Tag Archives: breakdown

Jetta Jameson Clutches Me Once Again [Part 2] My Life 04 FEB 2010

Having dropped Chantelle off at work and taken the Getz through to work in order to make the interview we were conducting on the day, I was rather relieved to find the lifeless Jetta Jameson still standing untouched in the Steenberg Virgin Active parking lot on Tuesday morning.

Now we had originally bashed together a plan which would see Monty and Cheryl arrive in Westlake at 13:00, just after our scheduled interview (Touchwork is still hiring, just in case you haven’t submitted your CV yet!), which would mark me leaving work early and jumping in the Jetta so that Monty could tow her all the way back to Disa Auto Services in the Strand with the Tucson while Cheryl would be left in charge of bringing Chantelle’s Getz back to the pad at Gordon’s Bay. In hindsight probably not the best of plans to have come up with, but I guess it worked for us at the moment, despite the prospect of the 50 km tow back towards the Helderberg.

However, following the interview (which didn’t go all that great mind you), Rory provided me with a brilliant alternative to our shaky plan, prompting me to call off Monty (just in time) and cancel with Disa who I had already organised with to receive my clutchless baby.

Ian the mechanic is a man that Rory has been using for well over ten years now (and who is currently servicing almost the entire population of Spintelligent thanks to Rory’s referrals) and who just happens to run a repair shop out in Tokai, not all that far from Westlake Business Park.

Giving him a shout, Rory convinced Ian to come out to the office where he and I would go have a look at Jetta Jameson and determine whether or not the problem lay with a simple snapped clutch cable which could be fixed on the spot, or something more serious like the last time the clutch went on my girl, prompting the necessity for towing her into the shop.

A little later than scheduled, Ian and assistant in his bright red bakkie turned up and off we twaddled towards the gym, where on quick inspection it was revealed that what ailed Jetta Jameson was nothing more than a broken pin that handles the attaching of the cable to the clutch arm. However, don’t laugh with joy just yet I’m afraid.

Unfortunately for me, the Jetta is fitted with a self-adjusting retractable clutch cable, meaning that when the pin went, the clutch cable automatically retracted and adjusted itself to the new length, effectively rendering the cable useless and prompting its replacement. Sucky.

And while I could replace it with a grey product, Ian highly recommends against it as in his experience the after market parts are so inferior that in most of the cases you would be back within a month. So that means an original part then, no problem of course, but that particular bloody cable costs R900! Stupid broken little clamp type thingie…

Anyway, Ian and his assistant hooked up Jetta Jameson and towed her back to his shop while I returned to the office, squeezed in the last bit of work for the day and then took Green Getz home, pleased that the situation is now half way resolved and more importantly, the solution ended up not involving a 50 km towing ordeal!

(Plus, at least the R900 + the rest of the expenses has some sort of benefit – I get to work from home until I get the call from Ian to come and pick my baby up. That’s not too bad a deal my tired body in need of more sleep reckons…)

[End Part 2]

Jetta Jameson Dies Again My Life 12 OCT 2009

Ag no man. I was so positive for a good start to this week (as indicated by the earlier post that was typed up on Sunday evening I might add). I’ve gotten enough rest, enough relaxation and am raring to go and handle a critical live system upload, the first for our newly adopted weekly release cycle strategy. And what goes and happens?

The floodgates open here in the Western Cape overnight, Bellville is drenched in rainwater and my beloved Jetta Jameson barely makes it onto the N1 via the Old Oak on-ramp before dying an ungraceful death and leaving me stranded with my hazards on as rush hour traffic streams past alongside me.

I wait for an eternity and after what seems to be a million attempts, I eventually manage to get her started and chug along in the emergency lane down towards the Durbanville offramp, but not more than a hundred meters or so, I break down again and the waiting starts all over again. Eventually I do get her started again, and instead of playing hero and attempting to drive all the way through to Westlake, I decide to take the Durbanville offramp and attempt to limp back home instead, and as it is, this turns out to be the correct decision because just before I manage to coax the injured Jetta back to Oakglen, she dies on me once again and once more I have to patiently sit and tap my fingers, waiting for the opportunity to try and bring her back to life.

Back home, wet and annoyed, I lay down my stuff and grab the laptop – guess it’s work from home time after all for today! :( (Sorry boss!)

Hopefully when things dry out she’ll start running fine again, and at the moment I can’t figure out exactly what the problem is, the only lead being something that Monty suggested might be the problem the last time it happened, back when I got stuck in Muizenburg on a wet, dark weekday morning. In any event, so far it seems only rain initiated, but that doesn’t help me all that much if it decides to continue to rain here in the Cape for the foreseeable future.

So where does this leave me then? Well I guess the decision to purchase a new car sooner than later has now been forced upon me after all. Hopefully a nice wage increase at the end of the year is in order? O.o

From the front.

From the front.

Clutching at Straws My Life 26 AUG 2008

HitchHikerYou would think that a day can’t really get more disastrous than that atrocious loss the Springboks endured against those Aussies, their first win here on our home soil against us in absolute ages, but unfortunately Saturday was not quite done with me yet!

As I mentioned earlier, Chantelle was working a full day shift and so she only got home quite late in the evening, exhausted and ready for bed. However, my liefie had a craving for McDonalds McNuggets and so I agreed to accompany her through to the McDonalds, a couple of kilometres further down Faure Marine drive from where we are.

So we hopped into the Jetta, she ready for bed and I still in my slipslops, shorts and T-shirt and off we drove looking forward to our little late night treat. However, that little treat was not meant to be because just short of three kilometres down the road, my clutch suddenly went limp and I subsequently lost all gear changing ability. Wonderful.

I haven’t had a snapped clutch cable since the one on my Monza went while delivering pizzas all those years ago, so you can tell that I was rather less than pleased.

About 21:30 on a Saturday night, pitch dark and without roadside assistance (that I know of) or friends in the area to come help us out, what choice did we have but to grab our stuff, throw on the car’s indicators and start hitchhiking back home in order to pick up Chantelle’s little Getz and tow my stranded Jetta home. Now the walk itself isn’t a problem, but when one is not exactly dressed for the occasion then it becomes a mission. Like for Chantelle in her fluffy slippers, stretchy long pants that keeps falling down and oversized tracksuit top, the 2.8 km walk (we measured) was not exactly heaven on Earth.

Luckily for us though a motorist who was stopped at the traffic light in front of us took pity on our plight and he gave us a lift back over the last kilometre or so, cutting our walk considerably shorter and at the same time giving me less time to fume because by that stage I was RATHER ‘hot under the collar’ so to speak.

A quick changeover into some more suitable attire and shoes, brushing off our neighbour who happened to be outside and wanted to talk kittens, we jumped into the Getz and raced off to the Jetta’s extraction, with me breathing a huge sigh of relief when we came around the bend and my car was actually still there and in one piece!

Next on the list of problems though was actually finding my Jetta’s front tow eye – I’m not sure how long I was out in front of the car, torch in hand and scouring the underbelly before I finally gave in and broke into my cubbyhole (the handle to open it is long since broken) to release the all-knowing manual which thankfully I make a point of keeping in the car.

It turns out that to tow the Jetta I need to pry loose the fog light panels next to the indicator light and then screw in the tow eye that is kept with the car’s jack in the back, a process I would never have guessed and in fact a process that neither Ryan nor Pops could take a stab at either!

Thank God that a couple of years ago I decided that I need to keep more emergency stuff in my car and that a tow rope was amongst my purchases, because I triumphantly pulled it out of my boot to proudly show off to Chantelle, only for my moment of triumph to turn into a moment of worry because I noticed that the two metal sides were in fact in the process of rusting. Just wonderful.

Nevertheless, I attached the ends to Chantelle’s Getz and my Jetta and we were off, this being Chantelle’s first ever attempt at towing someone. What we didn’t count on however was the fact that my 1.6 1997 Jetta seems considerably heavier that Chantelle’s little 1.6 Getz and we actually struggled to pull my car along, leading to more than a few mini heart attacks every time the Getz jerked to a semi-halt trying to pull my car from a standstill.

Nevertheless, we made the 2.8 kilometres back to Nagua Bay safely enough, but the night still had one last surprise in store for us. Just past the security boom and the first speed bump and our first stall. It would seem try as we might, the little Getz just couldn’t pull my behemoth up (I seriously should lose weight!) and after suffering enough, I yelled for Chantelle to stop and I exited to unhitch the cars.

So Saturday night, Nagua Bay was alive with the sounds of Craig merrily pushing the Jetta through the complex, taking nice run ups to hoist the car over the speed bumps and then cruising to the next one with Chantelle sitting nice and comfy behind the steering wheel. A final team effort to push the car up the last little hill and we were home safe and sound, exhausted after a rather stressful ordeal.

Thank goodness those McNuggets we went back for tasted good.

Oh, and it doesn’t help that I learnt the next day that I theoretically should have been able to drive the car home by starting it up in second – a fact that I was completely and utterly unaware of :(