An hour later, a nice man in a reflective orange tunic peered at the engine and fiddled with things. He then fetched his latop, plugged it into the car, and asked the car’s engine management system what it thought was wrong with itself. “The car says it’s a ‘random misfire’“Well Duh.
Given that we have one of the most popular family cars in europe, the level of knowledge of what goes wrong with them is fairly goodand apparently in this case required the replacement of a small inexpensive part (ignition coil). The girls asked what it was, and I explained about fuel going “bang”, and to do that it needed a spark, but without something to make it hot in the first place, it wouldn’t do it I thinkthey understood. Given that it was Sunday evening, and we were in the middle of nowhere (well relatively speaking), a quick call around turned up no ignition coils for our model of car. “You’ll get a call from a tow truck in about ten minutes”After half an hour we called the control center again.
Another half an hour after that the tow truck appeared through the darkness, lighting the road up like Father Christmas’ sleigh. Three very sleepy little girls cheered very loudly, and then gasped out loud as our car was winched onto the back of the truck. We finally arrived home at 11pm. It could be worsethere could be something seriously wrong with the car, and we could have an even bigger hole in our bank account