She's back and on the road....Yay!

So early on in July, the 3rd as I recall, whilst on my way home from work in Tango I got rear ended at the roundabout at Stanley. The damage wasn't to severe and as the young chap who bumped me was with the same insurance company as myself, things got sorted out relatively quickly.

Tango

I was not of course expecting to wake up the following day and feel dreadfully sore and stiff and a bit, well no more like a lot really disorientated. Needless to say I ended up being off work about a month. The doctor at A&E said even though the impact was a low one, because I had been looking to my right to check for on coming traffic, then suddenly been lurched forward that I had sustained a whip lash type injury. Good news is I am fine now. I think any aches and pains I do now have are more down to old age.

Tango up on Wagtail Lane

Anyhoo Tango got taken away on a low loader lorry and was then returned some weeks later again on the same lorry from the body shop. Upon my first time starting her and aiming to go out for a spin, with her new funky paint work I was sure I could hear a horrible sounding metallic noise,coming from her derrière. As you will know the Smart Cars small engine is in the rear. I also noticed my air con was not working. Awwww crap, typical too as at the time the weather was roasting. Ahhh well plan B. I took the car down to a place at Darlington called MB of Darlington. Essentially they are a Mercedes Benz garage, however their rates are supposed to be a bit cheaper.

  

Oooh Shiny

Bigger inside than you may think or expect

Moving on, the guys at MB checked out Tango and I got a phone call later that day saying the A/C compressor on my car was goosed, kaput, knackered,Nee Good, all of those things actually. I was then quoted somewhere around £700 quid for the job to get it done....Gulp! "Can I ring you back" I said, as man I was not expecting that. This is when I started thinking "Mmmmm maybe I should just trade ickle old Tango in". However I then thought, well I have had her 3 years or so and to be honest she has not been any bother at all, well apart from wear and tear bits like needing a new exhaust. Plus she had just passed her M.O.T with flying colours. I then decided to keep the old girl and gave MB a call back informing them they had the go ahead to get cracking fixing my car.

I love Orange I do

What was to follow was a bit of a nightmare, to which I cannot really blame MB, just want that on the record. MB got the new parts and in order to fit the new £350 compressor they had to drop the engine. They did this and also fitted new belts, coolant and did a dye test to check for leaks. Unfortunately after all that my a/c was still not working...What?? MB diagnosed it as an electrical problem, however their main computer had packed in and then their spare one also went and broke. This was very frustrating for all parties concerned. Eventually when MB got their computer situation sorted it was discovered there was one, yes one daft pin on a plug that was not connected and this had been the cause of everything not working. So after 5 weeks and a bill of £734.00 I got Tango back and man that air con feels good, shame we are now approaching winter, Oh god I hope her heater works.

Been a good Ickle car

Whilst Tango was away I ordered a new dash cam, with both front and rear cams. As the HP one I had installed of late had been intermittently turning off and rebooting. I get bullied and cut up a lot in my little car so like to have a dash came for piece of mind. I mean if I get flattened I want evidence it was not my fault.

I decided to upgrade to a Mio Mivue 751 with a rear camera. Once Tango came back Ern bless him removed the old HP cameras and went about installing the new set up. Everything appeared to work fine apart from we noticed there was no "Y" cable for the rear camera. After doing some research on the interwebs I discovered I had bought the wrong rear camera. I had ordered an A20 + however I should have ordered just an  A20, obviously I had opted for the cheapest one I could find and got the wrong one, so had to pay another £30 quid for the right one. Ern ordered it from his Amazon Prime account and it arrived the following day. "Y" cable installed, camera switched on and "Hey Presto"....Nothing....awwww Fidel Sticks used the wrong magic words or something. Anyhoo we weren't sure if it was the dash cam, the wiring or the rear camera. So I took the rear camera out of Grandma my Beetle, as she is using a similar set up. And "shazzam" it worked. So obviously we had a dodgy rear camera. Ern sent it back and again within a few days a brand new rear camera arrived. Once plugged in it worked a treat I  could see what was going on behind whilst looking in the front dash cam. I then went to attach the rear camera to the inside trim of my rear window and said to Ern "Hey where is the bracket to fix this on". He had only gone and sent it back with the other faulty camera. So once more everything had to be packaged up and the whole lot sent back and now I am awaiting a whole new package hopefully with everything in and everything working. Front camera works great as been out for a spin in Tango today.

I got up early this morning to give the bonnet of Grandma a bit of a polish, as the day before I had applied some paint in various places where I had some stone chips, so this morning I spent a bit time trying to use some rubbing compound to flatten and then polish the areas. To be honest the best thing would be to get the whole bonnet resprayed, however that would cost a small fortune as the stripes are not decals, they are actually painted on. Plus with the design of the bonnet and the way roads are it would end up getting more stone chips anyways. I think with the bonnet being mainly black the bits where it has been chipped stand out more to the naked eye.

After finishing with Grandma and popping her protective cover on I looked over at Tango and kind of thought she may be jealous, so gave her a good pampering. A nice wash and then I applied a coat of Meguiar's Gold Class wax. Man that stuff appears to go on thick and is a bit of a nightmare to get off as it turns dusty. It does give a good finish and water appears to bead well off the body work. Following Tango's little treat I decided to go for a little blast and get some pics of her. I know she is just a little car, but she sure is fun to drive and really quite nippy. I have missed tootling about in her. It would be nice to have a few more horses, but hey she is what she is, a small car I use for work and to get me from A to B.