Ever been really unlucky with a car?
Yup - me too.
Twice..?
One of the best cars I have ever owned was, remarkably, a Fiat Punto. A nondescript, plain, basic, boring (and under-powered) Punto. In all the time I had it, it never broke down, and the worst problem it managed was a light that stopped working. It turned out the tip of the connector on the bulb was a bit rusty, so after a quick rub with some sandpaper (I did the bulb too) it was fine. Ooo, drama.
Then I crashed it, as the unwitting fifth person in a queue all carrying out an emergency stop as some bell-end ahead had slammed their brakes on unnecessarily. After much delay, the insurance company wrote it off.
Scroll forward a few years and I was looking to replace my Ford Fiesta. The local garage had a nice second-hand Punto - a newer model, but hey, it's a Punto. Cool.
And it was, for a while. Then, one day, I went to go out and the battery was flat. Not usual flat, as in it sluggishly turns over a bit, or at least make an effort to do so. Oh no. So dead, the lights on the dash didn't even come on when I turned the key.
One new battery later and everything was just dandy. Then it happened again. After a jump-start and getting in running it would be fine. For weeks or even months. Then, mysteriously, it would be utterly dead again. A couple of times, I'd driven for miles in the morning, only for it to be dead when I went to go home.
The local Fiat garage had it several times, but never figured out what the problem was. As it was our only car, it had to go. During it's severe mood swings, it featured heavily in my Twitter output (I often had some sudden spare time when I was meant to be going somewhere) with the hashtag #crappyFiat.
The Green Flag breakdown guy thought I was taking the piss, too.
Phew - at least I'd got rid of that one inexplicably rubbish car we all have to own at some point in our life.
In December 2016 I became the new owner of a 15 plate Renault Twingo. A fun little car, with a teensy 0.9L engine but with a turbo glued to it - it managed a respectable 90bhp, and being rear-wheel drive with the engine under the boot, the front wheels were unencumbered by the need to pull the car along. Consequently, it had a turning circle so ridiculously small that black cab drivers would weep uncontrollably when seeing one. Three-point turn? Nah, I'll manage it in the width of the road, thanks. Laters, losers!
True, after moving last year it wasn't ideal for a 120 round trip to work across Lancashire, North Yorkshire and into Cumbria, then back again. When it was very windy on a rare stretch of dual carriageway, the traction control would kick in as it's ridiculously light chassis struggled to battle a side-gust and stay attached to the road surface, whilst I clung grimly to the steering wheel, expecting nothing but a fiery death.
With the boot-based engine, flooded roads were a major squeaky-bum time too. Still, after three years it was doing just fine and has clocked up nearly 55,000 miles.
Then, going home one night in February, an electrical warning light pooped up on the dash. I stopped, looked at the manual, and on starting it again the light was gone. Same thing happened again a couple of days later. I called the local Renault dealer who muttered something about low charge rate but probably fine - just see if it came on again.
Piqued at being ignored, the red light then called on it's mates and a big orange one with a spanner and STOP appeared on the dash. I limped it to a local garage in February - the turbo had joined the rebellion too, so it was now so deeply under-powered that even slight inclines now felt like driving the wrong way up a ski slope. The garage ran some tests and said it needed a new battery. Bosh - with fitting, resetting the system etc. - £200. Driving it home, the dash lit up like a Christmas tree on acid again.
Back to the garage, who said they needed to re-tune the battery to the electrical system. We then went for a test run. All good. The following day we decided to take a low risk journey out for breakfast. Five miles in, the lights were back on all red and angry. Which was nice, because now they matched my face.
A (slow) return to the garage followed. They said they'd run more tests as clearly something else was wrong - you think?! - and then Covid-19 shut everything down...
Suddenly, it was June. The garage called to say they were trying to get hold of wiring diagrams and speak to their electrical expert, as the Twingo was rare and basically a Mercedes. This is actually kind of true - the Twingo shared much of it's development with the Smart car along with many parts, including the engine.
Ringing regularly, each time it seemed they were still trying to figure it out. This wasn't it's only problem, however. An occasional odd noise when going over a speed bump had suddenly turned to a loud scraping when limping the car back to the garage in February - the kind of noise that makes pedestrians look at you like you've just run over their dog then laughed. Some tray underneath was broken. The garage reckoned nearly £500 for parts alone.
July arrived - with still no success, the garage finally admitted that they couldn't figure it out an I needed to take it to a Renault garage. Eventually, they cable-tied the tray underneath up and I limped the 25 miles to the local Renault garage.
They very quickly diagnosed the problems and the likely cause. The tray underneath protected the engine. It probably got damaged hitting flooded bits of road in the winter - there were lots of those. Water got into the engine. The turbo was knackered and the alternator sulking too. This would mean taking the whole engine out to sort. Trays underneath needed replacing. It would also need a couple of tyres and brakes sorting and an MOT, as this had expired now too. Presuming no other problems showed themselves once that was all done, the bill was likely to be... £3,000ish.
We'd been intending to sell the Twingo. So we knew that, if OK, it was worth about £3,500.
A five year old car, with under 55k miles on the clock, was now not worth repairing.
After some gnashing of teeth and wailing, we asked the Renault garage what they'd give us for it. The answer? £300. I'd filled it up with petrol just before it conked out and it had a new battery. Those were probably what they were offering me the money for.
Take into account I'd had to pay the old garage another £60 for all their diagnostic efforts, and the Renault garage £90 for their time, and the total spent since it went wrong was £350.
Bye, Twingo. It was fun while it lasted. Then it was just horrific... for six months.
Don't ask me to help choose your Lotto numbers - your house might burn down.
That had better have been my last car disaster.
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