Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Car Saga

Well we got our baby home safely and apparently she drove nicely all the way. We gave her a general look over and found a few niggly things we wish we had known about, but overall were pleased with our purchase. BUT - at 12.30am she shook the neighbour hood with very loud sounding of her horn. Paul jumped from his slumber to attend her, but the time he was out of bed she was peaceful again. We assumed the rat-cat from across the road had jumped on her or something and settled back to sleep. Next morning she was dead as a Dodo! We were not sure if it was just battery or not, but thought it might be that or the starter motor. P tried to get the battery out that evening, but to no avail as the bolts were in awkward places and he couldn't see well enough by the time he got to it. SO, yesterday morning my friendly mechanic came out and jumped her for me (it was the battery) and advised us to get a new battery as hers was 6 years old and that is twice it's life expectancy. All day she continued to shout at us on and off - warning us loudly that she was dying again. I kept turning her over and that kept her quite for short periods. Finally Paul arrived home with a new battery mid afternoon and fitted her up and she has been happy ever since. To celebrate mobility we took the kids out to MaccyD's for tea (Jake was at a mate's) - something that has not been possible before as the nearest is in Crewe. She started up fine this morning and all looks good. We could have done without the extra £90 of expense, especially as her tax is due at the end of the month, but hey- ho!! The most important thing is we are a more-or-less (me being the 'less') mobile as a whole family now. And, as she is an automatic there is slightly more incentive for me to learn. I kinda' told myself that if ever we had an automatic I might give it another shot. Not sure how I feel about a bus as my first car though..?

Off to bed now - more house cleaning to do tomorrow and then I need to start thinking about stuff to take to J&J's summer party J

3 comments:

Sarah said...

lol, apparently previas are renowned for batteries suddenly going flat. It happened to us once when we had one, we were just about to leave the church camp we'd been on for a week and were parked waiting for the lorry to finish emptying the toilets - then by the time it did finish the battery was absolutely dead and we couldn't go anywhere. Then of course it started raining, the most torrential downpour that you only get at bible weeks. We'd been trying to escape before it, that will teach us!!

Anyway. just came to say that Previas are lovely and easy to drive, you should go for it!

Frogmum said...

Cheers - and thanks for the reassurance :) At least with a new battery we shouldn't have to worry about it going flat again for a while ! And lol about the rain at Bible weeks - oh, so true!

alison said...

Was lovely to meet you, Paul, and your kids at the weekend :)