October 8

"Le moteur, il est mort."

Well, the day started fairly early, as we awoke inside our hotel room. I called the tow truck company and they said that they would be sending someone, with the car loaded up, in an half hour. After a quick couple of coissants at the hotel's restaurant, I joined Matthew in the lobby. We awaited the lorry whilst awash in the fumes of the glue from some carpets layers in the next room. This morning was cloudy and raining, and I think both Matthew and I could really use some sort of sunshine real soon now. Oh well. Well, the guy finally arrived and we took off to 'Chez Volkswagen', which turned out to be about 45 minutes away. Now, granted, some of that is Paris traffic, but after a while we were seeing farms and countryside whip by. Sure enough, there was a Volkswagen shop way out here. Very well equipped, I might add.

Our first course of action was to get a VW mechanic for his opinion, which was when those dreadful words spilled out of his mouth.... 'Le moteur, il est mort.' Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh....... My French isn't that good, but even I understood that part of the conversation. Ordinarily I would have been really upset, but the other problems we've had have dampened my reactions rather like a sedative. Pretty much anything could go wrong and it would be 'c'est la vie'. Ok, so now what? ermmm..... Well, one last attempt was to try a compression gauge, so the mechanic removed a spark plug from the cylinder he suspected was bad, and when turning the engine, the compression was exactly.......... zero. A broken piston or rod, fer sure. <sigh>

We, basically, had two options: Either send the van back to the UK, and deal with it later, or leave the van here and return to it later in the month. Matthew rightly expressed that we should call the RAC again, and get their input. Jean-Charles, the head Really Nice Mechanic, let us use his phone and we called Laurents of the RAC. She was unbelievably helpful in spelling out what the options were and what would be covered, to what extent, and what would not.

Matthew and I decided it made more sense to ship the van back to the UK, and rent a car locally for the rest of the trip. Why? Three reasons, really. First, the RAC will pay all the costs for shipping the vehicle back to any address we want in the UK. Second, since we have only put 300 miles on this supposedly fixed engine, by returning with a broken car we think we will have more leverage on getting the place we bought it from to fix it for free or at a reduced cost. Last, since the RAC will pay for the first $1,200US of the rental car, it doesn't cost us much to continue our trip via rental.

At this point I absolutely must express the amazing work the RAC has done. For $34US, we got insurance that is paying for our hotel, all of our towing fees, the taxiing around, the shipping back to the UK, and the rental car. Absolutely everyone that we have talked to at the RAC has been unbelievably optimistic, understanding and helpful. Caring to the point of calling us back just to give updates. Major, major thumbs up to this service, and I feel that I must recommend it to everyone, even if to just pay the RAC back some of the money they have been so willingly spending on us. I'm not sure where we would be now without their help. Certainly not back in our hotel room with a working car in the carpark and the van on its way back to England. Actually, we'd probably still be sitting in the van by the side of some Parisian backstreet. Super cool!

That said, we called the RAC back with our decision and Laurents, a Really Nice Frenchwoman, immediately moved ahead with getting a rental car and working with the mechanic to arrange getting the car to the UK. It was lunch, by this time, so off we were. An employee of the garage drove us to a McDonald's and I got to see this picture. I thought it was pretty funny.

Also, I will say that the Volkswagen shop was great. Everyone was so cool and helpful, even joking with us. So... here's a quick plug for Action Automobiles 95, 111 Avenue Stalingrad, Garges Les Gonesse, Tel: 01 34 45 01 01. They seemed always helpful to us, and to other customers - giving the care that one usually only finds in a small town shop.

After lunch we returned and awaited the finishing of the rental car arrangements and for the taxi to arrive. Eventually it did, so off we went. We picked up the rental car, a Peugot 306, which we immediately christened Denise, as she comes from St. Deniz. Here is a quick shot of our new method of travel.

She only has 5,000km on her, and she is a deisel. Amazingly, she has no dents and is a Paris car! Maybe she is as blessed as "Daisy/Damien" is cursed :-)

The coup-de-gras of the day was that I got to drive into Paris proper during rush hour and actually drive a round-about! It was much fun, and Matthew says I get a '10' for cajones :] (or as we say En Angleterre 'Big Bollocks') and that I have a weird definition of fun.

For The Reader: At one point I asked Matthew what we had learned from all of this and there are two big things: First, always get some form of RAC. I just cannot endorse them enough. Second, although it would have been more complicated to buy the van in the US and have it shipped, the cost would have been about the same as buying it in the UK, the benefits of knowing the car outweighs the extra problems of shipping the car.

So.... we are off to Cannes and the south of France, where we hope to find some sun. Oh please, please let there be sun. I really need to see some sun. So far I've seen the inside of a couiple of French garages, a couple of tow-trucks an the underneath of the VW (several times), but not the SUN! We will post a picture of this fabled object when we finally see it.

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