Unfiltered Story #249142

As Britain started to open up again a few months ago, my family and I made a plan to meet at the seaside town we’ve been visiting for years and years. My brother and I took suitable precautions and decided to lift share for ease and to reduce traffic. We agreed to meet our parents, grandad and aunt in the town, to get some lunch and sit on the beach.

Unfortunately, my car had other ideas. All of a sudden, whilst doing 90mph in the outside lane of the motorway (freeway), my little hatchback decided it’d had enough for the day, and my speed suddenly dropped, with the engine making a juddering whine, and a flashing warning light on the dashboard to boot. I obviously panicked, but due to the traffic I couldn’t pull over. Fortunately, there was enough power to carry on driving, if much slower and more carefully. My poor dyslexic brother was unsuccessfully trying to find and relay the right information in the car’s manual. After a desperate call to our dad, we decided it was safer for me to carry on driving and park up safely at the intended location, rather than stop on the side of the motorway. I managed to do this, just about, with my little car pushing on for dear life.

Once we had found a car park and met up with our relatives, I contacted roadside assistance and told them the problem. We agreed that they wouldn’t rush to get someone out to fix it, as the car was safely parked, and I was happily enjoying the day with my family. The breakdown van arrived about an hour later, and an incredibly friendly man started chatting to me about everything and anything while running diagnostics on my poor, distressed car. After a few minutes, he popped the bonnet and pulled something out.

Mechanic: *Holding out something with three tubes sticking out.* “Here’s your problem! See this? This is your coil pack. It’s where the cylinders from your engine sit. This—” *pointing to an oversized gap on one end* “—is where your first cylinder should be.” *Pointing into the engine* “That’s where it is right now!”

I look into the engine where the coil pack has been removed. Lo and behold, there’s my other cylinder, clearly rusted away at the top. Somehow some water had got into the engine and corroded through the little piece of metal holding the cylinder in place. (I found out later that this is apparently a fairly common problem on my particular car model.)

Mechanic: “No wonder you lost power! Your engine suddenly lost 25% of its input!”

We had a good laugh about it, and fortunately it was pretty easy to find a replacement part. Once we got back to the car, the actual fix took less than a minute, and all the checks showed my little hatchback chariot was back to full health. My brother still decided to get a lift home with someone else though!