SPAREZ OR REPAIRZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111111

[Willy]

Left work today at five as usual, heard a bang as I exited the gate and thought hmm just another massive pothole, a few miles down the road the LHM light kept flicking on, then it became permanently on, so I pulls over into a pub car park for investigation. EPIC LHM EXPLOSION! Green stuff literally gushing from the driver's side turret. I have no idea what happened but I am putting the car on the market. It's presently sat on my driveway, in low, in Reading. It has graphite speedlines with newish Michelins, it's done 78k miles, it's the shittest engine (1.6 carb), it has an "unknown" timing belt replacement (took my far too long to realise the gentleman who I bought it from lied there in the advert), it's LHM was done two years ago along with a new pump, it's virtually spotless on the outside and has a tailblazer. It has one month's MOT (I'll be cancelling Wednesday's appointment tomorrow when the garage opens again), it failed last's year's on a handbrake not being tight enough. It's practically rustless underneath and has never been welded. It will be on SORN from tomorrow also. It's a rarer colour. It will come with a bootload of spares including HP pumps, exhausts, roof bars, an alternator, new(ish) tyres and lots of other random things with absolutely no intrinsic value whatsoever. Presently, the car even has a full tank of fuel (grrrrr) although I'll probably just do the twattish thing and syphon it off. The car has a brilliant battery that has never let me down (Bosch silver).

Bring me £200 and a trailer and it's yours, the lot of it. My phone number is 0 seven 849 deux 592 one 9 (not in working hours) or pm me on here if you're interested and I'll have an honest and calmer chat. There could be a discount if you're nice or if everybody on here says ZOMG £200 UR MENTAL!!! Sorry if this all sounds a little aggressive but after the novelty of taking photos of the car on the back of a recovery truck wore off, I'm actually quite fed up now

Although I have only met one of you I have enjoyed my brief stay in BXland

[Mothman]

If you were in Sussex bud, ide tear your arms off for it.

Shame you are not.

andy

[Dollywobbler]

Could it just be something as simple as catastrophic failure of the sphere seal? Can you turn the sphere by hand?

[JayW]

PM'd and Texted etc.

[Tim Leech]

That Athena is far too nice to break!

[Paul296]

That Athena is far too nice to break!

I agree. Really sorry to hear that Willy. Epic car sadness really is shit

[Tim Leech]

Hopefully it may be something like a burst HP pipe which may be easy to fix?

[Willy]

I'm not going to break it, one interested party already so touch wood it'll have a new home before long.

Ian - now I'm a little less stressed, I could probably give a more useful description of what happened. After the above events, I lifted the bonnet and monster blood was literally spewing from the top of the strut, and the HP pump was whirring away like mad trying to refill whatever had broken. I'm guessing the strut is just ballsed inside - there was no visible damage, hence I was quite puzzled. How much is a new strut? £150? Else I'm sure there's always somebody breaking a car. Put the car in low so it would stop destroying itself as soon as I realised what was going on, the flooding ended.

Most weirdly however after much umming and arring working out how it was going to make the steep approach angle of the recovery truck, the car managed to rise up again! Although it did spill its load all over the van and the A4, and I'm pretty sure the system has now drained itself - no power steering as I tried to manoeuvre onto the drive at home.

Re burst pipe - I thought the HP pipe was the visible rigid one that runs to the base of the sphere? if so, that is intact and fine. It may well be sphere failure, however like DW suggests. They're about two/three years old and whatever did break came with a rapturous bang.


Photo0156 by willswitchengage, on Flickr

[Tim Leech]

I would seriously try a new sphere first, for £20 it may solve the problem

[JayW]

SOLD! (To Me)

[Tim Leech]

Excellent!

[saintjamesy89]

came with a rapturous bang

sorry, couldn't resist!

[Willy]

Bye bye car. Did notice lots of slug trails around the LHM pool though, maybe they like to eat it.

[Mickey taker]

did Jay get the leak sorted then Willy ?

[Willy]

Heatwave here stops work so he's currently smalltalking with an AA recovery driver on the way back to Cornwall after "breaking down" on the next road along from mine