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So
after about 80 miles, spotted McD's and had to try it,
so pulled over and had a good old scoff, we swapped over
so I was driving and literally 10 mins after leaving,
doing about 70 in the 'slow' lane (don't ask why) the
car suddenly felt / sounded weird, to be honest I
thought a tyre had gone, but when I tried breaking, it
pulled up straight, but it just wasn't right. Anne
thought I'd driven over something, couldn't see anything
in the mirror, but then there was one of those horrible
red engine warning lights that came on, so I pulled over
and was just about able to make it to the indented hard
shoulder on the motorway. Once stopped, the car would
not start again, words to the effect of 'oh dear' came
to both our minds.
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Ok, emergency mode on, get the warning sign out, hi vis
vests on and check on breakdown recovery details.
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There was a nice handy roadside breakdown call box, so
popped along to it, pressed the relevant button and was
answered by an extremely helpful gentleman, well I'm
assuming that he was being helpful as his English was as
good as my Italian. This was going to be a long day.
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Option 2 – call the Ford Assistance breakdown number –
gave our details but after checking, they came back to
say that we were only covered for the first year of the
car ownership – I was pretty sure it was covered for 2
as we took out an service warranty when we bought the
car, but never mind, we had the Tesco breakdown.
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Option 3 – call tesco breakdown – gave the details and
they were extremely cheerful in telling us that even
though I've got European cover it is for my car only and
even though we have personal cover, it doesn't cover my
wife's car ie the Focus. They did say 'sorry' and wished
us all the best. A quick 'hang on' and I informed them
of the checking I'd done back at home to confirm that we
would be covered, but was just informed that we must
have been mistaken. |
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Now by this time, you've got to think, the cars bust,
we're in Italy, the phrase books we've got only cover
the basics of room service and ordering food / drink,
not for car emergencies.
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I
explained the situation and what I had done back in the
UK and after being on the phone with them for about 26
mins, the result was 'sorry'.
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Well, I phoned the Ford dealership to now check the
extended warranty and the cover it provided, so we
should be covered.
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Decided to try option 2 again and had a long winded
conversation with Elisabeth who was trying her best to
be helpful, but it just wasn't happening. I confirmed
that we've had the car from new, got the extended cover
but have changed the car number plates – well that
seemed to kick it into motion and she went off to do
some further checking.
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But by this time a roadside mechanic had turned up and
insisted that he take us off the motorway. So the car
was loaded on the back of the lorry with an expected 120
euro bill coming. It's a Saturday and our car is being
loaded onto a lorry on a motorway in Italy.
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During the drive, I'm spending most of the time trying
to find out if we're actually covered or not and what
should happen next, stress, don't talk to us about
stress. |
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We
get to the compound and the car is unloaded, I warn Anne
that we may have to leave the car, so get the bags with
the main bits that we need together and I'm still
chasing on the phone.
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Eventually, Elisabeth confirms that we are covered, yes
and teach the mechanic the English phrase along the
lines of 'thank f..k for that!' – he smiles and goes
back inside to watch some more tv. |
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Later, during many breaks between phone calls, the
mechanic asks what's wrong with the car and so I try
starting it and they explain that it's the cam-belto or
something eventually we manage to translate to mean it's
probably the cam belt. |
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You'll love this, the European Assistance agent
Elisabeth who was now extremely helpful was trying to
get things sorted out at her end, but as neither her nor
I could speak Italian, we had to wait until she
contacted the local AA (or ACI) to send a fax through to
the garage for them to get the details so that we didn't
have to cough up a credit card number.
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Now it seems they Ford Assistance would provide 2 days
car hire, taxis etc and it will all be sorted –
eventually.
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But we had to wait 1.5 hours for the taxi to take us the
last 35 miles to the hotel.
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Also had to do a quick tidy of the car before we left
it, making sure that the electrical bits like sat navs
were removed, along with the radio facia etc but we had
to leave a lot of stuff in the boot area. Stuff that we
really would like to see again, but wait with bated
breath...
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Finally arrived at the hotel, but the room was
definitely one of the best ones they had and they seemed
to think it was our wedding anniversary (strange that!)
and so they brought us up a tray with a large bunch of
flowers, bucket of local sparkling wine, strawberries
and chocs – well, it did sort of help towards a rather
stressful day.
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Oh, the hotel offered free wired internet – Anne was
well in her element for that and was able to stream an
episode of 'Strictly come dancing'.
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