It had all been going very well. A mix of adulting and childish things. Coming back into the world but in a weekend way. A spot of BG3 in the morning. I added my old friend Samantha to the party. She’s voice and mocap for a great big red barbarian devil so it’s kinda fun hearing her swearing about things and helping me kill baddies. Then Frank came over and we snacked a bit and I returned his water bottle. Then my accountant and friend called and I think I have a pathway to finally sorting the shitshow I call my tax situation, which has fallen through ADHD shaped holes for way too long. I just want to be up to date… A bit of work, and then probably every penny I have.
Then I went to pick up Lou from work. An easy thing to do. No con charge at the mo as it’s festive season. I found a good place to pull up on Belvedere, on that slope looking up at the IMAX. Switched off the engine listening to The Coming Storm. Only about 8 minutes there before Lou got in. Key in the ignition, lots of flashing lights, no ignition. The red light for the auto handbrake was off. The brake pedal was seized. The collision warning lights were on. And it wouldn’t let me start. Radio still worked. Headlights etc fine. Just no ignition.
hmm
Loads of coaches going past. Crowds of drunk people getting in and out of Ubers.
I go into the settings, reset to factory. This is a SOFTWARE problem. The car is 2016. This sort of thing is only gonna get worse.
I get RAC on a travel pack with my bank. It’s not cheap. My accountant tells me I should cancel. I don’t. Because I use it. It comes with multi trip travel insurance and I’m swanning around all over the place all the time. It gives me some peace of mind even though I know for absolute certain that if anything ever went wrong abroad the fuckers would swindle me out of any payment due.
I rang them. “I reckon I’ll be here until late night,” I tell Lou. I expect about two hours minimum for check up.
It’s the automatic handbrake. That’s pretty clear. I’ve always hated the fucking thing. I hate it with a passion. It is an awful idea. It makes you forget manual handbrakes when you’re driving vehicles that need them, and it does it when the car wants to, not when you want to. Sure you can drive through it, you can tell it to go on off a bit, but it is not clever, it is not situational and it makes you lazy.
David from the RAC calls very quickly. “I’m just coming from Peckham. Be with you in twenty five minutes.” I describe the fault. “It’ll be the battery, I reckon.” “I’ve driven it loads recently.” “I bet I’ll have you back on the road in no time.” “I hope so mate.. We’ll see.”
Half an hour later the engine’s running. “You’ve got the light back in your eyes,” Lou says.
That. Fucking. Handbrake.
So I was parked on a slope. Takes power to run the handbrake. Car knew it needed the brake to stop slipping. Battery was low but not critical. Safety feature, in case the battery DOES get critical: it seizes the footbrake long before the battery is at zero and then refuses ignition. There was no choking, no trying, no flooding the engine. Just a refusal. For fucking safety. If I had a manual handbrake it wouldn’t have happened. Ok sure so I’d have found out some other way that my battery was old and on its last legs. But what a bugger of a thing. I even thought to try and bump start it in reverse down the hill before hitting the car below me. No dice. Can’t get the brake off. So you can’t even bump these new cars. You can’t with a Nissan.
Euro Car Parts has the right battery for 174 quid. David checks it and agrees it’s the right one. I can order it, it’ll come next Thursday probably, I’ll get it stuck in when it comes. Either a YouTube job or if it looks as complicated as the windows I’ll take it up to my boy at Culvert Tyres and see if he can do it for me. Not the worst.
A slightly hairy drive home as the other shit thing my car does is cut the engine at traffic lights to save emissions. I’ll tolerate it even though I reckon the ignition fumekick pays it back for short stops, but I don’t want it to happen now in case it refuses to kick in again, so I’m overrevving it at lights. I haven’t got a charge pack in Bergman and don’t want him to die in traffic. Got some jumps somewhere in the flat… Might just go to Halfords if it’s open tomorrow and let them do it. Shouldn’t be more than £250 which is a kick but not fatal.
Poor Bergman. It might be time. I got him home.
AlBarclay 