Broken D
What an eventful weekend we had at the Max Power Reunion show. Up at 03:00 to be on the road at 03:30, all went well and we had a good steady trip to the Staffordshire Showground and arrived just as the gates were opening.
Massive thanks to Simon from the BTCC Styling Group for getting us inside parking at the show. Once there we got to cleaning all the motorway grime off D, under the lights in the hall D looked amazing, we started to look around the show and were then invited into the main hall as another upgrade. The main hall was buzzing, with so many Max Power and show cars, the whole group we were with ended up in the main hall with us too.
The show was really well put on and had loads going on all day, we met up with some friends and finally met some people that we had spoken to before as well as making some new friends, check out http://www.funkydipz.co.uk/ and take a look at their insanely painted Nissan Micra on Instagram and in our YouTube video of the show. All was going great until the journey home….
Just before the tolls on the M6 I noticed that D’s battery light had come on, which was not really a good sign, checking the voltage it was obvious that the alternator had stopped charging the batttery, with the voltage slowly dropping from 10 volts to 9. Not wanting to drive D until it stopped I pulled over in the hard shoulder under a bridge and called the recovery service.
This was at 4 pm, I informed them on the phone that we would need recovering but their policies are to send a patrol out to see if they can get us going, obviously without a new alternator this was not going to be possible. When the patrol arrived he suggested putting another battery on and driving to the next exit to a “safer” place.
I thought this was a bit sketchy but went with it, a mile or so further along the M6 and we just passed a sign that said “No hard shoulder for 5 miles” Just after that is when more warning lights came on and D lost all acceleration due to the battery voltage getting so low. So we need up broken down in lane 1 on the M6, which is far from ideal and a lot less safer than our original location. Another fully charged battery was fitted and we could see a sign saying “emergency lay-by 400 yards, we made it to the lay-by and opened D’s bonnet, the alternator was smoking quite badly so quickly I disconnected the battery as it was obvious that the alternator had shorted out.
So we then had to wait for a recovery truck to come and get us, this took hours, and was dark by the time they got to us, he then informed us that he would only be able to take us part of the way home, so we then got as far as Newport Pagnell services, then another few hours wait for the next one, who took us as far as south Mimms, we were eventually collected from there, and I ended up getting home at 09:30 Monday morning, a long day indeed.
So D got treated to a new alternator, tensioner, battery, and belt and is now all fixed and running again, we had a trip to Norfolk this weekend as a test and all went well. Stay tuned for our next blog about another busy weekend we have coming up.
