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Saturday Morning
Jul. 12th, 2008 12:52 pmMy car and the tow truck (car carrier?) which dragged it to it's current resting place...
Jul. 12th, 2008
It's Official, My Car Is Fucked
Jul. 12th, 2008 10:06 pmThis morning I went for a ride to the street in Northcote where I dumped my dead car on Thursday night. Thankfully it was still there - mind you, who could knick it when it won't start?
I picked up a petrol tin on the way, and wandered over to the nearby seven eleven to get a whole five litres of petrol - figuring that if it was just an out of fuel thing, I could save myself a lot of bother.
It wasn't.
After getting most of the petrol into my car, and getting the rest on my hands, my gloves, my top, my shoes and the road, Fuji the Car still refused to start. Time for Mr RACV Man. Gave them a call, and miraculously had my membership number handy. The dude turned up pretty quickly, actually, I only had time to cruise the 'net on my phone for a bit. He was there for all of two minutes... It wasn't something simple like a fuse, no...
Subaru's have an unusual engine construction. It's called a Flat Four, and owes something to the Volkswagen Beetle engines of yesteryear. Anyway, one crucial component is the timing or cam chains which control the valves. These need to be check at some interval (I forget exactly how long, it's in the tens of thousands of kilometres - 60,000 or so I think). Of course, I haven't had mine looked at in a while, because one of them snapped. Hence the Car Deadness.
So the nice man from the RACV summoned another chap, this time with one of those cool tilt-tray trucks. Which he yanked my car on to with so little fuss, like it was a simple piece of luggage. I'm always impressed with machines like that... And given that this is the third time in eight and a half years of ownership that I've had to have Fuji towed, I've had plenty of experience with 'em!
We left it parked near my favourite mechanic. Cracking open the engine isn't going to be cheap, but I'm figuring it will still be cheaper than getting another car!!!!
I picked up a petrol tin on the way, and wandered over to the nearby seven eleven to get a whole five litres of petrol - figuring that if it was just an out of fuel thing, I could save myself a lot of bother.
It wasn't.
After getting most of the petrol into my car, and getting the rest on my hands, my gloves, my top, my shoes and the road, Fuji the Car still refused to start. Time for Mr RACV Man. Gave them a call, and miraculously had my membership number handy. The dude turned up pretty quickly, actually, I only had time to cruise the 'net on my phone for a bit. He was there for all of two minutes... It wasn't something simple like a fuse, no...
Subaru's have an unusual engine construction. It's called a Flat Four, and owes something to the Volkswagen Beetle engines of yesteryear. Anyway, one crucial component is the timing or cam chains which control the valves. These need to be check at some interval (I forget exactly how long, it's in the tens of thousands of kilometres - 60,000 or so I think). Of course, I haven't had mine looked at in a while, because one of them snapped. Hence the Car Deadness.
So the nice man from the RACV summoned another chap, this time with one of those cool tilt-tray trucks. Which he yanked my car on to with so little fuss, like it was a simple piece of luggage. I'm always impressed with machines like that... And given that this is the third time in eight and a half years of ownership that I've had to have Fuji towed, I've had plenty of experience with 'em!
We left it parked near my favourite mechanic. Cracking open the engine isn't going to be cheap, but I'm figuring it will still be cheaper than getting another car!!!!
