Car Trouble.

[Hells Bells]

Car engine malfunction light comes on when hubby went out the other day. As car is under warranty we have breakdown cover through the manufacturer with RAC. Nearest dealer is 100km away, and we're meant to be leaving on Saturday and starting work again on Monday morning. Have dog, bikes and luggage to get home. RAC tried to hire us a car but they say non available within 3 hours drive, and we'd have to get across channel, dogs can't go as foot passengers or on Eurostar.

Pass the bottle of wine someone please.

[greenbarn]

Sorry to hear that Helen.

Unfortunately our broadband bandwidth isn't sufficient for teleporting you a bottle of wine

[Mouse]

Oh no!!! That's high on the stress-o-metre. Hope you get something sorted helen.

Mousie
x

[tavi]

oh dear, nightmare stuff. Hope the RAC get something sorted for you.

[la vache!]

i hope you get something sorted too. Hiring cars to cross the channel is hard enough but with the dogs that is an extra problem...hopefully not yours. It reminds me of some guests I had once, the son-in-nearly-law wrote off the 4x4 of the nearly F-I-L (he got drunk while fishing) and the hire car firm wouldn't let the car cross the channel, so I had to organise a taxi for them to the port, then they had a hire car in the UK. I was the numpty who gave them lifts to and from the hospital, and to and from the police station where I had to translate for them. I didn't receive a penny or anything in recompense for all the trouble or the flowers that I'd been charged to get in for their arrival. Plus they had also smoked in the house (including the bedrooms). Not my best guests ever. I think it was probably their first and last visit to France and I'm not sure if the nearly son in law ever made it to officially be related to the family after that.

[Normandie]

Gods, Helen, just getting home is likely to remove all sense of relaxation and well-being after a good holiday.

Hope it goes better than it sounds in prospect.

[French Cricket]

Eek Helen . I hope it's less worse than it sounds ... fingers crossed that it's something simple. On the optimistic side, I had a steering malfunction light come on on my new (to me) Panda and it turned out to be a simple battery blip.

[Nemo]

Yes fingers crossed it could be simple, but when that light comes on, until it's diagnosed, you have no idea what the problem could be. Good luck in getting home.

[Hells Bells]

Well, apparently according to the Nissan dealer there was nothing found when they did the diagnostics, but had some other lights come on at random on the way home, and the cruise control wouldn't work properly. Every time we indicated it turned off. I think it has been transformed into a Renault.
RAC/Nissan Assist were completely useless in finding us car hire or taxis. We ended up relying on friends to get us 12km to the vets for the pet passpor check then the remaining 100k to the car. Only thing they did was take the car 100km away.
No taxi could apparently take us and the dog, but there were apparently no hire cars within 3 hours drive (we have three airports well within that distance).
At one point, when we were unsure the car would be ready by Saturday, they were proposing to fly us and the dog home. Not sure how we would have got to the airport without a car or taxi.
Hubby had his bike with him, but they wouldn't have got it home, even though it was part of our luggage, so he was supposed to take it to the car 100km away (our valley is a big tour de france area), and then there would have been no way of getting back. Leaving it behind wasn't really an option, as he wouldn't have had any means of getting to work without the bike.
They would pay for us to fly out to get the car back, but couldn't cover the petrol costs of a friend making a 200km round trip.

[Hells Bells]

It is also very telling that we haven't received a link from them asking for feedback. We have had reason to contact them before, and I was inundated with SMS asking me to leave feedback.

[Moliere]

I think it has been transformed into a Renault.

Nissan is already Renault, Helen, the companies are in common ownership. Sounds like you made it with little but frayed nerves, but it's a sobering illustration of our vulnerability to car breakdown when we have our pets and necessities (like bikes) with us. It's also a prime example of the rickety and temperamental software which increasingly inhabits our cars and other equipment, often to their detriment and our despair.

Mols

[Hells Bells]

Mols, I was aware of that , partly why I made the tongue in cheek comment. We were owners of a mush-loved and very unreliable Renault in the past.
They specifically say that they will deal with passengers, luggage abd pets but in this case left us stranded and at the mercy of friends to collect the car. With hindsight I should have insisted it was brought back to us.

[Moliere]

Well, I did wonder at the specificity of the allusion, but in the light of the experiences of Renault-owning friends I thought it was just shrewd observation! (What's the emoji for "tongue in cheek"?)

Mols

[peyre blanque]

Sorry to hear that Helen. Crying or Very sad

Unfortunately our broadband bandwidth isn't sufficient for teleporting you a bottle of wine

Greenbarn did you ever see this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRL1SeTJ1rk

Ross

[greenbarn]

Sorry to hear that Helen.

Unfortunately our broadband bandwidth isn't sufficient for teleporting you a bottle of wine

Greenbarn did you ever see this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRL1SeTJ1rk

Ross

Brilliant! I want one so badly I'll even consider moving somewhere with sufficient bandwidth for it to work.