Got some bad news Robin said my mate, Racv Total care doesn't cover anything over 22ft in length.
And thats how this little adventure began.
Last weeks post by Axle about how nice modern cars are came to mind as I got off the phone to a different mate whose car went into limp mode on Big Red and stayed that way for days as they slowly drove
home to
Melbourne where apon the error codes just went away.
This second case was to much of a coincidence - what happened said I.
Well he said, the big yacht regatta was over so we left the Yacht at
Lake Eyre yacht club in
Marree and thought we would take the ML320 (Mercedes AWD) for a quick spin up to
Birdsville and Big Red.
The car went up Big red without a murmur however it ran out of wheel articulation and front wheel went to the bump stops and beyond and damaged the plastic inner guard liner.
No real issue, the
views lovely up here on the top of the
sand dune so I will pull the rest of the plastic guard out and off we go.
A bolt is stuck so I will get out the battery drill and drill it out.
Damm, there was a hidden cable there and I have drilled thru it , something sparked and the ECU is dead.
It took almost a week in
Birdsville to organize things get the car trucked out and get a flight out before the family
arrived
home in
Melbourne - would have been a very expensive excercise if not for Total care.
But then the bad news - the 24ft yacht and trailer aren't covered and its parked 1500km from
home in
Marree.
He had a gas powered Holden Adventurer AWD we I had 3 days spare so a rapid respose was organized and we departed 4am
from
Melbourne for a non stop drive to
Marree , arriving 8pm after stopping every 250km for 4 minutes to fill up on gas
which went from 50.5 cents in
Melbourne to 110.9 in
Leigh Creek.
Thought we'd go to bed hungry in
Marree but then we realized its South Australia and really only 7:30 so the busy
Marree pub excepted our dinner order and even invited us to try their new Cappicino machine.
The luck continued thanks to Bob and Doreen at the
Lake Eyre yacht club who let us sleep in an old van out the back.
There was an ulterior motive - as Bob wanted to re sail
Lake Harry (not controversial like nearby
lake Eyre).
So we grabbed a 14ft CAT and off we went up the
Birdsville track for a delightful few hours at this very rare experience in the bush.
The wind was brisk and we skimed across the
shallow lake thru the white tipped waves for quite a ride, but time was short and it was soon late afternoon and we had a long slow trip ahead.
It was a different drive back baby sitting a yacht watching for pot holes washouts and animals but we got to
Port Augusta before midnight and sleep on the side of the road for a few hours and were off before sun up for the last 1000km to
Melbourne.
The heavy load and gas powered car needed fuel every 200km which took some management so you couldn't hunt for good prices and just paid.
Sunday and we are in Nhil 400km out of
Melbourne and
home when the cars temp guage went crazy and I pulled into a
parking bay as the car shut down.
This car was not in Total car - but I am so hence any car I'm in is also covered.
The RACV attended but couldn't find anything and we all concluded that the thermostat may have stuck.
We were informed that this Holdens thermostat is at the rear of the engine and requires lots of things to be removed to fix and its 5 hour operation after it was trucked
home.
Then we remembered - this car may be covered and could be trucked
home but we still have a yacht and it makes the vehicle still over 22ft so it would again have to be left on the side of the road - DE JA VU indeed !
Descision time - considered the options and I figured that if we kept the car hot the thermostat may just stay stuck open and may not cycle and we could limp
home if very careful.
Plan worked and after a long slow and careful drive we got the yacht to its moorings and all is
well except I'm suffering fromm lack of a real coffee hit - so see ya as I'm off to my favourite coffee
shop.
Please excuse typing errors and
check your polices.