ARGH!!!What a night from hell

[firewatch]

9pm Hubby tells me he has a bargain of a win on ebay that hes desperate to pick up. Daughter hyper and winding the dog up like crazy,dog being a good boy sits and takes it (despite us telling her numerous times to leave him alone).
So I say yeah why the hell not?? Its half an hour down the motorway so not that far and we can pop and see my sister.
So off we go pootling along, dogs in bed at home, get onto the severn bridge and the car overheats. We thought we had cured this problem with a headgaskett fix, so pull off the motorway under a fly over to take a quick look. Hubby suspect air lock but we dont get far into the engine when a cop pulls up behind us. Said cop tells us to get to the services, which to be fare are not far. So we set off again but dont get very far and break down compleatly,big bang the whole shabang on a motorway BRIDGE! On the M49 and hubby cannot remember our AA membership number let alone the AAs number, we though, had broken down close to an SOS phone. Ad,being Ad didnt want to use it so I grabbed his reflective jacket and used the phone,legs scratched to ribbons by thistles along the way. Spent the next half an hour stood on the the side of the motorway singing with my toddler, getting hubby to versus of if your happy and you know it (kick the car).AA took us to Gordano services, and sent for another guy to come tinker (mi, our toddler, was super excited at the big truck ride). So off we decamped to find coffee and food, mi getting a choccy coin from the lady in starbucks. By now its just after midnight, Ad goes to see the AA guy who declares Dora dead and we have no recover to home on our policy! Stuck you cry no! Hubby phoned his insurance and turns out he has breakdown to home on there get in my son! However, the recovery truck had no lights so we had to wait for him to fix that. By this point mis had a bi of cake three bob builder rides a game of hide and seek and a comic she was loving it. By 2am we were all tired and fed up, but just as we were heading back out to the truck our knight in flu resent armour came and diagnosed straight away a piston has snapped in the engine head. Mi climbed into the truck after Dora had been loaded and fell straight to sleep. Got home, unloaded Dora and no battery power to even get her into a sensible parking position, so shes now on charge in the hope someone can move her today.

Sorry for long post just super peeved!!

[jno]

a knight in flu armour... love that predictive text.

Nothing I can say about breaking down, but you could try always keeping your AA card with you if you don't have a smartphone to look it up with.

[NOX]

Whyever would you go out at 9.00 o' clock at night with a toddler when you didn't have to, ill prepared if you broke down on a motorway?

[EvianBaby]

Sympathies, partly. Gordano services is a sh1t hole. I'd be angry if I ended up there too.

But it was kind of late to be taking your toddler out.

[jno]

well, I don't suppose anyone goes out, with or without toddler, expecting to break down.

[firewatch]

We didnt exspect to brake down Nox, and we had everything we needed to fix the car had it been an easy fix.
A drive in the car has all ways gotten her to sleep, which is why we were trying it.

[dotty.]

my aa number is in my contacts under the AA's phone number........sounds like a nightmare, when i broke down the aa man sent as message to his base saying he was recovering my vehicle and myself and he said if they reject it he'd get an email but they didn't he said in most cases they will recover with or without cover if they judge the party to be in difficulties.

[NOX]

I never break down unless I plan it well in advance ;-/

[2sp_]

Glad you all got home, eventually!

What a nightmare, bad enough when something like that happens and it's just you, but when you've got wee kids in tow...

[Dee Sa]

you poor thing what an ordeal to go through, I hope you sort it all out soon.
heres a true funny story to cheer you up.
Friends of mine bought a small second hand car for their daughter away at uni- they decided to drive the car from Bristol to her in Brum and return by train also decided to stop at the first motorway on their journey and join AA on daughters behalf, they had a coffee bought some sweets for the journey and carried on, two minutes on the motorway the car stopped dead luckily they were still in the slow lane and managed to get the car off the road very sheepishly called AA as they had only been members for less than half an hour AA cant find a fault so it was tow to garage of their choice along came the low loader and they were winched on top and journey started - "fancy a sweet ?" he asked the wife and as he got the sweets out of the glove compartment he remembered the cut out switch and realised as he bunged the sweets in said glove compartment he had accidently flipped the switch. Now sitting in car on top of the low loader he cant alert the driver below so he had to phone AA , can u imagine the call "no I am actually on the low loader in my car" - can u repeat that sir - it took them ages to comprehend what he was trying to tell them but eventually they were winched down and carried on to Brum without further stoppages. He is now known as "the gumdrop kid".

[chi-chi66]

Dee Sa..I put a thread for you in media tv. on sunday don't know it you saw it,about winners and losers.

Sorry firewatch.

[firewatch]

We were no the only ones to brake down last night as we were being loaded the AA guy dropped off another car. We off road so keep mechanical repair things in the car!

[Hopkirk]

I was worried about the dog

[firewatch]

Trust me, he was fine!

[2sp_]

Love it, Dee Sa!

[Baldric]

Sorry about your motoring problems
Looking at your first paragraph daughter hyper and winding the dog up like crazy I wonder if that's got anything to do with the bite incident last week?
Just a thought,
hope you get it all sorted soon, good luck.

[firewatch]

No, she and the dog were both on one last night he was on a sugar high from plums and she well she was just loopy!

[ladybirder]

That thought crossed my mind as well Baldric.

[friedgreentomato]

If you are so inclined to buy older cars the AA do a wonderful insurance it costs £80 for cars over 10years (you need their breakdown to qualify for it) if you car breaks down and they can't fix it the AA will pay the first £500 of your repair bill as long as the car is serviced each year - I have used it on Zeb - got the head gasket fixed and a new engine out of it!!

Oh and you can use it up to 5 times in a year!!!

Sorry to hear Dora is dead

[firewatch]

FGT is sad as she was a lovely vehicle when doing the more extreme things we wanted her to do, but its just now this has happened shes beyond repair! :(

[NOX]

It's only an engine change- relatively simple if you're mechanically minded and not expensive engines as they go- get her fixed- you'll do it in a day.