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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

So, I don't know whether you'd call this minor strangeness, or simple bad luck, but I seem to have a curse when it comes to cars.

At the tail end of 2021 I inherited a 10yr old Volvo from my father who'd decided to stop driving due to age and ill-health.

The very first trip I took in it, the engine completely cut out whilst on the M1 which was... interesting...
2 weeks after that was resolved, I was once again on a motorway when the front drivers side tyre overtook the the rest of the car...

After 4 new wheels & tyres, it was back on the road, only for an engine warning light to flash at me.
The issue with that caused the light was never seemingly resolved.

In the further six months that I owned that car, there were three, yes *three* more tyre blowouts, and despite the best efforts of various garages (I had the the new wheels checked by a second garage, just to check there wasn't an issue with the work of the first) no underlying issues were discovered.

I came to the conclusion that the car was trying to kill itself, or me...

Anyway, when it came for it's MOT and the repairs which would have cost almost double the value of the car, I chose to cut my losses, and put the Volvo out of its misery.

I then bought a 3yr old, low mileage Infiniti.
Given it's a Mercedes engine, in a Japanese engineered chassis you'd think reliability...

Within 3 days of the car being delivered there was both an engine warning light (which engaged limp mode), and warning on the pressure of one of the tyres.

This meant the car going back to the seller (a well known brand. Rhymes with Wazoo. I do not recommend) for an extended period, during which time I had a courtesy car, which a few days after I had picked up, was ran into the back of whilst I was stood at some red lights...

I received my car back, only to have the rear brakes need replacing a further 300 miles later, and that pesky tyre pressure still not be resolved...

The brakes, though not the tyre, were sorted, and then came an issue with the central locking, which again meant back to the garage...

Anyhoo, for the past month, all has been quiet on the car front until yesterday morning when I went for a walk in a local park.
On returning to my parked car I found a very worried looking older gent, his bent Tesla, and my very dented car…

All of this has happened within the space of about 16 months.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking (assuming you've had the patience to read this far), are the mechanical issues related to my driving style...?
Well, to try and ensure low insurance, given all my other automotive costs, I have a black box fitted, so it's really not in my interests to speed, or drive aggressively.

So, the only conclusion I can come to is that I have somehow incurred the wrath of the motoring Gods.
Surprised at the problems with the Volvo, but anything with a Mercedes engine is going to prove "challenging". Talking of demon cars going back 25 years we had a blue Corsa which was run into the back of on 6 separate occasions, each time whilst stationary at traffic lights. Another car my friend had had the habit of flying backwards in the garage whilst in neutral. It was run into the back of whilst he had it. Another friend bought it and he had the same unidentified problem and again it was run into the back of. He sold it on and the next owner was T boned by a van who ran a red light and the car was written off. Car was repaired and the next buyer was sent to prison for some motoring offences. Some cars seem to bring bad luck.
 
So, I don't know whether you'd call this minor strangeness, or simple bad luck, but I seem to have a curse when it comes to cars.

At the tail end of 2021 I inherited a 10yr old Volvo from my father who'd decided to stop driving due to age and ill-health.

The very first trip I took in it, the engine completely cut out whilst on the M1 which was... interesting...
2 weeks after that was resolved, I was once again on a motorway when the front drivers side tyre overtook the the rest of the car...

After 4 new wheels & tyres, it was back on the road, only for an engine warning light to flash at me.
The issue with that caused the light was never seemingly resolved.

In the further six months that I owned that car, there were three, yes *three* more tyre blowouts, and despite the best efforts of various garages (I had the the new wheels checked by a second garage, just to check there wasn't an issue with the work of the first) no underlying issues were discovered.

I came to the conclusion that the car was trying to kill itself, or me...

Anyway, when it came for it's MOT and the repairs which would have cost almost double the value of the car, I chose to cut my losses, and put the Volvo out of its misery.

I then bought a 3yr old, low mileage Infiniti.
Given it's a Mercedes engine, in a Japanese engineered chassis you'd think reliability...

Within 3 days of the car being delivered there was both an engine warning light (which engaged limp mode), and warning on the pressure of one of the tyres.

This meant the car going back to the seller (a well known brand. Rhymes with Wazoo. I do not recommend) for an extended period, during which time I had a courtesy car, which a few days after I had picked up, was ran into the back of whilst I was stood at some red lights...

I received my car back, only to have the rear brakes need replacing a further 300 miles later, and that pesky tyre pressure still not be resolved...

The brakes, though not the tyre, were sorted, and then came an issue with the central locking, which again meant back to the garage...

Anyhoo, for the past month, all has been quiet on the car front until yesterday morning when I went for a walk in a local park.
On returning to my parked car I found a very worried looking older gent, his bent Tesla, and my very dented car…

All of this has happened within the space of about 16 months.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking (assuming you've had the patience to read this far), are the mechanical issues related to my driving style...?
Well, to try and ensure low insurance, given all my other automotive costs, I have a black box fitted, so it's really not in my interests to speed, or drive aggressively.

So, the only conclusion I can come to is that I have somehow incurred the wrath of the motoring Gods.
Techy's last car was a scruffy but reliable old Nissan. I hated it because everything about it was inconvenient, like the complicated heater controls and how the doors would snap shut on my legs as I got in. As if it resented having me travel in it or especially drive it.

Not that I'm superstitious that way of course, it was just a machine. :nods:

However, one day it was run into and dented at a private car park. I came back to find an elderly woman waiting to confess on behalf of her husband. I said 'Thank you for your honesty. Forget about it, not worth the trouble of fixing.'

Techy wasn't amused but I laughed and said 'Would you really have taken that old wreck to have a dent removed?' :chuckle:
He took a while to get over that, during which time the driver who'd dented Christine the banger died of cancer.

It was almost as if the car were trying a different tactic to harass me, of causing trouble between us. :thought:

When he began WFH in the pandemic he scrapped the car but sometimes dreams about seeing it parked outside...
 
I bought a scrappy Honda HR-V once which had a dent or a scrape on every panel.
First week I owned it a lady came to the door to apologise for hitting my car.
We went to the car together so she could show me the damage.
Pointing at the rear corner of the car she said "There!" to which I replied "Which one of those dents? - have you looked at the rest of the car?"
I sent her on her way and as she got in her Fiesta I could see the rear corner of it was all stove in like she had hit a tree!
 
I think that's called gaslighting.
They don't even know they're doing it. :chuckle:

Quoting myself here, from the 'What were you doing just now?' thread -

Laughing at Techy for finding something exactly where I'd told him it was, after he'd denied it was there so strenuously he'd begun to doubt it ever existed. :rolleyes:

Was going to post an explanatory meme but there are just so many thousands to choose from. It's as if all wives have the same trouble.
:rollingw:
 
Last week I found a Girl Guide woggle at Euston Station. Attached it to my rucksack strap and forgot about it.

Yesterday I was moving the rucksack and one of the buckles was sharp. Seems the top had snapped off.

I thought 'I need something that will wrap tightly round that and fasten, like a, oh yes, a woggle!'

Works a treat.
 
Last week I found a Girl Guide woggle at Euston Station. Attached it to my rucksack strap and forgot about it.

Yesterday I was moving the rucksack and one of the buckles was sharp. Seems the top had snapped off.

I thought 'I need something that will wrap tightly round that and fasten, like a, oh yes, a woggle!'

Works a treat.
Well that's all fine and dandy, Scargy, but somewhere there's a sad little girl guide without her woggle. Probably crying.

Have a nice day.
 
What on god's green earth is a woggle?
Is it really that mystifying that Americans would use British words?
I mean, woggle!
 

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When I get that feeling it's always been in the early evening.
I wondered whether the people living in that house now ever catch a glimpse of a shadowy something when it happens.
I used to have this and I wondered if I was 'appearing' to the inhabitants. It was my parents' old house, the house where I grew up and where they lived for over fifty years.

I still get it. A sudden 'image', usually of standing in the garden looking up towards the house, as it was for the entire time I knew it when my parents, and then later after my father's death my mum alone, lived in it.

However. Since my mum's death, the house has been sold. It's now been extensively renovated, with a new kitchen extension and new windows, but when I 'think' I'm standing out in the garden I'm seeing the house as it was when I knew it. Which is how I know it's my imagination 'flashing back' to a place I knew well.
 
I habitually wake each morning at about 0750, without an alarm clock. Sometimes ten or fifteen minutes earlier or later depending on what time I went to bed, or if there are annoying noisy noises outside.

Today I woke up and stared at the display on the digital alarm clock that sits ready for use (should I ever actually need to wake up by a particular time).
It showed 0930.
How can I sleep for an extra hour and a half?
 
I habitually wake each morning at about 0750, without an alarm clock. Sometimes ten or fifteen minutes earlier or later depending on what time I went to bed, or if there are annoying noisy noises outside.

Today I woke up and stared at the display on the digital alarm clock that sits ready for use (should I ever actually need to wake up by a particular time).
It showed 0930.
How can I sleep for an extra hour and a half?
Wow, Trev. The first thing I would do if that happened to me was to check whether I had any signs of being on the receiving end of an anal probe.
 
That didn't occur to me. But it doesn't feel like I experienced any 'missing time', more like 'added time'.
I was just thinking they might have had to put you out with a stronger anaesthetic to stop you squirming too much.
 
Here is the woggle in situ.
On closer inspection, I notice that the stitching on the place name is misleading. I may have looked up a non-existent troop.
 

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Speed Camera?
Not round here! I'm miles away from the nearest one, and half a mile off the public road.

It's just odd. There is cloud, but it's light high cloud, we haven't had the snowy weather that has happened elsewhere, although it is cold and windy. There are windows on two walls of my living room and the flash was visible in both.

I guess lightning can be the only explanation, but I always do the old counting trick until I hear the thunder and there wasn't any. Maybe it was that air to air sort that you get sometimes?
 
Not round here! I'm miles away from the nearest one, and half a mile off the public road.

It's just odd. There is cloud, but it's light high cloud, we haven't had the snowy weather that has happened elsewhere, although it is cold and windy. There are windows on two walls of my living room and the flash was visible in both.

I guess lightning can be the only explanation, but I always do the old counting trick until I hear the thunder and there wasn't any. Maybe it was that air to air sort that you get sometimes?
My first thought is railway lines, since electric trains can cause impressive sparking, especially in icy weather - but that seems unlikely in Caernarfon. Are there any electric rail lines on Anglesey that could have been responsible?
 
My first thought is railway lines, since electric trains can cause impressive sparking, especially in icy weather - but that seems unlikely in Caernarfon. Are there any electric rail lines on Anglesey that could have been responsible?
Nothing nearer than Chester, maybe 40 miles away?

Where I am is seriously rural. If anyone wants to abandon the world and live off their own home grown vegetables and barter please make me an offer! Water is free. And plentiful. You'll still end up paying bloody Council Tax though.
 
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