Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: A shaggy Dog Story  (Read 942 times)

pgkevet

  • Joined Jul 2011
A shaggy Dog Story
« on: March 16, 2019, 12:16:19 pm »
"Don't mention the war" - Basil Fawlty
So my new rotorvator got delivered and I unboxed it from the crate and carefully cleaned up the timbers and stacked them.
The next day I took Val car shopping. Now that is a whole story in itself (see the other thread) and we only worked through 4 dealerships on the first trip before her eyes glazed over and I was having to explain that Audis are the ones with 4 circles on the front.
She was insisting on 4x4, automatic and petrol and good road clearance but not too big - how hard can that be?
The point of the excercise is that Val quite likes driving my Tesla S but panics over range anxiety and won't use it for longer trips. She panics in her X-Trail when the fuel gauge gets towards half and there's only 120 miles left...
We went in the Tesla and we sat in lots of cars. One or two she quite felt were comfortable but those pesky Scandinavians at Volvo must make them for dwarf trolls 'cos the ones she liked I couldn't get into. But we did find a preliminary possibility at Audi and (oddly enough) the Mini countryman. We have a few more to look at
All these dealerships had full forecourts whch i had to drive around to find space to park the behemoth Tesla and still be able to open doors. We got back and I put the S on charge overnight.
My compressor oil arrived next morning so i got around to topping up the Tesla tyre pressures (TMPS had showed they had dropped a couple of pounds the day before). One tyre was right down!!
I was kicking myself. I could even see a nail head. I really had been carefull cleaning up all the crate stuff but I must have missed one.
With any other of our cars I'd happily jack the thing up, stick a block under for safety and trot the tyre off to be fixed but Teslas have very specific jacking points, weigh 2 tons and I wasn't certain that jacking one corner was recommended or where to put a safety block in case the hydraulic jack dropped while I was away getting the tyre sorted. It's an expensive motor and some tyre places argue about fixing foam lined tyres.
Tesla Roadside Assistance I knew would sort it but it'd take them at least 3hrs to get to us with a loaner wheel and at least 2 hrs each way later for me to get mine back. RAC have been here to sort cars but out in the wilds of Wales it takes them time too and it was Friday afternoon - tyre places would be closed by then.
I rang the village Garage and happily the boss-man there knows me and is wise and helpful and game to stick a Tesla on his hoist with reference to the manual and happy to fix the tyre. I pumped up the tyre a couple of pounds over pressure, stuck a footpump in the boot and monitored the TPMS and made it to the Village.

Like all small garages his yard is packed with cars. I had less than 2 inches clearance each side threading the S between them to get into the covered part with the proximity sensors screaming at me to STOP.

I drove ont the hoist and put it into park. the accessed the car menu: suspension: raise to 'Very High' and hit 'Jack' which locks the self adjusting suspension for safety. Nice garage man then dug out soem blocks of timber to cut to size to go between his lift arms and the jacking points to get clearance of battery (a mere £40K to replace if you damage it). Then the little tool to take off the fancy lug-nut covers, a decent breaker bar and the wheel came off. Everyone in the garage had to take a turn picking that up. It's so light for a wheel that size!

Tyre got fixed and Boss-man comes back with the nail. It isn't a nail. It's a quarter turn stud used to hold plastic trim to metal on cars. So not my fault after all.

So where are you most likely to pick up an auto quarter turn stud into your tyre?
A bloody car dealership and repair place is where!
Damned sabotage I tell you!
Revenge of the Internal Combustion Engine!
Don't mention the war? Heck I'll mention it. It's Brexit all over again..... ;D


Lesley Silvester

  • Joined Sep 2011
  • Telford
Re: A shaggy Dog Story
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2019, 10:27:12 pm »
I have had many punctures but the two that stick in my mind are the one where the cause was found to be a spanner stuck in the side of the tyre. That's a new tyre needed. The second was a couple of years ago when I stopped because of a knocking as I was driving which turned out to be a locking nut firmly embedded, fortunately in the tread this time.


The trouble with having a MPV is that there is nowhere to keep a spare tyre so I end up with the RAC putting a universal tyre, which lead to my driving at a reduced speed to the nearest Kwikfit to have the puncture repaired.

 

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