When the red red Robin comes along.....

Day 4 in Redon and we are now graced by the presence of Robin Swift, our crew for the remainder of our stay this time. 

On Saturday I thought we would go out for a drive and use the opportunity to pop into Arzal and ask about moorings. All worked well initially. The capitainerie was closed for lunch when we arrived but that gave us a chance to try the moules frites in the restaurant on site. Then we agreed a contract for pontoon mooring from July 8 to September 1. Then we drove out to look at the barrage. 

Several times recently a whole bunch of yellow warning lights have come on on the Passat dashboard. They include parking brake, which is clearly working, ABS, traction control and tyre pressure. The last made me think this was an electronic glitch rather than a real fault, especially as turning the engine off and restarting turned all the lights off. However this time a scary red light came on and didn't go off. In addition, even gentle braking resulted in a juddering as though ABS was being applied. We crept cautiously back to Redon, slowing the car through the gears and braking as little as possible –something which might have proved impossible on busy British roads but was just about OK on a quiet French D-road. Not an experience I wish to repeat, however.

This morning I contacted our breakdown people and they arranged for a mecanicien to come and look at it. He couldn't fix the car in the car park so it has been taken away on a trailer. 

This is so unfair. I expect problems on our 28-year-old boat but not on a modern, sophisticated car which is less than five years old. Possibly it is too sophisticated for its own good. 


2 comments:

Simon E said...

Good to hear you got those moules at last! But sorry to hear of your woes with the car. My car is about the same age as yours. It failed its last MOT because of wear to some small rubber sleeves on the suspension. The garage told me they should not have perished inside ten years. Replacements were cheap to buy but expensive to replace. In the end, I got Jaguar to do it but that meant replacing the entire wishbone assemblies on all four wheels. They paid for 75% of it but even the remaining 25% ran into hundreds of pounds. So I feel your pain!

camillaherrmann said...

This is obviously a speciality with Jaguars. Rob whom we have met here in Piriac told us about his Jaguar where a small pipe failed on the air-conditioning system. The pipe was cheap, but replacing it entailed dismantling the entire engine from underneath, including removing a sub frame. Possibly manufacturers should think about these things when they build cars, others may do so, but Jaguar is evidently still living up to the fine traditions of British Leyland et al.

Merry Christmas from just me

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