Lol at you lot.
Last time the alternator pulley went it failed by degrees as it started off squealing because the bearings were knackered.
This time I admit I'd noticed a month ago a difference in engine noise and duly took it to the mechanic and just asked him what he thought the noise was.
He said "without looking at it I can't say for certain but it sounds like your air con pump seizing as the sound goes away when you take the air con off".
So I ran it around with the air con off and I mentioned it to Fudgy, another cabbie based in the next town who I chat to every now and then as he's got a 406 hdi rapier estate, who listened intently and told me "Don't worry about it.. it's just the alternator tensioner rattling, there's hundreds in this town sound like that".
I was going to take it in when I got round to it but money's been tight so I left it, luckily for me it didn't do any major damage and it would have to have been replaced anyway. Dave says (and I hope I'm repeating this correctly) that it looks like the nut came off the end and eventually the pulley just gave way. Which would explain the odd noise that suddenly appeared overnight a few weeks back.
The only gutting thing was the RAC turned up to tow it as apparently if you drive them in that state the melted aux belt can actually fly into your cambelt, causing total engine failure. As the lad was disconnecting the aux belt, he was on the phone to his boss saying "I was just debating on whether to go and get another alternator for it and then remembered there's about five for this particular car"
Which poses several questions, namely..
A. Would the RAC have footed the bill for the alternator if he supplied and fitted it? (in which case I'm going to cry at the loss of £250)
B. Was he on a wind up?
C. Is it normal procedure for the RAC to do this?
Anyway, he took the belt off and offered me the choice of towing on a solid bar or him following me whilst I drove it to the garage.
I opted for the latter and within two minutes of me arriving they'd already got the battery off and started removing stuff to get to the alternator.
The car was fixed by dinnertime.
And for those of you that remember the hassle I've had with breakdowns in the past being farmed out to a local operator who used to take four hours to get to you, apparently they lost the contract with RAC due to the delays in recovering people and the fact that most of their operators didn't know one end of a spanner from the other and the RAC usually try to fix a fault in 3/4 of an hour before giving up and towing it to a garage.
Proper relief that is, cos they were
cowboys......
