Winter of Discontent

Truly, it has been a terrible six months. First, and of course by far the the worst, my father’s death in October. Then there’s the continuing worries about my poor brother’s bad health, with another hospital stay earlier this year. The house / vehicle / money worries are just the icing on a rather shit cake.

We’ve been working on the house all winter to get it for sale. Of course this doesn’t just mean a few quick paint jobs by me, but those AND one proper decorator at proper decorator prices, because two-part epoxying the kitchen floor was clearly impossible with a large muddy dog around. And then the work on the gym walls turned out to be far more than we initially thought, and our bank balance is smarting a bit.

The car blew a tyre on our trip to Norfolk for my brother’s birthday, and being run-flat, managed to take out the bodywork and reversing sensor – a lovely bill and insurance claim there.

Finally, Denby has had a litany of ongoing problems, as detailed in Rog’s blog here – which ends with the immortal words “We are finally roadworthy!”

As we set off for Nettlebed last Friday, Denby’s engine warning light came on. The air was so blue it was ultramarine.

Rog managed to get Canterbury Fiat to book us in the next Thursday, so we hightailed it straight back from Cornholme on Wednesday to make the appointment.

And the bad news, in an email from the garage:

We carried out an investigation on why the EML was on and found an active fault code P0401. We carried out a leak off test and found injectors have excessive leak off and requires the service news to fix the issues. The van will need a new DPF filter, High pressure EGR valve, 4 new injectors and all the bits that come along with those parts.

 

To get all of that done, supplied and fitted is £7,625.80.

Fiat seem vaguely amenable to the idea that this is totally unacceptable in a 5 year old van with only 30,000 miles on the clock, and if we can prove an uninterrupted Fiat service history, they might even pay for it. Problem of course is, we can’t. Since Denby came out of warranty, we’ve been getting our local garage to do the services as Canterbury is 30 miles away.

So, unroadworthy again. Will we ever get away for a break from this wet, woeful winter?