Estate spotted

[mds141]

Mandarin series 2 spotted at around 3 am on the M6 southbound, on a AA recovery vehicle!! Anyone?

[CitroJim]

Oh well Bang goes the excellent reliability record enjoyed by the XM

[mds141]

At least it was still moving along at a steady 56 mph!!

[messerschmitt owner]

are we sure it wasn't Chris's one being recovered by a new owner - not that I would do such a thing ....


and think of the fuel consumption ....

[mds141]

Possibly, it did look like a decent example, not some old wreck being taken to it's final resting place. One of the ( few ) benefits to being a HGV driver is spotting lots of interesting motors. Prototype Range Rover Sport sailed past me on the M74 the other week, still clad in it's disguise panels.

[Peter.N.]

At least it was still moving along at a steady 56 mph!!

...and very economically too!

[citroenxm]

No, It wont of been, Citroenmads was driven back by the new buyer... this would be another one...

[endorfin]

Mine I'm afraid. And the bloody AA only took 12 hours to get me home!

Fuel starvation problem....was up in North Wales and heading home after a perfect drive up and as soon as I left Denbigh it felt like not enough fuel was getting in, I had a spare fuel filter so changed that and primed the bulb and left again, felt normal for about 10 miles and started doing it again. I reckoned I must have not seated the seals properly so pulled over in Caerwys to try it again. Problem still there so I figured the diaphragm must have gone porous but as luck would have it I had a spare fuel filter housing and filter that had come off a scrap Fiat Multipla so pulled over at a petrol station near Prees Heath and changed it over, didn't have a primer bulb so filled the filter with diesel and turned the car over for a bit and it fired up however it was much worse this time and I ended up breaking down in a precarious darkened bit of dual carriageway on the A41 in Shropshire somewhere. I reasoned it must be the in tank strainer but I had no proper tools with me and it was pitch black and freezing so had to call the AA at around 8pm. Patrol arrived in about an hour and he was reluctant to check the tank strainer but agreed to look in the end, was a bit p*ssed off with him for his lack of respect for the car which was evident when he lifted up the rear seat to get at the tank strainer and stuck a screwdriver puncturing the soundproofing under the seat to use as a prop to hold the seat back. He probably thought it's an old car so didn't matter, the damage won't be noticed but that's not the point! Tank strainer was full of muck, cleared it out but it didn't cure the problem. We put the old fuel filter back on and it ran ok for a bit then the problem returned. Got the car off the road to a petrol station further down the road that had some lighting. Bypassed the filter by running the fuel directly to the injection pump for a bit to see if the fuel filter housing was the problem (they don't seem to carry any spare in line filters) and the car seems to run fine, revved up ok so the Fiat filter must be sucking air too. I'm hoping the problem was the filter housing and not something more serious.

Since there was no way of getting it fixed at 10pm there was no option but to get it recovered. By this point I had followed the patrol to Telford services on the M54 (car wouldn't do more than 45mph, 2000rpm even less on a slight incline) a total of 173 miles from home a journey that I normally do in 2 and a half hours, 3 max. I reasoned on a truck it would take 4 hours. The patrol even confirmed this. It took 2 hours for the recovery to arrive. And I didn't get home until 9am and FIVE truck changes later! There must be some policy where they don't like to drive more than 40 miles in one go 'cos that's the furthest they seemed to drive before passing me onto another recovery company/AA truck winching the car on and off the truck. The absolute worse of it was when the last but one truck got to junction 10 of the M25 (20 minutes from home) at 5am and turned off for Guildford and dumped me and the car somewhere outside Guildford saying his shift was over and that someone else would take me the rest of the way. I had to sit in below freezing temperatures for 2 and a half hours before the next one arrived and I finally got home at 9.30 after being stuck 24 miles in rush hour traffic.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm having a great big moan, that's because I am. I've been ill with a cold and a chesty cough (aww diddums) that is as like as anything brought on by sitting in freezing cabs and waiting in sub zero temperatures for each changeover....and possibly helped along by one very sick looking sneezing driver in changeover 2.

May well be ringing up AA customer relations tomorrow.

Not had a chance to look at the car properly yet, may stick an inline filter where the normal fuel filter is meant to go, see if it cures the problem...should be ok to do in the short term?
In the meantime, does anyone have a spare diesel fuel filter housing?

I suppose I should be glad I had breakdown cover, god knows I pay enough for it....just didn't think it would take them around 12 hours to get me 173 miles. I've been with the RAC in the past and it's been one journey from A to B, on a much further distance.

On a brighter note....finally been spotted!

[mds141]

Sorry to hear of your woes. The AA isn't a patch on what it used to be and in reality is just a trading arm of Centrica. I only stick with them because of the discounts that you get with an AA card. BTW your XM looked really cool on the relay truck, a highlight of an otherwise dull shift, driving my truck.

[hydroman]

Breakdown vehicles are exempt from tacho if within 100km (62m) radius of base. I had a dreadful journey back from Oxfordshire (to York) with the RAC a couple of years ago, too many little hops and drivers boasting that they had been on the road for 24 hours without a break. On the last leg, the driver had to keep the window open to stay awake, in the middle of the night in December when it was freezing outside, my wife was less than amused, especially when he nearly ran up the back of a solitary minibus on an empty motorway. Needless to say, they were subcontractors and not RAC drivers.