What could be better than a day out at a craft brewery?. I’d read Palmer’s book ‘How to Brew: Everything you need to know to brew beer right the first time‘ ahead of our much anticipated visit to the Wychwood brewery in Witney in Oxfordshire. I had a whole list of things to ask, specifically about how to cope with water when it has a high calcium and bicarbonate content, and the value of protein rests, and I was looking forward to an evening of beer tasting.
Fiona and I packed our stuff in the car and set off for Witney in good time; our intention being to get there early, have a relaxing meal and then join the brewery tour.
We filled up with diesel at Tesco, Winnal, and headed off up the A34. The traffic was busy with a lot of heavy freight, but that didn’t bother me as we stormed along in the outside lane overtaking everything. Overtaking a truck on a slight incline while doing about 70mph (honest) I felt the car give a bit of a jolt and then lose all power. Damn, I had to get to the inside lane and pray the damn thing had gone into its ‘limp home mode‘.
The praying didn’t work, the car slowed to a halt. The A34 is dual carriageway with no hard shoulder; all those trucks we had passed earlier now passed me, many of them were obviously annoyed that our car was now blocking the slow lane and getting in their way.
We piled out of the car, left it with the hazard lights flashing; we moved to a safe location well away from the car and Fiona called the Police. The cops arrived within about 10 minutes shortly followed by a highways agency 4WD which towed us to a nearby layby and the cops called for recovery.
The recovery truck turned up about 10 minutes later, needless to say we were really appreciative of, and very impressed with, the Traffic Police, highways and breakdown people and of Steve who came over to Eastleigh to pick up us and drive us home.
I’d have to admit to being less than impressed with the Audi which is unlikely to be fixed before the end of next week (29th Jan).
Updated on 28th Jan:
Its not good news on the Audi, apparently the cam-belt tensioner has disintegrated. The man from the VW Service Centre called me to let me know. The better news is that the cam belt was replaced only 18000 miles ago and is still under warranty. The A3 will now be transported to VW/Audi and they will take over the warranty fix so I probably won’t get the car back for a few weeks, hopefully without having to pay a great deal towards its repair.
Another update, 15th Feb:
Well, I got the car back on the 10th of Feb with a brand new engine complete with a full 2 year warranty courtesy of the VW Service Centre in Gosport who convinced Audi that it was a warranty fix. I have to say that I am delighted, all it cost me was £72 for transporting the car to Audi so I bought a selection of cakes for everyone at the VW Service centre as a token of my gratitude to them.