Guilty as charged.
Many years ago i went to look at an old car for sale in Bristol. I had already owned three of this type of car before and had pulled apart and fixed just about every system on these cars over the years and immodestly considered myself an expert. At the time i was going out with lovely Martha who as was very smart, slightly mad and had a nose like a bloodhound, ears like a bat and the eyes of a hawk. We travelled up to Bristol and though Marf didn't drive and had no interest in cars she came along for the ride as she had never been to Bristol and it was lovely weather for a day out. We found the place and i looked the car over- it was a bit rough but seemed basically sound on the outside. As i got into the drivers seat Marf sat down in the passenger seat to check it for comfort while i fiddled with all the switches etc.; it was at this point that i noticed Marf wrinkling her nose. Suppressing the (very strong) urge to sigh i politely enquired if there was a problem," It smells like rusty water in here" was the reply. I patiently pointed out that there had been no rain in the south of England for about 3 weeks and that i knew every inch of these cars and there was nowhere for water to pool in that i had not checked and nobody could smell rusty water anyway. Having sorted this nonsense out we then went out for a test drive. About a minute into it i glanced over at Marf and noticed her grimacing a bit. Dipping into my rapidly diminishing supply of patience i again enquired if there was a problem. "What is that horrible whining noise coming from the back" says Marf. Heroically (and very wisely) resisting the temptation to say that the only whining i could detect was coming from the direction of the passenger seat i pointed out that the engine was in the back in these cars and it was a 35 year old car and that cars from the sixties were nothing like as refined as modern cars. "No i don't mean the engine noise" says Marf " I'm talking about that high pitched whine and that horrible rumbling feeling". At this point i thought the best course of action was to say nothing as the car was obviously mechanically sound and we returned to the owners house. I decided to buy it and arranged to come back up to Bristol on the train to pick it up the next week.
When i picked it up the following Sunday i had a nice relaxing drive on the M4 back to Reading until i got to the motorway exit and as i took my foot off the accelerator there was a sudden grinding noise and the car started to judder slightly.I just managed to get home by which time the noise was getting much worse.I phoned a fellow enthusiast and he came around and confirmed that the transaxle was toast. As we chatted about it he asked if i had noticed a high pitched whine on the test drive or felt a rumbling coming from the back ; i quite honestly answered that no
i hadn't
:Shamefullyembarrased
Whilst waiting to get the transaxle back from a very expensive rebuild i decided to do a few other jobs on the car and started by rustproofing it by injecting wax into the various cavities in the body shell. To do this you sometimes have to drill holes in panels to gain good access to make sure the wax gets into all the nooks and crannies. When i got to the sills i drilled the first hole and as i pulled the drill bit out i was drenched by......... about a gallon of rusty water that had been trapped in there for years when some idiot blocked the drain hole up :Shamefullyembarrased
About 18 months after this i went to buy another car. I insisted that Marf came along.I was
very keen to know what she thought of it
