Failure is the Key to Success

This afternoon driving home, I got to see something that brought a smile to my face. You know that feeling when you see a bad driver and you fleetingly wish that they didn’t get away with their bad driving.

At the first set of traffic lights coming into Dunstable, a shiny black, new looking, Range Rover Vogue shot down the turning right lane past the traffic queuing to go straight on and then forced its way back in on the junction.

It was obviously in a busting hurry on the next set of lights as well, as the fire engine approaching from the right with lights and sirens on had no impact on his attempts to get over the junction ahead of it. The problem was, traffic was heavy and he didn’t have room to finish what he started, so the fire engine did ultimately have a bigger impact on his journey time.

I didn’t see the actual impact myself as I was behind a large truck, but could see that he must have been pushed sideways quite a bit as I watched him manoeuvre out from in front of the fire engine while it was sat in the middle of the junction with lights and sirens going. They had to leave someone behind to deal with this idiot while the rest of them continued to the emergency they had been called to.

The truck driver in front of me stopped at the fire station (50 yards from the junction) to be a witness to what happened.

I don’t know what it is about drivers these days. There seems to be a much higher proportion that treat lane markings and red lights as an inconvenience to be ignored and don’t have any respect for other drivers or users on the road.

Tags:hit by a fire engine

Just before Christmas, I had problems with my car’s brakes, which meant an expensive visit to the garage. Last weekend I noticed that I could hear a rubbing sound from the left side of the car that varied with its speed. I arranged for the garage to look at it today. I half expected to have to argue that something must not have been fitted properly when they had it last.

I rang up this afternoon for an update, expecting to hear a catalogue of things that were wrong, only to be pleasantly surprised to be told that my car was on its way back. It turns out that there was a small build up of rust on the back of the rear brake disc that was rubbing on the brake disc.

It must be the only time I’ve had work done on a car for nothing.

Tags:car brakes

My car has been sick for the last few days. When I got to work on Monday morning, I could hear a ticking sound, the sound hot metal makes as it cools down. When I got out of the car, I could ’smell’ something was hot and on investigation it turned out that the passenger side rear brake disc was extremely hot. I concluded from this that the calliper had stuck on.

I rang the garage, but they were fully booked until today. Very few of the people at my work actually live in or travel through Dunstable any more, so I was starting to despair of finding a lift. I did manage to find a lift which I was very grateful for and it didn’t inconvenience them as they travel past the end of my road.

Continue reading » My car’s better now

Tags:car brakes

A couple of weeks ago I posted about buying tyres online and how it didn’t go quite to plan. BestBuyTyres contacted me on the Monday and were very honest and appologetic about the mistake with the opening hours on their website. The installation was re-arranged for last Saturday and now I have the tyres that I wanted fitted at the price that suited me.

Last Thursday while driving home from work, a warning light came on. It was the emissions warning light. So Friday, I arranged for the car to go into the dealer yesterday when I went back to work. The check strap on the driver’s door was very noisy so I asked them to replace it while they had the car.

Continue reading » Car tyres and problems

Tags:car tyres,emissions warning light

I had hoped today to be able to talk about my experiances of buying car tyres online. I can, but the story’s not over yet.

Last Sunday evening, my neighbour knocked to let me know that I had a flat tyre. I went out to change it quickly before the light went, but I should have known it wouldn’t be as easy as that. Although I could undo the wheel bolts, the alloy had stuck to the hub. I didn’t have anthing suitable for hitting it with, so I called out the AA. They estimated that they would be with me within 2 hours and actually arrived after about 35 minutes. It only took him a minute or so to tap off the alloy with a hide hammer (I must get one for the car). He fitted the spare while he was here and that was it.

Continue reading » Buying tyres online

Tags:aa,car tyres

Rant alert!

Jo took her car in today for the oxygen sensor to be replaced. This is the follow up to the last visit, a couple of weeks ago. OK, so Steven Eagell Toyota didn’t manage to resolve it before the end of the summer holidays, but they did provide a courtesy car.

On the way home this evening, the engine management light came back on. Wow, that £300 resolution lasted a long time.

I rang the dealer to let them know that the light had come back on. Jo can take it back in tomorrow for them to reset the sensor and check that one of the other sensors hasn’t failed. Evidently once a sensor has failed, it puts additional strain on the remaining sensors which could cause them to fail.

Now, I know I’m not a car mechanic, but a sensor is just a measuring device and it either returns a signal or it doesn’t. If it were some kind of filter that had failed, I could understand the sensors behind it becoming overloaded, but with a sensor, the others will measure what is there regardless of if the first is working or not. If however, contrary to what Jo was told, there is a detrimental effect from driving the car while the sensor has failed, then its a whole different matter.

Jo is fuming. It’s not just the cost, but the inconvenience of having to take it back and wondering what will have ‘failed’ this time.

Tags:engine management light,toyota dealer