September 2014 - A Shock to the Sytem

September was to be our chosen month for our drive back home to Spain. Most of the traumas with the Audi were finished and we planned to leave in time to get us back for our U3A Groups Fair at the end of the month.

One last thing to do on the car was replace the front tyres as they had been mentioned in the August MOT. I ordered them via Asda Tyres and called at the fitters in Clitheroe to have them fitted. The owner reported that two of my wheels were damaged and needed to be replaced.

Rather than replace just two I decided to get four done, so as to have matched alloys, and ordered them from a wheel specialist in Chadderton. When I came back for the car after fitting they told me that FOUR of the wheels were damaged and it would appear that a previous owner had had the wheels drilled out due to losing the locking wheel nut socket.

 I FIND IT INCREDIBLE TO BELIEVE THAT THE VENDOR, LANCASHIRE TRADE VEHICLES HAD NOT SPOTTED THIS WHEN PREPARING THE VEHICLE FOR SALE. When approached LTV said that they had not known about this but because I had not advised them of the problem before buying new wheels, they would not pay for the replacements. After various conversations and a mention of Trading Standards they coughed up more than half of the cost. My opinion of this vendor cannot be put into print in order to avoid litigation.

On the same day that my new wheels were fitted I had what I assumed would be my final visit to the doctor. Kathie was at home packing her car ready for it to be transported to Spain.

I was given the news that my heart beat was irregular, Atrial Fibrilation, and that I would have to cancel my journey to Spain until a cure or course of treatment had been decided upon.

Arrangements were made to cancel our journey home, cancel the hotels, cancel the short break we had arranged in the South of France, cancel the arrangement for transporting Kathie's car, and postpone the Channel Tunnel crossing. Luckily none of this cost us anything.

So now we just had to wait for the NHS.

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May 2014 - LANCASHIRE TRADE VEHICLES LTD

Registered logo of Lancashire Trade Vehicles and copyright to them.
Shown here for clarification

My lovely MX5 is nearly 15 years old and in need of a few things. I wanted something more comfortable and having recently had a long drive in a Mercedes C Class automatic I decided that my own 67 year old body would be far better sitting inside a car of this class.

I did the usual search on Autotrader looking for something within my price range, and if it was a convertible then all the better. I found what I was looking for on the LANCASHIRE TRADE VEHICLES LTD site in the form of a 10 year old Audi A4 convertible. 2.5tdi engine, leather seats, automatic gearbox etc. I contacted the vendor and as I was to be home from Spain within two weeks he agreed to hold the car for me after giving him £500 deposit.

A left hand drive version of my car

 

The vehicle has been looked after very well although the advertised "fsh" was a bit of a fib as there was a large gap in the recorded service history of about 20,000 miles. This was explained as an "extended service gap" which can be allowed within the Audi service schedule. Everything else seemed well with the car so I took delivery after paying the balance of the asking price. I was confident that anything I missed would be taken care of by the promised 3 month warranty.

A couple of days later I noticed that at low speeds I was experiencing a "juddering" from the gearbox. This was reported to LANCASHIRE TRADE VEHICLES LTD who suggested that the hydraulic oil needed topping up. This was carried out by BP Garages in Bury who do the servicing for LTV. They added 1 litre of hydraulic fluid. There was a slight improvement.

I asked LTV about a radio code and also if the lights could be permanently adjusted for continental driving. He suggested that I contact Audi.

Shortly after this I took the car to Blackburn Audi so that they could examine the headlights and the Audi radio and supply me with a code in the event that we had to remove the radio or the car battery. Whilst there I was offered a free health check for the car. THIS WAS NO REFLECTION ON LTV BUT AN EXCELLENT FREE CHANCE TO HAVE THE CAR CHECKED OVER BY A MAIN DEALER. They did point out one or two minor problems which are only to be expected on a 10 year old car. Their engineer experienced the same juddering from the gearbox and recommended that the entire hydraulic fluid be flushed from the gearbox and replaced. This was offered at a reasonable price of £139. This I accepted and the work was carried out the next day. Huge improvement from the gearbox.

I reported this back to LTV who said that a hydraulic fluid change would have been their next move so I asked for a contribution to my cost. They agreed to pay the same figure as it would have cost them to have BP Garages do the job.

True to their word they coughed up half of my cost (main dealers always charge the top-whack so I was happy with 50%) and now everything is hunky dory.

When I decided to buy a car in the UK Kathie and I agreed that we would get it right at the beginning of our holiday so that any problems would manifest themselves before we go back to Spain. We have done more miles now than the total journey back to Spain so here's hoping that the gearbox was the only hiccup.

It turns out that I don't need a radio code and the headlights cannot be permanently adjusted (more expense in Spain) but the visit to Audi was worth the trip.

The car drives like a dream and is my first taste of luxury motoring, something which I could get used to.

ADDITION MADE IN NOVEMBER

It turns out that my earlier praise was somewhat misplaced as I found out when having new tyres fitted that the car had been in a very dangerous state and the wheels were badly damaged.

A previous owner had drilled out one bolt hole on each wheel, probably to remove the wheels without a locking wheel nut. I had to have four wheels replaced.

The owner of Lancashire Trade Vehicles was "mystified" as to why somebody would do this and was very upset that I had disposed of the old wheels. I gave him a full explanation but he would only agree to reimburse me for what he said he would have paid to have the wheels replaced. He gave me £200 of the £380 it had cost me.

The latest problem now is a faulty indication of an ABS problem, I have paid to have one of the sensors replaced but the fault is still being reported by the Engine Management System. This is very annoying.

I am beginning to wish I had not bought the car.

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