Wish I had stayed at home today

I picked up the hire trailer late and got stern looks from the office woman - not a good start.
Loaded the car on the trailer in the pouring rain and scuffed one of my new Compomotives rims getting it on (only 20mm either side so it was very tight)
I got down to the RR company only to find the technician / owner was late and had to wait an hour to get the car on the rollers
FOUR HOURS later we are still backfiring and running like a sick pig
We eventually discover that there is a loom fault which only gives 8 volts to the coil pack AND the alternator is not charging

HOORAH it runs and we can start mapping!

Changing up through the gears the gear linkage snaps - no more mapping!
EIGHT HOURS and I'm loading the car back on the trailer in night time drizzle and my wallet is £300 lighter with nothing to show for it
An hour later and I'm unloading the car and remembering that I had promised to get the trailer back to the hire company before 5 o'clock - more stern looks tomorrow morning then ...... and I will lose my deposit.
In the process of getting the car off the trailer, it slips off the timber used to improve the clearance and smashes a hole in the front splitter
Now I've got to fix all the problems before I can continue the mapping ....... and probably another £250 to boot!

Sometimes I wish I stayed in bed



[Edited on 10-10-06 by RazMan]

Not your day was it.
I've had similar days getting all worked up about something only for it to go truly tits up and pear shaped.

keep the faith mate.....your car will be awesome when its finished

at least now you can lie and say it had more power than it does

Condolances Raz.

I keep saying to myself:

If it was easy everyone would be doing it.

and

The more trouble you have the better it feels when you finally get it right!

Cheers

Fred W B

sorry to here that
where did you take it?
were they any good
would you tell other to go there?
cheers paul

[Edited on 11/10/06 by ch1ll1]

I went to a little place in Rainham. It was not exactly what I was expecting - on a grotty industrial estate with a mud road and some very impressive potholes to negotiate. To be honest I was a bit (lot) miffed to be kept hanging around so long and still be charged £300 for what amounted was only 30 minutes on the rollers. I realise they spent some time diagnosing the loom fault but if they had told me to go away and come back when the fault was fixed I would have understood.
The gear shift failure turned out to be a rod end which sheared off (just unlucky I guess)

Ah well, I will put it down to experience - at least I've got a basic map to do some shakedown tests on the car now.

in the words of new labour.................things can only get better!!

good luck mate, it'll be sunny next time and all will be well, but I know that onestep forward 10 back feeling!

hey bad luck;

is there anyway you can get seom cash back for the RR? surely it is for a fixed number of hours - on the road itself, if you were not on it for that time, then some money back?

He said he had given me a £100 discount due to the 'unforseen problems' and the same will apply to my follow up visit.
To add insult to injury, it still won't pass the emissions test at SVA so I will have to hire another trailer (at £40 per day) to get it back to him again.

Take it elsewhere.

Raz,

Really sorry to hear about your problems, if you did want to take it elsewhere this company are in Colchester,

http://www.t-m.co.uk/

I havent had anything on their rolling road but they have delivered the goods with various tin tops over the last 10 years. Last time I was in there they were RRing a zetec installation for Scholar Racing.

Good luck whichever way you go.

Regards

Steve

I had a similar bad day but it didn't cost that much!

Grotty place in the South Wales valleys.
Spent ages rigging up an external rad cos the fitted one would never keep it cool.
Eventually got it running and the Lambda sensor shot out of the exhaust!
He welded all that up and tried again.
Then the car stalled on a gear change (clutch master cylinder connection leaking slightly) and wouldn't restart.
After lots of fu**ing around it turned out to be the wrong coils fitted (see separate thread)
Towed it home with my tail between my legs and caancelled the planned hillclimb weekend.

Sorted the coil problem and phoned hm to book it back in only to be told he was off on holidays - season over!

That said, he's very good at mapping Emerald systems and a great bloke - not too pricey either so I'll be back there soon.

Wyn