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Furthest from home breakdown


martybabes

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Some years ago, when I had my Mk II Mondeo V6 (see above) and while on our summer holiday, we were in Barcelona having a look at the sights and sounds, especially the musical fountains which are a superb vision late at night.  We parked Ford's finest in an underground multi-storey car park.  Upon returning to the car at just a few minutes after midnight, and ready to return to the hotel on the outskirts of town, we discovered the rear o/s tyre was flat.  It looked to have been slashed but, in any event, was as flat as the proverbial.  No matter, thought I.  T'will be the work of nobbut a few minutes to change it for the spare, which lies under all the holiday paraphernalia in the cavernous boot.  As the tyre was not just f*cked, but proper f*cked, I decided to grant myself some working room by relocating the car across several marked bays, thus allowing space for safe removal and replacement of the spare, with plenty of room also for accommodating all the contents of the boot in order to gain access to the said spare and the tyre-removing kit.

 

All went according to plan up to that point.

 

The Mondeo has five wheel nuts.  Four of them came off with no trouble at all.  The fifth wouldn't budge.  The wheel-brace would simply not grip the nut but would spin around it.  By the time this had been discovered, most of the other cars had left the car park (it being now more than just after midnight).  The helpful man from the ticket/payment booth and I employed all our collective guile to get the wheel-brace to grip the nut - we used coins, bits of padding, anything that was to hand but to no avail.  Eventually (or in Spanish "Eh-vehn-chwall-lee"), he got fed up and left, ne'er to be seen again.

 

Ah well, time to summon assistance from the AA 5-star rescue package that we had thoughtfully purchased at the commencement of, and for, the holiday.  A quick call on the mobile to London was enabled by ascending to the surface level of the car park, and was promptly answered.  Our problem was mostly explained to the telephone operator with the exception of identifying in precise terms exactly where the car was situated.  Obviously, they were going to engage a local breakdown service to attend to our needs (I had already worked out they were not going to send an AA van from the UK to Barcelona), but clearly they would need to know where we were situated.  Anyway, that was overcome thanks to a street map being displayed on the wall of the car park with a big arrow pointing to a blob saying " estás aquí" which I took to be "you're here"!

 

An hour or so later, a big breakdown truck arrives and, in the space of a couple of seconds, El Mechanico releases the fifth wheel-nut, and gazes across at what he not unreasonably assumes is a useless excuse of manhood.  El Mechanico's Assistant completes all the paperwork and requests my signature by the use of the internationally known mime for summoning a restaurant bill.

 

We load everything back into the boot and set off back to our hotel which we hope will allow us back to our room even at this unearthly hour when only milkmen and cat-burglars abound.  Fortunately, we are granted admission and manage to get about four hours fitful sleep.  I have since acquired a larger and more precise wheel-brace.  This comes with me where-ere I go.

 

The point of all this is to establish whether 1,038 miles is the furthest distance one has had to summon assistance for a breakdown. Somehow, I think not.  Over to you...

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Alright, not that far from home but as it took 4 Autoaid relays to get it back, it took nearly 12 hours to complete the journey - this was 9 miles into a 252 mile drive home following collection from the seller's house.  The alternator was dead, probably had been for some time but the elderly owner had barely driven it in the last 3 years so hadn't noticed.  He also hadn't noticed 3 seized calipers which would have been a significant problem if it hadn't died anyway, not least as it was achieving an average of 11MPG at the time.

 

As a bonus, it broke the 4th and final recovery truck which ate its propshaft bearing about 20 miles from my house.  The loud noise of the propshaft grinding around in its metal cage echoing around the street was probably something my neighbours really appreciated at 2:30AM.

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Standard 8   with burnt exhaust valves Tossa del  Mar

Triumph Herald stalled with dirt in carb whilst doing illegal u turn and blocking tram lines tram lines in   Karlsruhe

XZ diesel with leaking water pump Tomar Portugal

Same ZX Diesel with broken clutch cable Portugal

BSA B40 Perpignan blown up engine

Texas "Rent a Wreck"  expired engine boondocks near Brownville TX

Lada  with no gears  Osh Kyrgyzstan

 

 

the list goes on.

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My personal best is 600 miles.   First day of a camping holiday near Poitiers, HGF on a DOHC Granada.   All rather undramatic thanks to AA 5 star, they sent Gaston le Taxi who drove his E Class like Ryan O'Neal to the next town and dropped me at a EuropCar,  meanwhile M. Tail-comme-Beaver was despatched to the camp site to winch away the dripping Granada.    

 

Unfortunately due to being in the hands of the AA the car was taken to the nearest Ford main-stealer who promptly (and correctly) diagnosed a cracked head before quoting a £2000 repair bill.   Luckily I knew the English for En Coulez so we made do with the hired Renault Sea-sick for the rest of the holiday, enlivened by a visit to the taxi driver once more to admire the collection of Vedettes he was telling me about during our 100mph dash.     

  

The upside was the hire car, removal of the Granada, stripping of same for diagnosis and its eventual return to Blighty were all covered by what I can only remember as being a small extra payment on my AA membership.    Final nice touch was handing the Renner back over to Europcar in Cherbourg, fully expecting to have to lug all our gear on as foot passengers....No, sir, take it back to Portsmouth and hand it over there and they will give you another car back home - a brand new Peugeot 406 which I found surprisingly nice to drive.    Gave the 406 back next day and walked half a mile to pick up a Landcrab I had bought unseen in the Free-Ads (how I miss those...) which instantly took over as my daily.

 

The Granada was despatched straight back from Poitiers to a back street repairer in my town who fitted a cylinder head sourced by me and was sold the day I got it back, ending a run of big Fords stretching back to my first Mk3 Zephyr.     

 

Since then, I have never made do with just one car, bought anything from a used car dealer or failed to renew my AA cover.   

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Guest bangerfan101

Blew the clutch on my fiesta trying to get out of the muddy car park at Mildenhall. Slept in the car and rang rac first thing in the morning. Took all day to get me back to Leeds. Luckily Beeston motor spares the Asian motor factors we're open Easter Sunday and had a clutch in stock, putting a clutch in on your back parked on the road outside your flat is far from ideal tho

Long weekend that was

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Not quite a break down as such but on arrival at a campsite in Holland a few years ago I discovered that we weren't going to be able to tow the trailer tent back home again without some welding action.  Car was fine to use otherwise and so I managed to get in touch with an English guy in Germany I'd previously met via the blue forum who lived about 150 miles away. I left the campsite early one morning, drove to Germany, spent about 4 hours there welding it up with Dave and then was back on camp in time for dinner.  (Mrs and Ickle Seth had gone on a bike ride instead and found an awesome collection of Opels that we went to look at later in the week)

 

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670 miles after leaving our home in Cambridgeshire, the windscreen exploded on our H van (back in 2007).

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That's the only time I've had to call on international rescue. We were heading to Sweden, which I decided was a bit too far to attempt with no windscreen. After four hours, we finally got recovered from the side of an Autobahn and taken to a windscreen specialist. They had to get a custom screen cut to size (laminated FTW!), so we hired an Audi A3 and went and drove around Denmark for four days.

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The 2CV broke down on a trip to Switzerland in 2010. We were near Annecy in mid-France, when the ignition began cutting out - leading to exciting backfires! 

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After this pic was taken, we limped on, turning the engine off at one point for over three miles! We coasted into a little town where, unable to find parking, I merely drove into the local park (in stealth mode) and set about investigating the issue (while Mrs DW went in search of much-needed refreshments). Some old geezer tried to help, but when he started asking whether we needed water, I realised that both my French was terrible, and that he didn't really know much about 2CVs. The heat sink had fallen off the transistorised ignition unit (the one I got repaired yesterday). My solution was to remove the engine bay side panels to increase airflow over it. Sounds like it'd never work, but we drove 660 miles back home the next day with no problems at all. Therefore, by the Junkman rules, this doesn't actually count as a breakdown.

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Returning from the Costa Blanca summer 2010 - the holiday itinerary called for a drive up the coast to Barcelona the head in land towards Andorra. The road was the C-16 (I seem to remember) and some of the tunnels were closed so all the traffic was shunted on to the old road complete with hairpin bends and ground out lorries on the corners. The going was slow! The high temperatures and no air-flow finally saw off the fuel pump on the Maestro 1.3 we were travelling in.

 

We dived on to some gravel at the side of the road and let things cool down. We managed to nurse the car back on to the motorway once the detour was finished, but ended up changing the fuel pump for the spare we packed on the hard shoulder.

 

 

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Omghgf on a Honda bike in rural bog Ireland

 

Strapped to trailer head to boat

 

Ride into boat then Holyhead to home on another

 

Bike immediately flogged on eBay

 

Knew it was shonky so breakdown was purchased :)

 

Had to borrow uncle pats gt550 for the three days I was there

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My wife's Toyota Previa broke down in France, there are six of us, so I assumed that with my full AA membership that supplies a courtesy car while mine is being fixed that we would be OK...

 

 

Wrong.

 

 

They sent a recovery vehicle out with only two spare seats, so some of the family had to ride to the garage in the Previa, on the back of the recovery truck.

Despite repeated phone calls to the AA in France and then the UK, at vast cost, they adamantly refused to source either a people carrier or supply two hire cars. In the end I borrowed a car from the owner of the gite we were staying in.

 

Fortunately it was an easy fix, (starter motor), and we could drive it home on time.

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Standard 8   with burnt exhaust valves Tossa del  Mar

Triumph Herald stalled with dirt in carb whilst doing illegal u turn and blocking tram lines tram lines in   Karlsruhe

XZ diesel with leaking water pump Tomar Portugal

Same ZX Diesel with broken clutch cable Portugal

BSA B40 Perpignan blown up engine

Texas "Rent a Wreck"  expired engine boondocks near Brownville TX

Lada  with no gears  Osh Kyrgyzstan

 

 

the list goes on.

I'd say a new thread is required

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Not my car, as such.

 

I remember a family holiday in the 90s when the fuel pump failed on my parents' 1984 VW Caravelle. We were going from Aberdeen to Hull to get the ferry across to Zebbruge (or however it's spelled). Except, the fuel pump gave up somewhere in the Scottish borders. Dad managed to coast it into a rather nice spacious layby with a lovely tree-covered embankment at the side, so me, mum, my sister and my two brothers all sat there as dad got a lift from the AA man to the local motor factors.

 

We were there for six hours. I can't remember why, but we were. We ended up getting the next ferry. I remember the mechanical fuel pump in that thing conking out so many times that my dad finally fitted an electric one. After that, it ran faultlessly. Once, it conked out about half a mile from the farm with just me and dad in the car. We just walked back home to get the necessary tools, then walked back to it.

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Not a breakdown as such but back in 2010 my modern was only 6mths old and we were down near St Tropez when we lost it.

 

The car had about 1100 miles on it, so yes basically driven from the dealer down through France.

 

Four days into the holiday after enjoying the French grand canyon and travelling on down we spent a night near Roquebrune sur Argent. Early the following morning we were awoken by noise in the hotel to find the whole area around us flooded including the hotel car park.

 

My modern didn't take too kindly to having water up to windscreen level and decided to put on a full light and wiper show as well as popping all the doors open.

 

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This was taken as the water started to recede.

 

Sweet!!

 

The last I saw of it was parked up in a local French scrap yard.

 

My wife and I then took a flight from Nice back to the UK and the insurance paid for a complete replacement vehicle.

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In 2006, I was a passenger in an Audi 90 that lunched its autobox in spectacular fashion near Jarama, just north of Madrid.  The owner* made the executive decision to leave it where it died; we got a taxi to Barajas and flew home.

 

 

* He'd bought it for a fiver that morning at the end of a banger rally, with false details on the V5.  It was stickered up like the General Lee.  Muggins here had just put £60 of fuel in it...

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I may have mentioned my 2005 Grand Espace before.....

 

2008 ( yes under 3 years old) in the Ardeche region of Southern France , high up a Montaigne on a Eurocamp site.

Alternator gives up, phone breakdown insurance. Renault dealer from Aix turns up in a massive tilt and slide Magnum, driver shrugs and takes it away.

Speak to insurance , Eupropcar not there until Tuesday, some sort of holiday. So they send Mercrockers mate in a Picasso to scare the merde out of me to Aix to pick up a Matiz from an independent rental place, Pierre Rentawreck wants to swipe my card for 2 grand, I tell him to trot on then walk 6 miles back to campsite - in the dark, up a mountain!

Spent the weekend pissed by the pools.

Tuesday , Loeb the Taxi takes me to Renault dealer. " I'l est fucked, Monsieur " €1300 Silvous plait, and by the way the nouveau one est commen dans la Angleterre! About a week!

Did I mention we should have left on Sunday?

Back on the phone to breakdown , walk to Europcar get given a battered Peugeot Partner which actually had straw in the back- special tourist rural France package.

Drove the Partner back to Calais surprisingly nice on the Autoroute, fast and economical( think it was a 2.0Hdi.

Leave Partner at Calais , cross as foot passengers.

Pick up brand new VW Jetta at Dover and drive home.

Two weeks later the breakdown insurance arrange flight from Luto to Nimes ( I think) a cab from airport to Renault dealer in Aix.

Pay €1300 , drive Espace home.

£ 60 I paid for insurance was the best investment I've ever made. The taxi from the airport to the dealer was more than that.

Last year I went to France in a £300 Audi 100 I'd bought 2 days before, obviously didn't bother with or need breakdown insurance .

Shite, never leave home without it.

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Upper Loch Torridon with wife to be in the Bedford CF minibus I converted to a camper van that snapped its timing belt. Towed the four hours home behind a series Land Rover.

 

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Also managed to write off my Volvo 480ES in Annecy, France while in honeymoon with same current wife resulting in a hired polo for the remainder of trip. I have a photo of the mangled coop somewhere.

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Double puncture and shattered steering geometry in my Kia Carnival on the 214 National Road between Menglian and Meng'A 1,933 km from home; at 02:00 in the morning, moon behind the mountain, mobile phones only good for torches, no signal 50 km in each direction. Long dark walk to nearest village, bed down in a hut and hope the people we were going to see would come looking for us. They did. My fault for not seeing the boulder in the road...

 

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk

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Family holiday to the Republic of Ireland.

 

Somewhere up a mountain pass SnrYoof's dark blue K-plate 3.0 24v Senator broke down. I forget what went wrong, but because it was the only Senator in the whole of Ireland a new part had to be shipped out from UK.

 

We got towed back to the place we were staying and were given a brand-new-at-the-time silver Ford Mondeo 1.6 LX.

 

Hateful thing. As you can imagine SnrYoof was a little bit disappointed.

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