The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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2:33pm on Saturday, 24th February, 2007:
Anecdote
So, here I am sitting in a layby on the A1081 just off the junction with the A1. I'm here, because this is where the man from the AA towed me after my car broke down on the A1 itself. I'm currently waiting for a truck to come and take me and my car the 98 miles back to Colchester. It's costing me £191, as I had to upgrade my AA membership from the "free" roadside service I get as a result of being a Llloyds TSB bank gold card holder (which costs me about £10 a month for such "benefits"). Because I updated on the same day I used my recovery facility, I only got 50 miles worth of towing for free — it's £2 per mile for the rest of the trip.
The problem is a broken gearbox, which needs to be replaced rather than repaired. The gearbox on this car (which is nearly 10 years old) has always been tricky with reverse, but last week I had particular difficulty engaging it to get out of the garage. It was fine afterwards, but when I arrived at my Dad's house from Middlesbrough yesterday, reverse went entirely. It was thus with some skepticism that I set off today, and sure enough after a couple of hours I was crawling along approaching some roadworks and the gear felt as if it had fallen away from the gearstick. No amount of violence could persuade it to engage any gears, forward or reverse.
Some police officers stopped and helped me push it the car off the main carriageway, then the AA man showed up (I knew he was close when it started to rain).
I wouldn't care, but I have the car booked in for a service and MOT on Tuesday. Is that ever going to cost me now...
Still, on the bright side, at least I have something to spend my recent windfall on.
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Copyright © 2007 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).