h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's just after 1pm on Saturday 20th March, and I'm supposed to be in the vicinity of Leicester Forest East services and heading North towards Bramall Lane. Now as you can see that hasn't happened

I've got a problem with the car. There is something seriously wrong with the steering. I was about 4 miles out of Brighton on a wet road doing about 70mph and I realised that I couldn't feel the steering at all. I was continually having to make corrections, and was to all intents and purposes on the very limits of control. That is very wrong

I stopped the car. I limped it back home. I've got it booked into garage for repairs next week...

Never mind - you can stay home and watch the rugby instead.

B

Gosh, it's been so many years since I *actually had a car*! I can't imagine what it is like to have one totally f*ck up on you, though I have vague remembrances of this happening back in Canada.

I learned to drive, when I was 19, with a very posh Mercedes sedan that my then husband and I bought second-hand. Really, the car drove itself, I just steered it here and there. But I decided that when I took my driving licence test that I wanted it to be on a standard gear shift (not an automatic one, like the Merc had) so I borrowed a car and my brother taught me how to drive 'properly'.

After that I never considered that driving a car with an automatic gear shift was actually 'driving'.

I've had a few cars since then, but nothing recently. Like, in the past twenty years! Owning a car mostly seems to get in the way of things. Not to mention the outrageous expense of buying and maintaining a car. I reckon for the same cost I could take taxis everywhere all the time. But of course I do miss the option of taking day trips out of town. Then again, one could hire a car once or twice a month and still pay less than what it costs to buy and maintain a car.

It just makes me wonder why so many people feel a need to have cars!

az

When they live 23 miles from their workplace and can't rely on a bus service, perhaps?

B

hi Master B,

Oh, I know there are very REAL reasons for needing cars. And practically everyone who lives in central Canada needs one because there is no other practial way for them to get around. For example, if you live in Winnipeg, Canada, you cannot function properly without a car.

But I was only making the point that sometimes people think they need a car when perhaps they don't?

No offense intended.

az

I know that feeling when something goes seriously wrong with your vehicle only too well. There were several occasions when I drove my own van for a living when I heard anoise or something didn't feel right, and it's like the pit of your stomach falls out. Doubly so when it's the brakes

Sounds like you might have a dodgy wheel bearing GD, although there's normally a few months of warning signs beforehand

It doesn't feel like wheel bearings to me. I've had that go on the car before. There was no change in the handling characteristics, just a funny "eeep, eeep..." noise coming from the offside front wheel.

The sudden fault I most fear is the clutch blowing up. It's the bang and your left foot disappearing far into the footwell that gets me. When mine did blow I was shifting down from third to second on the approach to a big roundabout in Hove. I quickly changed my direction and drove straight for the grass centre of the roundabout and parked up. Cue call to the very nice RAC man

Clutch blowing up? I've not heard of that before. I've had a clutch go on me (on the Marylebone Road in stop-start traffic ) though. Finding that you can't get out of gear, and you're quickly approaching the rear of the car in front, and if you simply jam on the brakes the van is going to stall, and you've no idea if you're going to be able to get it going again, and if that's the case you're going to find yourself as a feature of the latest GLR traffic report - 'And there are long delays on Marylebone Road outside The Planetarium because of a stalled van'... that's a buttock clenching moment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3553327.stm

I'd be grateful you stayed at home, to be honest.

B

Does not sound like fun at all. Poor car.

I hate that feeling you get wehen you are driving at it suddenly wont do what it should or feels wrong. Before the days I was a company car driver that used to happen to me a lot. In my first car I had a nasty tyre blow out and then another time the clutch go followed not long after by the engine. One time I was driving my ex's car and smoke started coming out of the bonnet - not good - oil leaging everywhere - think it was a blown gasket head. And probably the most spectacular car I had for that sort of thing was my MG Miget. It was my only car at the time (my first car having died - see above!). Every 3 or 4 miles the exhaust would work loose and drag along the ground so you would have to get out and fix it back on again. It also broke down frequently - to the extent that people became surprised if I got to my destination!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good luck getting it fixed

I've had a clogged fuel filter on two occasions - once with a petrol engine and once with a diesel.

With the petrol engine I was on my way back to London from picking up someone and all their belongings in Kent. Every 15-20 miles I had to stop the van, get underneath between the rear wheels, and tap the filter several times with a screwdriver handle to loosen the stuff that was stopping the fuel getting through. This was on a Saturday evening, in the dark and in December

When it happened to me in a diesel powered van I was on my from London to Yorkshire with a load of shirts. On the flat it was ok - I could still keep up a steady 55mph (should have been able to go 10mph faster in that van with a load on board), but each time I hit any kind of a hill the thing slowed to a crawl. That wasn't too much of a problem on the motorway because I simply stayed in the inside lane. Passing through town centres and motoring along single lane A-roads was a nightmare though

What should have been a three hour journey turned into six hours of nail-biting hell, and I only just made it to the drop in time - I was lucky that the manager was doing a bit of overtime otherwise I'd have been stuffed and would have had to park the van up somewhere and kip in it overnight... with no sleeping bag or any kind of sleeping arrangements And I couldn't call out the AA to come and fix it because it was over the 3.5 tonne weight limit - anything bigger than that is considered 'fleet', and they won'y have anything to do with it

The plan was that after leaving the drop I was going to head back south as far as Sheffield and have dinner and a nice evening with some friends who lived there. I washed up at their place around 10pm, and took the van in to a local garage next morning whrer they replaced the filter and bled the fuel system. Heading back to London after that was a breeze

A good bit of advice when checking a tyre is to make sure you check all the way across the tyre. That way you won't miss the fact that the inside rim of the tyre is practically bald.

There was nothing wrong with the mechanicals. It just needed a forty-quid trip to Kwik Fit.

Oh I don't know. That seemed quite reasonable for a new tyre

So my comments in Ask h2g2 about what sort of old banger you were driving weren't far off.

So it seems

The baldness and uneven wear wasn't caused by something mechanical, though? Just a thought.

That's probably down to my erratic maintenance of the tyre pressures.

You know I reall am hopeless with all things mechanical. As for car maintenance, there is a hole at the back of the car which extracts the contents of my wallet, and there is a bottle at the front into which you pour blue stuff. Beyond that and I'm struggling

*Remembers changing a clutch cable at 3am, in the middle of a shift, somewhere in Victoria*

Suck, squeeze, bang, blow. That's all the knowledge you need And if your AA membership is up to date you don't even need that.

You are an AA member, right?