52) Troublesome Transport
One Saturday morning the boys and I went into the main shopping centre of Salisbury. On the way home there was a very sudden and heavy rainstorm. We drove out of the city along The Kingsway, under the railway bridge and on to the Hatfield Road, which went through the industrial sites at that point. It was lunchtime on Saturday and lots of workers from the factories around about were heading for home. As is usual when it is raining every one was in a hurry to get their bus or taxi, visibility was poor and the roads were very wet. A mini bus taxi pulled out in front of me without looking behind him, fortunately for him I was going very slowly because of the rain and slammed on brakes to avoid him. The driver behind me was not paying enough attention in the circumstances and went into the back of us. We were fortunate not to have been badly hurt but I had a bit of whiplash and of course we all got a terrible shock. I don’t remember what make of car it was that hit us but it was a large older model car, big and heavy.
I got out to see what damage had been done and to get the name of the driver, it was still raining, the road was full of puddles, and I did not have a raincoat or an umbrella with me. The back of my car looked terrible and I was soaked through to the skin. There were people and cars all over the place we were blocking the road and making things even worse. I spoke to the lady form the other car and she freely admitted that she had not seen me stop as she had been looking over her shoulder to check for traffic, as she wanted to overtake me because I was going so slowly. Why any one would try and overtake on that busy and narrow road when the rain was so heavy that you could not see properly I will never know but she had admitted that she was in the wrong. I told her I was going to move my car off the road to the verge to let the traffic get through and she agreed that it would be the best thing to do. I got into the car and started it up, but I could not put it into gear and so I could not move it. Pretty soon the police arrived and my car was pushed out of the way and after giving her particulars and producing her licence the other driver was allowed to leave. Her car was dented but it was movable. I don’t know how but Jonny was contacted at work, we certainly did not have mobile phones in those days, I suppose the police used their radios to contact the police station and they phoned Jonny. He came along and examined the car; he found that the force of the knock to the back had broken the connection between the clutch pedal and the clutch plate. That was why I could not get it into gear. I think he towed me to a nearby garage and the repair was done quite quickly because I clearly remember having the car at home on the day after. It was Sunday and we had a visit from our friends Sonny and Isabel Mathison. When Sonny saw the car he teased me and asked, “Who did you reverse into?”
When we got a quote for the cost of the repairs to the little Morris we decided that with the money form the insurance company it would be better for us to sell the Morris and by something else as the repairs would be very high. We looked around and found a VW Variant station wagon that was in our price range and we thought that it was a good buy. Jonny had it checked out by the Automobile Association and they gave us a report and on the strength of that we decided to buy it. But that was a mistake. The Automobile Association report told us about all the things we could see, like the tyres, the bodywork and the upholstery but when it came to the engine it just gave us the results of a compression test. Unfortunately in those days we did not have much of an idea about cars and the report meant nothing to us. Not long after we started to have problems with the car and so we took it to a garage that advertised that they specialised in fixing VW’s. It turned out to be a nightmare, he just did not seem able to repair the car and he kept telling us lies about the work he was doing on it and when it was going to be ready. We would collect it and it would seem fine for a few days and then we would have the same problems all over again. We with held the final payment saying that as the car had not been repaired we would not pay the money and then we got a letter from a finance house demanding payment. I rang them and told them that the car had not been repaired so we did not think we owed the garage anything. The gentleman at the finance house told me that they were not in the car repair business, they had just bought the debt from the garage and as they had paid the garage we now owed them the money. We were not at all happy about this and so we looked up the conditions of our Automobile Association membership and found that we could within our membership fees claim the first $50 for legal fees connected with our car. We made an appointment to see the lawyer that the association recommended and called to see him a few days later. He took all our particulars down and then asked us what we would like to do about it. We explained that we had come to him for the legal advise and we would like to know what our options were. But he was not really prepared to give us advice; he was useless, he just kept asking us what we wanted to do.
We were very upset with the Automobile Association, Jonny had been a member for as long as he had owned a car and paid membership fees each year but when we had needed them they had let us down. Most people get a report done on a second hand car because they do not know enough about cars to decide wether they should buy the car or not. What was the point of giving a report in technical terms that one would need to be a motor mechanic to understand? If Jonny had been a motor mechanic he would have been able to check the car out himself. We made complaints to the A.A. management about the way the car had been checked and the report done but they stuck to their guns and said that what they had written in the report was correct and if we choose to ignore it and buy the car anyway it was not their fault. The fact that the report was not clear to the average man in the street did not worry them one iota. We eventually had to get the car properly repaired by the VW agents at our cost. We arranged for the mechanic from the A.A. to be present when the VW agent mechanic first stripped the car and examined it and he gave us a report to say that the repair work done by the first mechanic was not done properly and so we were not liable to pay him the remainder of his fee. But we did have to pay for the second repair work done by the agents. The whole thing cost us a lot of money and we were almost a year without the use of our car. Fortunately Jonny had use of company transport but it did mean that I was without transport most of the time.
Later on when Jonny was working with Mike Harris car sales and Jonny was in the army Mike lent me a little car to get around with. It was a Renault 4, a funny little car like the ones that you see used as taxies in old films made in France. It was a good car but it was very basic and had a strange gearshift, the lever came out of the dashboard. At the same time Beryl Shaw my neighbour also had a Renault 4, but her’s was either a year older or a year younger than the one I was using. Beryl had an operation on her feet and could not drive so when she needed to go somewhere I would drive her in her car but the problem was that in the interval between building these two cars Renault had changed the way the gear lever on their little car worked. In one of the cars to put it into reverse the lever needed to be pushed forward and in the other the lever needed to be pushed back. I found it very confusing driving the two cars on the same day, both seemed exactly the same except for this and a couple of times I pulled off in the wrong direction, I was lucky not to have had an accident but I did feel silly when the lights turned green to go backward instead of forward.
Yes cars are a wonderful invention, I am so often grateful for ours but when they give trouble they are terrible things that I hate with a passion.
I got out to see what damage had been done and to get the name of the driver, it was still raining, the road was full of puddles, and I did not have a raincoat or an umbrella with me. The back of my car looked terrible and I was soaked through to the skin. There were people and cars all over the place we were blocking the road and making things even worse. I spoke to the lady form the other car and she freely admitted that she had not seen me stop as she had been looking over her shoulder to check for traffic, as she wanted to overtake me because I was going so slowly. Why any one would try and overtake on that busy and narrow road when the rain was so heavy that you could not see properly I will never know but she had admitted that she was in the wrong. I told her I was going to move my car off the road to the verge to let the traffic get through and she agreed that it would be the best thing to do. I got into the car and started it up, but I could not put it into gear and so I could not move it. Pretty soon the police arrived and my car was pushed out of the way and after giving her particulars and producing her licence the other driver was allowed to leave. Her car was dented but it was movable. I don’t know how but Jonny was contacted at work, we certainly did not have mobile phones in those days, I suppose the police used their radios to contact the police station and they phoned Jonny. He came along and examined the car; he found that the force of the knock to the back had broken the connection between the clutch pedal and the clutch plate. That was why I could not get it into gear. I think he towed me to a nearby garage and the repair was done quite quickly because I clearly remember having the car at home on the day after. It was Sunday and we had a visit from our friends Sonny and Isabel Mathison. When Sonny saw the car he teased me and asked, “Who did you reverse into?”
When we got a quote for the cost of the repairs to the little Morris we decided that with the money form the insurance company it would be better for us to sell the Morris and by something else as the repairs would be very high. We looked around and found a VW Variant station wagon that was in our price range and we thought that it was a good buy. Jonny had it checked out by the Automobile Association and they gave us a report and on the strength of that we decided to buy it. But that was a mistake. The Automobile Association report told us about all the things we could see, like the tyres, the bodywork and the upholstery but when it came to the engine it just gave us the results of a compression test. Unfortunately in those days we did not have much of an idea about cars and the report meant nothing to us. Not long after we started to have problems with the car and so we took it to a garage that advertised that they specialised in fixing VW’s. It turned out to be a nightmare, he just did not seem able to repair the car and he kept telling us lies about the work he was doing on it and when it was going to be ready. We would collect it and it would seem fine for a few days and then we would have the same problems all over again. We with held the final payment saying that as the car had not been repaired we would not pay the money and then we got a letter from a finance house demanding payment. I rang them and told them that the car had not been repaired so we did not think we owed the garage anything. The gentleman at the finance house told me that they were not in the car repair business, they had just bought the debt from the garage and as they had paid the garage we now owed them the money. We were not at all happy about this and so we looked up the conditions of our Automobile Association membership and found that we could within our membership fees claim the first $50 for legal fees connected with our car. We made an appointment to see the lawyer that the association recommended and called to see him a few days later. He took all our particulars down and then asked us what we would like to do about it. We explained that we had come to him for the legal advise and we would like to know what our options were. But he was not really prepared to give us advice; he was useless, he just kept asking us what we wanted to do.
We were very upset with the Automobile Association, Jonny had been a member for as long as he had owned a car and paid membership fees each year but when we had needed them they had let us down. Most people get a report done on a second hand car because they do not know enough about cars to decide wether they should buy the car or not. What was the point of giving a report in technical terms that one would need to be a motor mechanic to understand? If Jonny had been a motor mechanic he would have been able to check the car out himself. We made complaints to the A.A. management about the way the car had been checked and the report done but they stuck to their guns and said that what they had written in the report was correct and if we choose to ignore it and buy the car anyway it was not their fault. The fact that the report was not clear to the average man in the street did not worry them one iota. We eventually had to get the car properly repaired by the VW agents at our cost. We arranged for the mechanic from the A.A. to be present when the VW agent mechanic first stripped the car and examined it and he gave us a report to say that the repair work done by the first mechanic was not done properly and so we were not liable to pay him the remainder of his fee. But we did have to pay for the second repair work done by the agents. The whole thing cost us a lot of money and we were almost a year without the use of our car. Fortunately Jonny had use of company transport but it did mean that I was without transport most of the time.
Later on when Jonny was working with Mike Harris car sales and Jonny was in the army Mike lent me a little car to get around with. It was a Renault 4, a funny little car like the ones that you see used as taxies in old films made in France. It was a good car but it was very basic and had a strange gearshift, the lever came out of the dashboard. At the same time Beryl Shaw my neighbour also had a Renault 4, but her’s was either a year older or a year younger than the one I was using. Beryl had an operation on her feet and could not drive so when she needed to go somewhere I would drive her in her car but the problem was that in the interval between building these two cars Renault had changed the way the gear lever on their little car worked. In one of the cars to put it into reverse the lever needed to be pushed forward and in the other the lever needed to be pushed back. I found it very confusing driving the two cars on the same day, both seemed exactly the same except for this and a couple of times I pulled off in the wrong direction, I was lucky not to have had an accident but I did feel silly when the lights turned green to go backward instead of forward.
Yes cars are a wonderful invention, I am so often grateful for ours but when they give trouble they are terrible things that I hate with a passion.
posted by JC at
9:21 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home