Recovery Service

[Roger Blassberg 0]

Mrs. B. set off on Saturday morning in our venerable Passat B4, bound for Manchester. 2 hours later she rang to say that things had gone bad and that it had cut out on the M6 with no more warning than a "hot smell".

 

Fortunately we are covered for full recovery, although it took them until 1300, i.e. 90 minutes later, to attend to her, a lone female driver.

 

After 20 minutes bu@@ering about, they trailered the car to Sandbach service area, (Cheshire I think) where it was collected, together with Mrs. B. and brought back to St Albans, arriving at 1730.

 

Within 5 minutes of its arrival on my driveway, I had diagnosed, without any special equipment other than a Mk. 1 Human Brain and a socket set, that there was a fuel supply but no spark and that the ignition transformer was the most likely culprit. Purchase of a new one on Sunday morning cured the problem, by which time her weekend had been thoroughly screwed up.

 

So what are these tw@ts doing? They are a shadow of the former "get you going" types who could fix just about anything at the roadside or at the very least at a garage. On a Saturday lunchtime I venture to guess that they could have located a transformer fairly easily in the West Midlands/NorthWest , undone 2 bolts and 2 wiring connections in 5 minutes or so, fitted the box of tricks and sent her on her merry way.

 

OK, they got her and the car home, safe and sound, but with a bit of extra effort from them I would be here telling you all about what fine people they are.

 

Instead of which............

 

Best wishes

 

RB

[Andi 2,147,483,647]

a lone female driver

 

Recovery companies are not allowed to prioritise 'women' anymore, it would be desciminatory. If there is a dire emergency, the Police need to be called to attend.

 

You get good field agents.. you get naff ones.. luck of the draw sadly.

Most of them, if they can blame it on an alarm/immobiliser, they will and not touch it.

We're also close the American sue-culture, where if they did do any work on the car which made it worse, they would suffer the backlash and likely lose their job.

 

It helps to know what the problem is and guide them.. but alas not everyone has the on-board diagnostics within their Mk1 Brain.

[Rob Heath 0]

We're also close the American sue-culture, where if they did do any work on the car which made it worse, they would suffer the backlash and likely lose their job.

 

Unfortunately this is very true!!