cars – T E Shepherd

More Expense…

Thomas — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:23:00 +0000

Okay, so I wonât be getting my car back from its service today. Apparently it needs some little oxygen censor. This is a something that is probably about the size of my finger nail but will cost me an arm and a leg. This, of course, after the exhaust last week, and my ailing laptop. Itâs a one repair too many that I donât need. :-

C1? Digital display rubbish

Thomas — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:04:00 +0000

This time round I decided to take my car in for its service and MOT the night before, and so I rolled up at The Holt to collect my loan car. They said it had a quarter of a tank of petrol left in it, and so it looked when I first drove the tinny little boy’s toy box off the forecourt. But the Citroen C1 has a really stupid digital display on its pathetically small dashboard, and it wasn’t until I was down the hill and crossing the long and narrow bridge at Lower Heyford (and only about a mile or two at most from the garage) that it went beep-beep-beep and flashed low petrol with one bar remaining. The stupid thing must have just been millilitres from &frac18; of a tank. Damn annoying thing. And the car feels like a tin can, and the radio doesnât remember its stations. Its not good.

Kwik Stop at Kwik Fit

Thomas — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:46:00 +0000

I didn’t think that my car’s silencer should have gone quite yet, after all it was only replaced a year ago at its last service. And it hadn’t. The silencer was working perfectly. It’s just that the exhaust pipe wasn’t going anywhere near the silencer. To add expense upon expense, I need to have the whole front end of the exhaust replaced, because Peugeot obviously think it a good idea to fit them in one section not two. Still, it looks like the original exhaust, so 8 years has got to be quite a good longevity. Just a shame that the rear tyres needed doing too, and all at the time when I’m about to buy a house â more expense…

A noise like thunder

Thomas — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:34:00 +0000

The advantage of nice weather is that when driving home in the afternoon sun, you can slide down the windows, and roll back the sunroof. The downside to this is that you can hear the alarmingly embarrassing noise coming from the back of your car. With a booming exhaust I drive through Bicester. This can’t go on. Tomorrow I must take action and have it repaired on the way to work.

Follow the trail of petrol…

Thomas — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:43:00 +0000

Friday 13^th came early for me last night. On the way back from band, I had to make my way through Oxford again due to a road closure on A34, and, whilst waiting at some traffic lights I smelt a horrid petrolly smell and thought that that was a nasty, smelly car in front of me. Further through Oxford I had my windows wound down to get rid of the smell, and for the most part it was gone, tho’ it was still lingering. Back on the A34 and everything was fine, until I got to the big roundabout over the M40 where I smelt it again. I also noticed that my fuel guage – previously around half full was significantly down – the first inkling that something was up. As I pulled away, I had to really pump the accelerator to get me going (yes, I know now, probably the wrong thing to do as it happens) and I did get faster, eventually, after a struggling. Going through town, I was fine until the last stretch round the ringroad when again, I had a problem accelerating and my fuel guage was around &frac18;^th! Not good.

I did manage to park up in my parking space, but it was then that I saw the identifiable trickle of petrol leading from the back of my car, round the road and back where I had just come from. Definitely not good. I’m not going to even attempt to go anywhere, I thought.

Now, I’m just waiting for the right time to phone Britannia Rescue to be taken to the garage where hopefully there will be a courtesy car waiting for me… *fingers crossed*

Life is what happens to you…

Thomas — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:45:00 +0000

1. Today I’ve been driving Hopcroft Holt’s shiny red Citroen C1 today, which is a ‘boy’s car’ if ever there was one â it’s a bit like a drink’s can really! My car seems to have an oil leak, so I’m currently hoping and praying and touching wood with crossed fingers that its something really easy and cheap to fix. Ggrrr to cars.

2. Yesterday I discovered that I had been shortlisted for interview for the (curiously entitled) Asset Management Coordinator position (?!!) at Pearson

3. My current boss is a really nice guy. However, boy does he yaffle. Now I realise that people in glass houses, really shouldn’t throw stones about things like yaffling, but there is also the old adage that what one finds irritating about other people is something that one is also guilty of. Anyhow, I’m not entirely sure how my boss does it, but he makes the most revolting noise when eating apples. I’ve had to whack my music on full blast to cover it.

4. Eeep! It now seems that I have not one but two interviews next week. A small web design agency in Oxford, at the interesting address of the Old Slaughterhouse want to interview me. I’m not sure if I’m exactly what they are looking for, but I’ve answered their supplementary application questions honestly, and they still want to interview me, so here goes.

5. Crap! Apparently my oil leak is going to mean a new head gasket at some horrible expense, and they can’t do it until after Easter now. Double crap!

Intermittently identified

Thomas — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:48:00 +0000

At the last minute, I had a call from The Holt with news of my car. Up until that moment I was on my way back on the bus to collect my car, with the problem still unidentified. But no, plans changed, in one last desperate effort they had the car rigged up to all their monitoring equipment and had the engine idling over and discovered the problem. A faulty temperature gage in the engine startup whatsit meant that it was that the computer was incorrectly telling the engine that the car was running at -40° or something silly like that and so was thus pumping more petrol through and flooding the engine.

The dead battery was just the icing on the cake on Wednesday that meant that this time round the intermittent became permanent.

They have ordered in the parts and it should be fixed on Monday and even more exciting, hopefully not cost a small fortune!

The intermittent just got permanent

Thomas — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:12:00 +0000

For the past few months I’ve been struggling with an intermittent fault on my car, which being intermittent was undetectable by the garage when I did take it into the garage a while back.