Judy & Brian Tour Oz

Ha! Finally off again, this time down to Melbourne for this years F1 Grand Prix. As mentioned in the last post, we only just got our car back from the wizards at Advanced Tech Automotive and along with the usual first day out 'things that go bump' we had a bit of a stress day making it down here to 'Wang' as i notice they now call themselves. The park is a bit fuller than last time, but we got the last en-suite and its still pleasant despite that busy road lout the from. I even had a swim in the pool. The whole point of this trip, apart from going to the F1 races, is to leave  the Nova van at the Nova factory and get the few things we know need fixing, fixed.

That annoying crashing sound that we first heard coming up the mountains up in North Queensland failed to get better by itself, so off to Advanced Tech Automotive in Philip in Canberra it went. You may recall we bought a turbo charger in Melbourne last trip as that was their first suggestion. Alas, it was not to be. The noise persisted. Russell was almost convinced that it had to be a broken vane in the torque converter, but if you pull the gearbox out, you can't mount the starter motor and hence you can't start the engine and listen for noises. But wait, the cunning sod dreamt up a way to disconnect the torque converter from the engine and leave the gearbox in place. The noise persisted. They disconnected the belts and pulleys and things from the front of the engine. Still noisy. In desperation, someone stuck a screwdriver behind the harmonic balancer (remember that? we had it replaced in 2012 at the end of our first big trip) and lo and behold, it moved in a way it wasn'...

It true. The car was shipped on Thursday from Ulladulla to Canberra to Advanced Tech Automotive by the NRMA. Advanced Tech Automotive ordered the part Thursday morning based on the NRMA roadside assistance diagnosis. Now get this - Advanced Tech Automotive called me on Friday at 12 noon to say the car was fixed and ready to go, now that is service. It really doesn't get much better than that in the car repair business. My special thanks to NRMA whose Platinum Coverage service has been truly outstanding. Well done to them and especially "Chris" who took my intial call and handled it with efficiency and top level professionalism. Now that we know how the coverage works, we wont hesitate to take off again next year and head outback again. Far out, as they say,

Yes, that's right, the fabulous X5 has packed it in again. Not happy, Jan! This time we were coming back down the narrow dirt road from Pointers Hill and stopped to take a snap of some coloured birds in a tree and Bam! , a dreadful smell of burnt brakes or rubber or something and then the steering got all heavy like it had a flat tyre. Limped into Ulladulla, parked behind the NRMA shop and called roadside assistance. Turns out that the big pulley (harmonic balancer) on the bottom of the engine has collapsed. Game Over - tow it back to Canberra for repairs is the only really useful option. Now as it happens I am a platinum member of NRMA with top level cover - and they have been fabulous so far : organised the car to be taken to Canberra, organised a hire car for us for the next week, and will, when asked , have the van transported back to canberra as well. Cost? Nothing. Doesnt get better than that. Some snaps of Lake Conjola So i suppose i should post the snap of that col...