuttering between managers... shuffling of paper... and uneasy looks as there were a number of other customers looking on and smirking.

The Moral to this tale is.....The wary are aware and it dosn't take long to make them realise that. The unwary will get shafted... big style!
Watch out for B***hunt Garage if you are unlucky enough to need help anywhere in the south.

New hoses are on order and the old one will be sent back  to B***hunt  garage via signed for post so they can put it back on the car they were not allowed to touch....

[Piglet]

We've become quite expert in breaking down over the last couple of years 

Two breakdowns in Belgium, both fixed at no cost to us - first one was a rodent chewed hose, second one the hose blew off the inter-cooler.  On both occasions we were recovered to a garage that looked at the car immediately and fixed it straightaway at no cost to us.

The other time we had to be recovered home from Silverstone, the car went to our local Saab indi (who are great), this time also a leaky hose - £120! 

[BigH]

The Moral to this tale is.....

Personally LPP, I reckon the moral of the story is to dress up as posh Lady at all times whilst driving.
H

[LangTall]

 

[Lorry]

I remember the good old days.  On a trip like Le Mans you'd take a full set of hoses, belts, plugs, points etc, and probably need them.

[Leftie]

I remember the good old days.  On a trip like Le Mans you'd take a full set of hoses, belts, plugs, points etc, and probably need them.

I took all those and spare plugs, leads and even a dissy cap.

Just returning to nostalgic periods with a classic motor you understand.

Didn't need any of them.

[Lord Pig-Pen]

The Moral to this tale is.....

Personally LPP, I reckon the moral of the story is to dress up as posh Lady at all times whilst driving.
H

I  understand your wishes (and quirks) but work just wont allow such things. Have you met my Auntie Dennis? Truck driver using the CB handle of "Hung" He isnt of asian origin either!

[mgmark]

I remember the good old days.  On a trip like Le Mans you'd take a full set of hoses, belts, plugs, points etc, and probably need them.

Absolutely.  Still do out of habit, because the bit that you don't take will be the one that you need.   And can't get anywhere on a Sunday in France. 

I remember the occasional appeals that you would always hear on Radio Le Mans then for help and/or bits.  There would always be the usual appeals for bits that people really should have brought with them, but then others were more serious.  One in particular went along the lines of "Fred is on Camping du Houx with his 1965 MGB and has broken his offside halfshaft.  Can anyone help".  Followed a few hours later by "Many thanks to Jim for coming up with his spare MGB halfshaft - it's fitted and Fred is back on the road again".  One involved someone giving an MGC owner a lift to Tours and back to pick up a bit for an MGC from some contact in the French MG Car Club who had heard the appeal for whatever widget was needed.   One memorable one was for a welding kit to repair something major, and lo and behold, someone had one in his Transit van....

All, of course, undertaken in the pioneering spirit of the days before mobile phones and European breakdown cover.  Aahhh the cameraderie of classic motoring.....

MG Mark

[Steve Pyro]

The East Anglian Cobrateers have had a few breakdown traumas over the years whilst on our annual pilgrimage -

• A dead ignition due to a fried Mallory dual point distributor condenser (a Renault replacement fits).
• A dead short in my electric cooling fan - wire insulation melted in the motor (repaired on HA with a generator, a soldering iron and a multimeter).
• A blown whitewall tyre on the hot rod (replaced by a second hand spare in a village tyre yard - old tyre later ceremoniously burnt).
• Sheared oil pump drive in an automatic transmission (car towed back to HA and AA sent it home).
• Disintegrated clutch thrust bearing (car limped back to Calais and home).
• Overheated starter motor (wait until it cools down)
• Contaminated fuel injection system (crawl under cobra and drain various filters and tank).

Most of the tools we carry sorted these problems but many breakdowns were unexpected and hence no suitable spares carried - we still got home though.

[BigH]

Holy sh*t!! Fried Mallory Points!!!
Steve, I'd have got straight down to A&E with those mate, that could turn really nasty and you'd have some explaining to do once you got home. - manuka honey and furniture polish won't sort those out.
I usually carry at least a big hammer, and after my King Dick let me down badly (honest!!), a trolley jack. A set of imperial spanners, various hoses (or horses, if my spelling is particularly bad that morning, but they don't leave much room for passengers, and create an awful mess..). Does anyone still carry a couple of eggs? A scaffolder friend of mine took a couple of boiled eggs along one year, he reckoned they'd last longer. Mind you, the last time I broke down I'd sheared the engine mountings tackling a corner in a slightly spirited fashion and the engine sort of slumped forward and through the radiator, mincing everything between the water pump and grill. Even my very, very best Lucas feeler guages couldn't sort that one out. Every cloud has a silver lining though, and it gave me the opportunity to spend a very agreeable afternoon drinking as much beer as possible while waiting for a tow truck.
H

[Lorry]

I took all those and spare plugs, leads and even a dissy cap.

Just returning to nostalgic periods with a classic motor you understand.

Didn't need any of them.

Ahh, but if you didn't take them, it would go wrong, Murphy's fifth law
And I've got a King Dick wrench and its tiny.

I remember the requests for parts on RLM.  The stangest was for a Westfield SEight front upright, for the Harrier that was on the back of the grid

[nickliv]

When I had an old Saab, I used to think there was a troll living in the car, that knew when the car was running faultlessly, and would break something, so I used to always have something non critical left unmended. On long journeys I used to carry a spare head gasket in the car, as if the troll knew you already had the parts, then it would leave that bit of the car alone.

I generally kept spare bulbs, plugs, leads, exhaust wrap, and self amalgamating hose tape, with a variety of clips etc. Never needed any of it.

The talisman of an RAC card dodn't seem to be quite as effective.

[Lord Pig-Pen]

I have been SO lucky with my Nissan 300C runs down to LM. Always taken tools, trolley jack, bulbs, vulcanising tape etc... and never needed any of it. Even took a spare ignition transistor unit last time as one melted at home.
Dont think it would be easy to get ANY 300c parts in France... as they have been list deleted in the UK.

VW Camper next year..... fingers crossed. Spare Fan belt and Lady PP's tights should suffice....

[Lazy B'stard]

Top tip- Bluetack! Works a treat on any fuel leak. It turns solid and sticks like sh** to a blanket. Worked so well on a old Ford i had that I forgot to fix it properly- lasted months.
 I always carry lock wire, gaffer tape and a small ratchet strap- with those things you can fix just about everything

[sh4rpsh00ter]

Since buying a new car, never had to worry about this rubbish, but now I have a classic, i'm always thinking about what could go wrong, and thats just accross the town!!

We took an extra brolly this year for any poor TVR owners struggling with the exceptionally fine weather!!!