Evening all

I can proudly say I am now a real Austin Seven driver, I've suffered my first proper breakdown!!

Been out for a really great day with the East Cornwall boys and girls, car was running perfectly, in fact several people remarked how smooth it sounded!! Waved goodbye to Mike Davis and Geoff Hardmann at Stoke Climsland and BANG goes the gearbox!! As I inched back from a wrong turn off it would appear that maybe a tooth has come off the reverse idler . Lost drive to reverse but forward gears function but very very noisy and lots of banging!
Although I was only 20 miles from home it seemed foolish to carry on as more damage was likely, not to mention the possibility of a complete jam up.

RH insurance breakdown works very well, the lady at the call centre was polite and friendly and the flat bed arrived within an hour. In the meantime we were fed and watered by Mike, Katherine, Geoff and Mary!!!

So it looks like I will get some more practice at gearbox rebuilds

Steve

Hi Steve,

Doesn't the Cornwall club have a breakdown trophy for the worse breakdown during the year, at the moment you must be in poll position !

Let me know if you need any help or bits

Interesting, I have RH insurance, but admit use my RAC insurance on the modern (I believe the fine detail seems to be it's you not the car that is insured) for 'local' breakdowns and only use the RH when abroad etc. All helps to keep the RH premium down, the RAC's seems to have a financial life of it's own, although I have only used the RAC (locally) twice on the Aussie in 5 years -
1/ Split block, material failure,
2/ A radius arm had broken under effective breaking, this was very soon after I bought the car, post-mortem showed at least a 60% OLD crack across the arm, halfway along.

At least you seem to be near the Cornwall lads, so real help will be close to hand.

BTW, where Geoff, Mary, Mike and Katherine also in the 'Colander' at the time the gear box went? I thought it was a two seater.

Mick

Just myself and Anna at the time of breakdown. We had just waved goodbye to the others!! They quickly arrived with chocolate which eased the pain.

I also have a breakdown policy for the modern, its a "pay and claim" system where I ring up and they recover me and I pay by credit card at the time of breakdown. I then "claim" the money back from the breakdown insurance firm. At only £32 p.a its much cheaper than the AA and RAC etc etc, only thing is you need a credit card or lots of cash to pay at the time of initial breakdown.

Steve.

Pay and Claim, you can afford to do that, just the sort of person I'm looking for - ready money...... BUT, 'The Colander', a lady likes some comfort, even if my car's only a RN, but at least the hair stays in place (all mine, not like Dolly Parton's), so perhaps money is not everything.

Do they always pay out? I'm thinking on my modern I am paying about £300 a year which equates to about £2,500 over the past 10 years and only one lift home of 120 miles in all that time. £32 a year! that sounds good if they settle your claim(s).

Naomi ..............

And there was me thinking you had disapeared forever!
Will be good to have your input back!

The Colander now sports the luxury of a split fold windscreen and a bench seat, so one can motor in comfort
The day of the gearbox incident it even had two lady drivers whizzing it along Davidstow airfield, although I am not going to comment further!!!

Ref pay and claim....

Martin Lewis is a journalist who champions the cause of mere mortals like us against the might of multi nationals, he has a regular spot on Jeremy Vines Radio 2 show and a website www.moneysavingexpert.com.
Seems to have some good tips, I saved a fair bit on the modern insurance . go to the site and look at the car/motoring section for more info.

Steve