Motoring Mayhem

This has not been a good year for my car, as regular readers will know. Today, however, in a bid to draw further attention to itself, behaviour went beyond the pale. Even as I left Grantham for work this morning, there were some ominous whirring and scraping noises coming from the front end. I usually fix this by turning up the radio, but today that wasn’t happening. I also noticed that gear changes through Grantham’s stop-start traffic (mostly stop-stop thanks to Grantham Council’s inept highways policies) were stiff and clunky. Out on the A1 things improved, until I turned off and headed for Winthorpe. The car kept jumping out of gear, and it wasn’t a case of putting it back into gear – bang the stick around until it went somewhere; anywhere!

I lurched onto Winthorpe roundabout with the grace and elegance of a tortoise that had trodden in Superglue and now had hiccups. Fortunately all the other commuters waiting to enter the roundabout sat back in a calm and patient manner, whilst sympathising with my predicament by tooting horns, sticking up two fingers and shouting obscene messages out of their windows. As I was crawling round at the speed it takes Gordon Brown to make a decision, I was able to thank them all individually for their kindness and tolerance - whilst reminding them that I’d be coming the other way in around half an hour with an 18 ton truck that wasn’t mine…..

The car – I won’t name and shame it as being a 51-plate Toyota Avensis – dragged itself off the roundabout, and I finally found something that resembled a gear and got moving a bit. Hang a right into work – is anybody going to give way and flash me in? Of course not. Great. Stop car; wait for gap. Gap appears, crunch through where the gears used to be – aha! Forward motion. Oh. Not quite. With a shuddering grind, the car stopped on the opposing carriageway. Oh dear. Merc 350 SEL coming the other way doesn’t see me, because it’s broad daylight, I’d put my lights on as a warning and the car is bright red. Surprise, he’s on his mobile phone, of course. It’s a bit of blur, but he found time to drop the phone, hit the horn and flash his headlights before it finally occurred to him to take evasive action and go sliding past me in a move worthy of Top Gear – Rich Prick in an Over Priced Car. Why waste time with all that tooting and flashing? Isn’t it painfully obvious, even to a Merc driver, that I haven’t straddled the wrong lane of a busy road so that I can have a spot of breakfast? Did he think I’d parked up to do the crossword? Idiot.

Using the Gordon Ramsey school of driving techniques, I swore, cursed and banged the gear lever through every conceivable position, finally ending up with something where 5th used to be. Like a kangeroo that’s spent the previous night on gin and paintstripper, I got the car off the road and into work, where it was pronounced dead at the scene.

Once stopped, the gearbox froze completely, and it’s game over. Whether or not it can be fixed for anything less than a banker’s bonus is debateable. It won’t be quick either; as always, I need a special part that has lots of numbers and initials after the name and is in short supply. These VVTI Toyotas are apparently well known for this problem (why are problems always well known after they’ve happened to you?) and so replacements are scarce and incur a premium price tag. Oh, goody. I can hardly wait. It might end up being more cost-effective to scrap and replace it; fortunately I work in a place where purchasing another vehicle shouldn’t present too many problems!

At least I still have wheels; the company keeps an old runabout or two for trips to the shops and emergencies, and the boss has let me borrow the old M-reg Subaru Impreza for the time being, which is a huge relief.