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

Ahh, I think I recognise that. Thanks Mina.

Surely they can't really claim copyright on a perfectly ordinary word like dummies?

It's not just the word, it's the whole thing of

xxx for Dummies etc. They have a page on that website about copyright, have a read, it's very entertaining.

So are you still driving the white pug a lot? Is it happier now of still overheating?

I'm finally getting this fixed on Thursday when the car gets its service and MOT.

It's been an entertaining couple of weeks. All journeys have been planned to minimise the chances of getting held up in jams, or having to stop at traffic lights. It's made for some quite interesting diversions

where have you and the pug a lot been discovering?

The most ridiculous diversion I took was in getting to the town's main branch of Sainsburys in West Hove. Normally this would be four mile journey westwards, through the town centre and out the otherside. Easy peasy, but lots of traffic lights and queues and things.

So the route I took to get there went in a whole different direction...

Drive eastwards pass the racecourse and on for a couple of miles to Woodingdean. Then turn north over the downs to Falmer, the University and the junction with the A27. Loop over the top of Brighton on the A27, passing junctions for Coldean, Brighton and Hove. Turn off at a junction for Shoreham and West Hove drive south for a mile or so, and the supermarket is the first left off the second roundabout.

Overall this diversion is about 3 times the distance of the direct route, but takes about the same length of time. This indicates that on the diversion my average speed was three times that of the usual direct route, and hence offered me lots of opportunities to blast nice cooling air at high speed into my car's engine compartment.

The problem has now been fixed. It was a thermostat switch that was broken. Repair cost £40.

That's not bad at all.

I'd be pleased with a bill that size from my garage.

Glad you got it sorted

My car is making a terrible noise I have been trying to book it in for a service but the lease company are being a bit of a pain

My cheap £250 car cost me over £700 to MOT, service, and do a few other bits that might as well be done while it was in the garage.

I knew I'd need a budget of around £1000.

It was only the thermostat switch thing that cost £40.

The MOT; the MOT retest after the brake lines failed and had to be replaced; and the intermediate level service took the total bill to over £300.

Ah!

Which is probably about half the value of the car.

Hence when they suggested that the front brake pads were 60% worn; that there was some bleed in the rear brakes; that the radiator had issues; and that there was a bit more play than one might have liked in the handbrake. Yet however none of these problems were serious enough as problems to affect the MOT. I declined to have them fixed.

I expect that I shall be driving a new car(*) by Christmas time

(*) New as in 'new to me', not as in 'new from the factory'.

Still it will be exciting - do you know what you will get?

Probably another 306.

I *really* like the way that the car drives. It's also to my mind a good looking car. Certainly it looks way better than its replacement model, the 307.

Plus as the 306 is now a discontinued model, the second hand prices will have dropped significantly.

I agree it looks better than the 307! Also if you like the way it drives why change?

Why did you have to pay for a retest?

When I worked at Radio Leeds for a few months the pool cars were diesel 306s - they used to go like little rockets

Mina - it was the brake lines that had to be replaced. That's what caused the MOT fail, and had to be paid for. Quite pricey they were; £120 I think

Six - the diesel 306s are pretty good (I assume that they were the 1.9Tdi version) the only downside for them is the service interval. At 6,000 miles, in the old days I would have been looking at a service every 3 months if I owned one of them as opposed to the petrol version. That's not on.

That's a good point. Mind you, when it's a fleet car it's less of an issue...