CAR TROUBLE

By johanne James

Hi there readers and I do hope you’ve all had a good week and earned lots of wonga? That’s money to the uneducated! Lol

Anyway, has anybody had car trouble of late? Well I have, and let me tell you it’s highly inconvenient, isn’t it? Frustrating to say the least! Just when you need to go somewhere your car says “I ain’t goin’ anywhere mate, I’m feeling rather crook, and mi oil needs changin’.”

Needless to say, if any of you have ever had a conversation with a car, then you need more help than I do! I swear at them sometimes, well a lot actually, but they never listen! A couple of weeks ago, and I’m sure that most of you will be able to identify with this, I heard a rattle coming from the engine, “Hmm, that doesn’t sound good” I thought and headed off to the garage and I was told by the oil soaked gentleman, my water pump was on the way out. Then he changed his mind and said it was the power steering. That’s going to cost me, and considering that the car is quite old and has done some 180.000 miles, then, well was it worth it? Now bearing in mind that I had an important engagement in the next few days I had acquired the skills of a mechanic who luckily lives just across the road who says, “It’s your water pump”. A couple of days later he turns up all tooled up, yeah, tooled up and starts pulling the car apart. And, in doing so discovers oil in the coolant. “I think your head gasket has gone mate” Oh dear, very big job and not worth the spending the money. He continues and removes the offending item only to discover it’s not the water pump. “Sounds fine to me” he says. “Oh there’s a hole in your radiator, and your AC unit has gone, plus your crank is toast”. The more he looked, the more that was wrong with it and most definitely not worth fixing, not forgetting the head gasket. It’ll cost me more than the car’s worth, and I’ve just spent £162.00 on getting new break disks and pads. Typical.

Now remember that I have an important engagement very soon and have to acquire a vehicle. I’m looking through car mags and it seems that all the best motors are 300 miles away in some forgotten town. Hence I ended up hiring a car for the  weekend to get me out of trouble until I returned from stunt abroad. Searching through car mags once again on my return, I found the perfect one, and not a million miles away. Now I drive a Citroen Picasso. They are great because I can get all of my drums in them. No hassle, as the back seat’s a removable, leaving me with acres of space to play with. Sometimes I don’t even have to remove the seats, just place everything where it needs to go and I’m off! Wonderful, I can even sleep in the back and have done when I’m in the doghouse, or the dog’s in my house, but that’s another story. I make arrangements to see the vehicle and off I go for a test drive, only to discover that there are two to choose from! Both 1600cc petrol engines and, due to the new ULEZ rules in London, which means that Diesel cars will be excluded from its inner city, it was a better position to be in! ULEZ meaning, ULTRA LOW EMISSION ZONES! Dilemma’s dilemma’s as both of these cars are both in good condition, but I go with the newer 2007 model with more miles, which is smooth and clean as opposed to the 2003, which had less miles but was a bit cranky. Hmm. This car has everything I need, and I got £162.00 for my old car to be scrapped. I guess I got my money back for the discs and pads I had spent a couple of weeks prior. I was sorry to see my old car go, but with all things, it had its day and served me very well indeed. Now all of my car troubles are over, I have another set of problems, like, no more money in my bank account! Yep, buying this newer motor vehicle has wiped me out. Now you can spend up to a £1.000 a year on keeping a second hand car on the road, but luckily my old motor didn’t cost me that much, and was very reliable, only the usual wear and tear and seeing as I’m no mechanic, I have to rely and pay loads if it does need fixing. I should really learn to do it myself and some things I can, but for major jobs, it’s a garage visit.

I’m sure as I’ve said, you can or most of you who drive can, identify with this story, and the inconvenience of it, but these things are built to a price and have a failsafe as to when they are going to break down and eventually, die! The more you spend is that you will likely not have to visit the garage as often, and the only way to be sure is to buy something brand new.
I’d like to think that my old Picasso has gone to that great scrapyard in the sky and not the one down below where it will more than likely be turned into some kind of hot rods, whereas up there, in the clouds, it’ll have a horse pulling it. Come on Dobbin, get a bloody move on. Sorry, only 1 horse power. I hope the Lord’s got a decent mechanic? He’ll need it!

Thanks for listening.

Johanne James