The Astra and the £567.00 bill....

[Welly]

Her indoors' '53' plate Arsetray was due its yearly MOT and service yesterday so I took it to my trusty man and releaved myself of this little lot.....

Air Con Leak (at pipe joint, new O-ring, de-gass, re-gass etc etc)

Cambelt Kit (hey let's fit another one 12,000 miles since the last one because the 'Car Supermarket' I got the car from didn't bother to change the idlers and just slapped a belt on resulting in a horrid howling noise from a dry bearing soon to colapse and throw the belt)

MOT (failed)

Drop Links (2 off)

MOT (passed, with advice of corrosion to brake lines and "ferules")

Oil & Filter

Pollen

Environmental Charge (okaaaaayy)


Labour £120.00, the rest in Parts, Fluids and Vodka & Tonic

To be fair (is it fair?) the car has no attention from one month to the next (apart from this yearly do) and is generally reliable and efficient.

The bill? £452.00

The look on Mrs Welly's face? Priceless

[gRoberts]

Your lucky it only cost you that. Every experience i've had of Vauxhall, has been an expensive one.

I've always fancied the newer shaped vauxhalls but I've heard too many horror stories.

The 2.2 Vectra Diesels are horrendous.

[jasper5]

The corroded ferulles are the rear brake hose metal bits that go through the holding brackets, extremely common to have to replace the rear brake hoses...I've changed dozens of them.

[TooT]

Actually i dont think thats too bad myself, its when repairs start creeping above 500 quid then i think oh sh*t.

Still your Arsetra is creeping up to seven? years old and just drop links for an mot is good, my Migraine is seven in august, heres hoping my mot/service is not going to be too disastrous

[STALLED]

The Astras are notorious for being $$$ on parts - even here!

Common problems are warping brake rotors - can't handle the heat as the metals are too soft

60,000km timing belt intervals - have been known to snap before that.

[Welly]

Well my pleasure at having had the howling noise at 3000rpm fixed has been short-lived

The noise was back last night after the car had been stood for 18 hours. See, we all thought the noise was down to this cambelt idler/guide (which in part it was) but the main noise is still there

Back it goes......

[puggy]

Bad luck there welly , really pisses me off too when you think you
have solved something only to find its still there !!! My long running
saga with my air con nearly drove me over the edge

[Welly]

Too right puggy. The trouble is my mechanic is a good friend and I don't want to fall out over this; he was sure that the cambelt stuff was causing the fault, I went along with the idea but it hasn't worked. I don't know whether I'll be coughing up more money now and have potentialy wasted a lot already......doesn't help with her indoors breathing down my neck now and demanding (in a typical woman's way) that it gets sorted at no cost to us I tried explaining how these things go sometimes but hey.......

[puggy]

Ah Ah !! the total lack of understanding by the fairer sex when it comes to
diagnosing a mechanical problem , wish you luck with that one welly

example 1 : conversion between myself and my now ex ...

she / there's something wrong with the brakes !!
me / why do you say that dear ?
she / because when i pulled up at a junction they came on too hard and the car slid forward !!
me / thats because the tyres are nearly bald sweet pea , remember i told you some time ago
she / no its not the tyres the brakes are coming on too hard
me / no love of my life they only work in proportion to how hard you press the pedal its the tyres breaking away because of no tread
She / dont be stupid how can the tyres have an effect when you are pressing the brake pedal
Me / ok i'll pop it along to the garage for you let them check it ( for garage substitute tyre shop )
She / (a few days later ) cars fine now , i told you it was the brakes bloody useless you are

is it any fookin wonder i suffered a bout of depression !!

[Welly]

You should have seen my missus when I paid £40.00 to find out her car needed a new condenser, leaving it de-gassed as a result and NO AIRCON

She not happy that time

Went something like.... "so I had air con yesterday, and you've paid that bloke £40.00 to break it"

I think she said I was 'stupid', or what it 'twat'? I can't remember with all the other insulting things she comes out with.

Sometimes I wonder if it's better for a man to know nothing about cars, nothing whatsoever - mind you we'd probably be branded as 'useless' then

[mjb]

Sometimes I wonder if it's better for a man to know nothing about cars, nothing whatsoever - mind you we'd probably be branded as 'useless' then

I think the term you're after is "Audi driver"

[eoin27]

People who know nothing about cars tend to not care for their cars as much. Im glad I know a good bit about cars. Both mechanically (not up to the levels of many on here) and in terms of retail value (resale, repairs, things that can go wrong etc). Friends and relatives ring me and ask me for advice when buying cars. My uncle got a BMW 520d 177bhp last week on my recommendation.

**Head shrinks again**

[Doggy]

Sometimes I wonder if it's better for a man to know nothing about cars, nothing whatsoever - mind you we'd probably be branded as 'useless' then

I think the term you're after is "Audi driver"

In that case I think you should include knowing nothing about driving..... or economics

[STALLED]

Show the world you don't give a f*ck about cars - Buy a Toyota Corolla

[DaiRees]

Show the world you don't give a f*ck about cars - Buy a Toyota Corolla

Or a Prius like my father's just bought