Sunday, May 07, 2006
A black day…
Given that garages can sometimes be a bit steep in the pricing stakes and given also that I’m somewhat feckless in the mechanical stakes, it’s a lovely thing to be able to call upon the services of a “tame” mechanic.
A friend of ours is a former mechanic and sometime engineer and when I asked him if he’d take a look at the bus to see if the small hole in the exhaust was fixable for the MOT test, I was delighted when he said, “no problem, I’ll do that for you.” He mentioned that it would be wise to renew the silencer at some point but knowing how strapped we are for cash he saw sure he’d sort us out in the short term.
Now for the black bit…he called today to say he reckoned that, as he’d had the van in the garage to look at the welding required, he’d spotted a potential problem. When a garage tells you this you tend to think in terms of the great West-of-Scotland-double-positive-equals-a-negative: aye, right. When a friend tells you, the stomach somersaults, the pound signs flutter before your eyes and you think: bugger, what about our summer holidays?
Our man reckoned that a previous bit of bodywork had been done in a slightly dodgy fashion, causing potential safety issues as regards the structural integrity of the suspension mounting and trailing arm. See. I know nothing and even I can see that sounds expensive.
Oh well. “Can you pop up and have a look at it with me while I run you through what’s what?” I suppose I’d better. It’s not looking good. Maybe we should think about a tent in the garden for the summer after all…
Given that garages can sometimes be a bit steep in the pricing stakes and given also that I’m somewhat feckless in the mechanical stakes, it’s a lovely thing to be able to call upon the services of a “tame” mechanic.
A friend of ours is a former mechanic and sometime engineer and when I asked him if he’d take a look at the bus to see if the small hole in the exhaust was fixable for the MOT test, I was delighted when he said, “no problem, I’ll do that for you.” He mentioned that it would be wise to renew the silencer at some point but knowing how strapped we are for cash he saw sure he’d sort us out in the short term.
Now for the black bit…he called today to say he reckoned that, as he’d had the van in the garage to look at the welding required, he’d spotted a potential problem. When a garage tells you this you tend to think in terms of the great West-of-Scotland-double-positive-equals-a-negative: aye, right. When a friend tells you, the stomach somersaults, the pound signs flutter before your eyes and you think: bugger, what about our summer holidays?
Our man reckoned that a previous bit of bodywork had been done in a slightly dodgy fashion, causing potential safety issues as regards the structural integrity of the suspension mounting and trailing arm. See. I know nothing and even I can see that sounds expensive.
Oh well. “Can you pop up and have a look at it with me while I run you through what’s what?” I suppose I’d better. It’s not looking good. Maybe we should think about a tent in the garden for the summer after all…
