Chris2cv

A slightly late end of year update! The Stepway is now my main car and does a much longer commute everyday. It seems to resemble a mobile skip most of the time, as I also have lunch in the car, so spend nearly as much time in there as I do in my living room! It is still serving me very well. I finally got the cambelt and service done a couple of months ago, having somehow forgotten when it was due! I've had two bulbs blow in the last few months, the rear sidelight taking a few minutes, the drivers headlamp taking about an hour and cutting my hand to pieces! Even the mechanic that ended up finishing the job took quite a while! But, two bulbs are not really too bad for running repairs. Especially as I had them in "stock". The Clio lives with my parents, but it turns out that they are only using it occasionally, and I have barely got down there in months - and when I did it rained a LOT, so I couldn't be bothered digging it out. I worry about it just rotting there and should have got rid of it by now. Which brings us to..... The moped! Which is STILL sitting in the garage! It's been about 3 years (might be more, but I don't want to think about that!) Really must get rid of it soon. I don't even want money for it, just lost confidence in it, and I can't keep it anywhere near the flat anyway. 3 stolen cars have been dumped near us since August, how long is a moped going to last? Even a knackered one? Although, I suppose that it might do me a favour! Finally the 2cv. I am determined that it is not going to spend another year on SORN. I started it at New Year and ran for a while. I moved it up and down the garden quite a few times (the garage is at the end of the garden) as I obviously can't take it on the road. Seems ok, but the brakes are binding a bit. Bound to be really, having sat for so long. I want to get it MOTed and serviced in the next month or two, ready for the summer. It upsets me that it has sat for so long, but life is just crazy these days. I'm getting married next year!

A friend of mine had his Lexus stolen from his drive 6 months ago. Much like the stories above, his Ring camera showed some men approach the wheel in the middle of the night, plug something in and then drive off within a couple of minutes! He was (understandably) very upset. Not just because of the car, but his wife and kids were asleep inside the house when it happened. It eventually turned up several months later in a shipping container, on it's way abroad. Unfortunately he couldn't have it back as they had been paid out. He apparently lost quite a lot of money on it, and then within weeks was in a serious accident in their other car, leaving him with whiplash! Not their best year! I now live in a slightly rough area and we seem to get stolen cars dumped nearby periodically. The latest one is a Discovery with a huge scrape down one side - although not the side that is jammed in a hedge! I've heard people say "well it's insured, it doesn't matter", but it does. That's somebodies commuter/ their family car/ the runabout /the pride and joy etc. It can be really upsetting and financially crippling. It probably makes me an awful person, but I wasn't sorry to see a little blood in the Discovery. I hope that the scumbags were hurt, not anything terrible, but enough to put them off doing it again. None of my fleet are particularly valuable. I worry about the 2cv and always use a steering lock, but they are probably too much work for relatively low rewards when some modern cars can be stolen in seconds. It's more the joyriders that are a concern.

Just a brief update. No change with the 2cv or moped. MUST sort the 2cv early next year, not much point now as I haven't got a free weekend until January, but I'm not having it sit for another year. Especially as September 2024 will mark 30 years since I got the car. Thirty years! Bloody hell I'm old! On the bright side, my girlfriend is warming to the idea of the odd car show in it, so progress there! She even suggested that we use it for our wedding! The Stepway needs a service, my fault I've just been really busy and I can't just take it into work any more. Running well even with my much longer commute these days. The Clio seems to be enjoying semi retirement. I've been down a few times and cruised the coast in it. My parents have been using it for shopping and all is good, although still having the occasional reluctance to start - but it does start eventually. It sailed through it's MOT last week. Just an advisory for a slightly worn track rod end (which was also reported last year, oops!) otherwise all good. It still seems stupid to me that it is fine for MOT emissions and £20 tax, but "too filthy" to use in London. A friend has a considerably newer Megane but is reduced to just avoiding the ULEZ cameras. To be fair, most of them seem to be vandalised around here! I reluctantly accept the situation with Clio and I wasn't really using it a great deal anyway, but I do worry where it will lead. Will the goalposts keep moving as ever younger cars become "too dirty"? Will it lead to road pricing, as many seem to believe? I am not against trying to help the environment, I recycle, I use things until they are absolutely beyond repair (clearly!) and try to be sensible with purchases, but I think that measures like this are more likely to alienate people than to make a serious difference.

I've been using the Clio during the week ever since the last post. In a rather shocking development, I've moved in with my girlfriend! She hates the Clio as it "makes her sick" (which I think is more to do with her playing with her phone while I am driving!) so I use that for commuting, then the Stepway at weekends when she is with me. It has been going well, only very rarely doing the random indicating. It sometimes takes a couple of goes to start, but has always started. Yesterday was my last commute in it though. We are inside the new extended ULEZ, so I can't justify paying that. It's a shame as it has been a great little car for nearly 21 years now, but it had to go. Of course, being me, I haven't sold it. I haven't scrapped it either. My parents are in the process (still!) of renovating a house to retire to, down by the coast, so today I drove the Clio down to their place. It's going to live here and be their runabout to save mileage on their car, and I'll use it when I'm here - as long as I can persuade my girlfriend! I'm not really happy about it. I'm glad that it's still in the family, but I worry that it will end up spending most of it's time "resting" like the 2cv. I don't want it being a mobile garden ornament. I was getting 60mpg on the way down (better than the Stepway gets!) and it is in the cheapest tax rate as it is low emissions! It always sails through the emissions part of the MOT but I am apparently driving a badly polluting car! I also worry that there is nothing to stop the goalposts moving and the Stepway suddenly being too dirty for London. It's one thing with a 20+ year old car, but they keep saying "diesel over 6 years old" and Stepway is 5 and a half! I hope that it actually means 6 years old now, so 7 years old next year, but taxes rarely work like that! A colleague "knows someone" who can apparently change tax classes on the log book, so that his old car is ok. He offered to do mine, but this sounds very dodgy to me. In other news, all good with the Stepway, no repeat of the camera incident and in regular use at weekends. I started the 2cv a few weeks ago. Can't use it as I just haven't had time to sort the suspension, so it has no MOT. Dad has now offered to take it in for me. I'm happy to pay, I'm just not anywhere near the car when the garage is open!

Just over a month later and there has been a bit more progress! The Clio has been back on the road for a fortnight now. I won't say it's a hundred percent, there are still the occasional indicator flashes when I close the window, but ULEZ is going to kill it soon anyway! The Stepway continues to rack up the miles and is still doing well. One weird thing happened a couple of weeks ago, when the reverse camera (on a Dacia!) didn't come on. The screen told me that the camera was broken or disconnected and it just stayed on a black screen. I couldn't change the radio station or use sat nav. Got rather concerned as I had a big trip coming up, but was on my way to a concert, so just had to park and hope for the best. When I returned a few hours later, it all worked perfectly! Hopefully just a strange one off. Still no progress with the 2cv. Life just seems really hectic lately. Maybe if we made some actual plans it would help! But, life is good. Off to the "father in law's" birthday party on Saturday, guess that means that we are fully public now!