Well, a very bad week and a day, but that doesnt sound so snappy.
All started last Thursday when I ran my Clio round to the MOT centre to get its yearly scrap of paper. I drove the car the long way there to give it a bit of a run, dropped it off, walked the couple of miles home, had a quick cuppa and perusal of the lovely daytime telly then walked back. When I got there the car was out front so figured all had gone well. Went in to pay, and the mechanic told me that he hadnt even tested the car, as the radiator had cracked right open when they were putting it up onto the ramps, spraying the other mechanic, loads of their equipment and another customer with warm anti-freeze! So called Torsion Tuning and arranged to have it carted over there to be fixed. Very miffed, but getting the water pump, radiator and fan motor replaced so shouldnt have any problems later on. And seeing as it’s going to be over with TT, Im having it lowered while its there to cheer myself up.
Luckily I have a company van to haul myself around in, so things arent too bad. So Im driving the horrendous diesel monster into work yesterday (a week and a day later, feel the suspense mounting!) following a Vauxhall Cavalier round the Brook Street Roundabout pretty close at 60mph(ish). Very stupid I know, but I was in a hurry for a meeting. We are both going for an amber light up onto the M25 when he changes his mind and slams the anchors on. I do the same, but a combination of crap van brakes, poor road surface, and above all, bad driving on my part leave me slamming into his arse at about 55mph.
My airbag didnt deploy (nice) but managed to avoid banging my head too bad. Left arm broke my dashboard body slam luckily! My vision was blurry from a slight knock and feeling pretty sore all over, but got out of the car to find the front bulkhead all caved in, bumper hanging off, radiator smashed in half (that’s 2 in 8 days) along with all the cables, pipes and trim in the front of the van wrecked. I got a recovery team out to haul the van back and I ended up in Barnet Hospital for the rest of the day. Got whiplash and some nasty knocks, sprains and bruises, but nothing fractured. Now Im dosed up on painkillers and misc. other pills so even if I had another car, I couldnt drive it anyway.
Just found out that Rob who used to be pretty active within Cliosport had the cam belt go on his girlfriends Clio 1.8RT go while driving down to Somerset, so between us we actually wrecked 3 cars in 8 days!
Sorry for the essay, but needed to unload my woes on to someone, which has turned out to be several thousand people by doing it through this forum!
