Tryphoon’s Lair

Some people have it, some people don’t… but one thing is sure… I am not a car genius… And so far, I have been plagued by tiny annoying problems.

So the last installment of  the “Cyril’s not a car’s best friend” started over a month ago, when coming back from Amsterdam, I tried to start my car and faced an empty battery issue… So the first step was to try to find jump start cables. Once this was done, I started to look into the process… very scary at first… “Attach the red wire to the + bolt of the dead battery, then the red wire (the other end obviously) to the + bolt of the active battery. Then the black to the - bolt on the active battery and the black onto the… oh, no… not the the - bolt on my car’s battery… “Please find a piece of metal that is grounded, as every battery made after 1991 are meant to be grounded, etc… “… But where? Block Engine? Ah… What is the block Engine? I guess, the big thing in the middle… “Avoid connecting the remaining wire to the pipe leading to the carburetor”… Well, so on the block engine, but not on a pipe? Oh and not on the side of the car either…

So after 20 minutes of shaking hands trying to connect all these things, Sarah found where to connect and off we went, my car did start. We then went for a little ride for approximately an hour, trying to recharge the dead battery.

A couple of weeks go by and boom… again… Getting good at it, it only takes few minutes to jump start the car and off I go, another hour spent on the road… 

Then 2 weeks ago, I drive to the office (planning to buy an anniversary present for Sarah during my lunch break) and park on the roof of the building. I then go back around noon, cars on the left, cars on the right and A DEAD ENGINE! Arrrggggg…

After 4 days (it took that long to find a time when no one was parked on either side of my car), a colleague of mine, Miles, kindly helps me to jump start the bloody car and I can go home. No time for driving around.

And then last week, still having to buy a present for Sarah and having meetings in various locations that day, I decide to take my car, but this time… I am clever, I park at a corner, making sure that any car could park next to me and jump start me… Which didn’t fail… Car dead… Sarah had to come to the rescue…

I then finally decided to admit that my battery might have an issue and that it was time to seek help from a specialist! So I ask around and Yoshi points me to some garage. Went there and 30 minutes later, my car had a new battery and engine was starting perfectly all the time…

It only took me a month to reach that point!

Does anyone want to be what the next problem might be? (so far we had a large scratch on the right side of the car (still to be fixed), a failing sun roof, a defective passenger seat and a dead battery…) 

Well, it had to happen at one point or another, but here it is! I have got the first scratch on my car! I know I am not yet a great driver but I wish I could have managed to get a little scratch… Not the ENTIRE rear panel as it is now!

So how did this happen? Well, simply. Am in a rush, have to be in the office within 10 minutes for a call… and my car is stuck in the car park between a huge pickup (Yukon) and a a big pillar… I did really well avoiding to scratch the Yukon and I don’t know how I did it but I managed to get my car simply totally stuck between the pillar on the right and the wall at the front… And suddenly, the deafening noise and the realisation that I must have damanged my little pimp mobile… Another 10 minutes and I am finally out of this bloody parking space and I can asses the damages…

So any help about getting this fixed will be really appreciated as I have absolutely no clue where I shall go from here!