Travel woes
 

We're off in Fanny and had a bit of bother on the way.
I'll leave this here though ...
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...138afd6058.jpg

Sent by magick

A decade on. Bittersweet, seeing some of those names.

True, very true.

Sent by magick

Limey, did you get your car running yet? I haven't heard anything more about it.

This is where it all started at 1pm on Wednesday. You are going to need your maps, folks ...
We'd left home with Fanny in tow at 8am and got as far as three miles north of Tebay services on the M6 when the engine suddenly lost power so I pulled over to the hard shoulder and called the AA (Automobile Association, vehicle rescue and recovery).
About 2.30pm the first AA chap turned up, diagnosed "injector fault" and suggested that we drive in "limp mode" to the service station where we could review our options in comfort.
Our planned journey was: home - overnight at Sandbach (Cheshire) - two nights near Shaftesbury - ten nights near High Wycombe - one night at Sandbach and then home. And I had the basic package from the AA which simply gets your taken to the nearest garage if repair is needed. Until we got Fanny that's all I'd ever thought necessary as I reckoned I could always rent a car to continue my journey. But renting something with a towbar is a little trickier ... so I upgraded to AA Relay, which takes you to a chosen destination.
We considered our possible destinations and decided that High Wycombe was the best option as we could leave the car with a garage for several days if necessary. That was a relay journey of 252 miles. If you upgrade during a recovery you only get the first 50 miles free, after that they apply a mileage charge (£2.50/mile). But I still reckoned it was the only choice as we deffo wanted to be at High Wycombe. We abandoned the side trip to Shaftesbury.
(Saving £60 in campsite fees and £80 in diesel costs).
The truck for the first leg of the recovery appeared at 7pm. We reckoned our ETA at final destination would be around 3-4am.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...daa49b7a21.jpg

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First truck (a local garage subcontracted to the AA) took us 63 miles, to Charnock Richard services where a real AA truck awaited us. The first driver drove our car onto his truck and said, inter alia, that it didn't sound like anything was wrong with the injectors.
We left Charnock Richard around 9pm I guess. Truck 2 took us all the way to Warwick. This is when we discovered that the M6 is nothing but roadworks at night with regular holds ups and slows, and four lanes reduced to one and other shit. Driver 2 used the hoist to get the car onto his truck. He gave us a running commentary on the vices of all the other drivers on the road. We got to Warwick around 2am or so. We were losing the will to live .....

Sent by magick

Sounds like a PITA. Were you able to get a vehicle with a hitch bar? We feel for you, hopefully you and Fanny will get back on the road soon.

Unexpected mechanical woes are the pits. Hope ya get stuff sorted, Limey.

Try to enjoy yourselves, out of spite if ya have to.:comfort:











I'm gonna guess it's the fuel pump/filter.[/outoftheblueuneducatedguess]

Definitely not the Russians.

Truck 3 hadn’t been told we were towing so we had to wait 45 minutes for a colleague of his to turn up with a road-light extension lead before we could set off. He took us from Warwick to within 40 miles of our ultimate destination. He too was a subcontractor and he, too, said he couldn’t hear the engine “missing” the way you’d expect with an injector fault. His boss told him to drop us at a service station (instead of taking us to our destination) because he was *potentially* needed elsewhere. He left us at 3.30am assuring us that another truck would pick us up. At 4.30am I rang the AA and begged them to make it stop! Please could we sleep? They cheerfully agreed to reschedule the next truck for 10am and we popped Fanny up and slept the sleep of the just.
Truck 4, scheduled for 11am, was rescheduled for 11.30, then 12.20pm .... meanwhile, with some sleep and caffeine in me I got proactive and booked the car into a garage near our final destination and told the AA to take the car there first, and then take Fanny and us to our destination.
We finally arrived at 3pm on Wednesday. 26 hours in the arms of the AA and 31hours after setting off.
The garage say they cannot find anything wrong with the car.


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Bad gas? Do some burnouts around the station if it doesn't skip a beat go back to fanny.

An oxygen sensor that was going bad caused something like that to happen with my car. It would work for a while, then it wouldn't and the engine would lose power. I'd turn the car off for a while and when I started it up again it would work for a while, then it wouldn't and the engine would lose power again. Diagnostics didn't detect what was wrong in the early stages of malfunction. After it got worse the diagnostics pinpointed it.

Auugh! That's pretty bad. At least you had a instant bedroom.

I should think an injector fault would throw a code that a code reader could read.

Heavens above! It sounds like an automotive soap opera.

I know that I'm stating the obvious here but the incident itself tends to be a relatively minor part of the whole event.
It's subsequently being at the mercy of others who are pulling the strings, often in different directions, that causes the real stress and hassle.

I've never had the misfortune of having to stop on a motorway hard shoulder but the thought of it scares me given the potential dangers.
From your photo it seems that you retreated to higher ground. Very wise!

So are you camping now, or back home?

what kind of car is that? I don't recognize it. Kia?