Car, car, car trouble
Sometime last week my car started to make the most annoying and deafening squeal. I couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from, it just sounded like it was somewhere in the front. I thought it was possibly the wheels, maybe something catching on them. Then on Friday as I was leaving work, I ended up sitting in the car with my heater on full attempting to demist the windscreen enough so that I could see to drive. After 15 minutes of that, it had cleared about three inches. By the time I got home, half an hour later, it had just about cleared half the windscreen, even with it still on full belt. So I rang the garage and finally got it booked it for today.
I'd made sure to get a courtesy car booked and so this morning, I went to drop my car off. Handily, it was on my way into work and I even managed to arrive 5 minutes early! It was 7.55am and they didn't open till 8 but there were two other people already waiting inside so I joined them. Somehow I got seen to first and the bloke handed me the keys to a white Micra, saying that it was out the side door but if I couldn't find it to come back. Sure enough, I could see two silver Micras and a blue one, but no white ones. I double checked with the reg number off the key tag but it still wasn't out there so I went back in. Bloke says, "It's supposed to be on site. Take a seat at Reception and I'll get you another one sorted." Quarter of an hour later, he comes over and hands me the keys to a Nissan Note - *eyeroll* - and tells me that it's in the back car park. I went out to find it with some difficulty as the keytag didn't have the colour on it. Finally I saw a dark blue Note with the right reg on it, but it didn't have the 'THIS PERSON IS DRIVING A COURTESY CAR FROM FAB MOTORS' stickers all over it so I was a bit dubious. I unlocked it and when I opened the door, I was greeted with ... stuff. It looked like it was someone's car, especially with the brolly in the door pocket. I was now even more dubious, but the reg was right and the key worked so it was obviously the right car. At least it had petrol in so that was a good thing. I decided to take it anyway although I expected a call any minute saying I'd got the wrong one.
About 4.20, ten minutes before I'm due to leave work, I got a call from the garage. They'd taken my car out twice and it had not made a single noise. They'd checked everything they could think of and it was completely fine. And the demister worked perfectly. Arse. So I drove back to get mine and was greeted by a Bloke #2. He said that as my car has such low milage, it's probably due to the fact that the brakes are rusting up with low use and the squeal is it being removed. Or something. He recommended that I took the car out once a month and did a few hundred miles in it just to give it a good run. I suppose that's a good excuse for a day out but it does seem a bit extreme. When I said that it had only happened lately, since I'd got back from Boston, he said that having it sit for 6 weeks while I was away probably didn't help. Funny that it's not happened before though. Oh, and I asked if I'd been given someone's car and he said that they'd run out of courtesy ones so I'd been given the Parts Manager's car. *gulp* As if it's not bad enough that they make you sign a form agreeing to their insurance with an excess of £2500, they also give me not just anyoldbody's car, but the Parts Managers. They're lucky I didn't have heart failure on the spot.
I'm kind of glad that my car's still going though. It's getting on a bit now; it's 9 years old so I could probably do with getting a newer one at some point. Actually, I was looking at the used cars at the garage, and they have a very nice Renault Megane 1.6 Dynamique+ Cabriolet. It's only two years newer than mine and has 38,000 miles on the clock which is 3,000 more than mine! I'm not so sure that it would be a good replacement.
I'd made sure to get a courtesy car booked and so this morning, I went to drop my car off. Handily, it was on my way into work and I even managed to arrive 5 minutes early! It was 7.55am and they didn't open till 8 but there were two other people already waiting inside so I joined them. Somehow I got seen to first and the bloke handed me the keys to a white Micra, saying that it was out the side door but if I couldn't find it to come back. Sure enough, I could see two silver Micras and a blue one, but no white ones. I double checked with the reg number off the key tag but it still wasn't out there so I went back in. Bloke says, "It's supposed to be on site. Take a seat at Reception and I'll get you another one sorted." Quarter of an hour later, he comes over and hands me the keys to a Nissan Note - *eyeroll* - and tells me that it's in the back car park. I went out to find it with some difficulty as the keytag didn't have the colour on it. Finally I saw a dark blue Note with the right reg on it, but it didn't have the 'THIS PERSON IS DRIVING A COURTESY CAR FROM FAB MOTORS' stickers all over it so I was a bit dubious. I unlocked it and when I opened the door, I was greeted with ... stuff. It looked like it was someone's car, especially with the brolly in the door pocket. I was now even more dubious, but the reg was right and the key worked so it was obviously the right car. At least it had petrol in so that was a good thing. I decided to take it anyway although I expected a call any minute saying I'd got the wrong one.
About 4.20, ten minutes before I'm due to leave work, I got a call from the garage. They'd taken my car out twice and it had not made a single noise. They'd checked everything they could think of and it was completely fine. And the demister worked perfectly. Arse. So I drove back to get mine and was greeted by a Bloke #2. He said that as my car has such low milage, it's probably due to the fact that the brakes are rusting up with low use and the squeal is it being removed. Or something. He recommended that I took the car out once a month and did a few hundred miles in it just to give it a good run. I suppose that's a good excuse for a day out but it does seem a bit extreme. When I said that it had only happened lately, since I'd got back from Boston, he said that having it sit for 6 weeks while I was away probably didn't help. Funny that it's not happened before though. Oh, and I asked if I'd been given someone's car and he said that they'd run out of courtesy ones so I'd been given the Parts Manager's car. *gulp* As if it's not bad enough that they make you sign a form agreeing to their insurance with an excess of £2500, they also give me not just anyoldbody's car, but the Parts Managers. They're lucky I didn't have heart failure on the spot.
I'm kind of glad that my car's still going though. It's getting on a bit now; it's 9 years old so I could probably do with getting a newer one at some point. Actually, I was looking at the used cars at the garage, and they have a very nice Renault Megane 1.6 Dynamique+ Cabriolet. It's only two years newer than mine and has 38,000 miles on the clock which is 3,000 more than mine! I'm not so sure that it would be a good replacement.