Sorry folks, I am going to have to break a promise I made only a few blog entries ago, there is going to be talk of garages ……. This entry is partly self therapy to get today out of my mind so feel free to ignore if you want!!
As the tyre that had blown was one of the rear tyres (and a fancy mud and snow type) we decided the best thing to do was to get two new tyres for the back and keep the old mud and snow as a spare. I spent the evening mugging up on useful vocabulary (they don’t teach you words for axle and jacking points at school) and as I went to sleep last night my head was pounding with all sorts of French words and sentences that I was going to need to explain at the garage today. I kept waking up with the words “pneu” and “roue de secour” going round in my head!!
Anyway today my French has got us through, it seems quite well. We got quotes from two garages this morning, who were about the same price, however one seemed much more helpful so we booked in the work with them for this afternoon. At this point I had explained that we needed new tyres, got prices, roughly explained what happened yesterday, asked them to put the spare back under the van and check a hole in the front tyre where we had removed a screw a few days earlier! We came back to the site for lunch and I relaxed thinking that the difficult part was over.
Again – more fool me! We arrived back at the garage after lunch, after a brief discussion re the type of tyres all was sorted, I reversed the van into their workshop, and went to sit down and read a book. We could see them busy working and all seemed to be going well until Jean Claude came into the waiting room and asked me to follow him. I was led over to look at the rim and could see that it was horribly cracked; I guess stopping the van on it yesterday didn’t do it much good! This obviously left us with a problem so I summoned up my remaining French and asked if he had a new one in the shop. Unfortunately he didn’t so we agreed they would put the new tyre on the spare rim and we would try and get a new hub elsewhere.
I returned to the waiting room, clutching my dictionary (it hasn’t left my hands today!) and then asked if they could recommend somewhere we could buy a new hub and they gave us an address and phone number of the nearest mercedes dealership. I had a bit of a panic about speaking on the phone and eventually got the helpful receptionist to ring ahead for us. A hub was reserved and we headed off with the help of the good old sat nav to our second garage of the day.
By this point, needless to say I was beginning to feel quite drained. Those of you who have read about our pains in
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