Was going to hire a van for the weekend to take some furniture to a relative some distance away. SWMBO wondered if it'd fit in the Merc if we put the seats down. Amazingly it did.
I wasn't totally happy to take the Merc as the exhaust's blowing quite badly so I thought I'd spend what we'd saved by not hiring a van on a repair. Local garage quoted 110 all-in which I could live with. I dropped the car in and they called later to say they couldn't get hold of the part but would keep phoning round. Later they called again to say they'd found one but would be 170.
I googled for 300TD exhaust and found an ad on ebay for the bit needed for 54 quid +delivery. I got hold of the company's phone number and asked them if they could ship next day. They verified it was a stock item and agreed to ship it straight to the garage. So I phoned the garage to tell them what I'd found and they agreed to take delivery of the part and fit it for me.
About 3pm the exhaust supplier phoned me to say they didn't have one in stock but would get one for tomorrow. So I phoned the garage to explain. No problems they said.
When I got home I had a feeble email from the exhaust supplier saying they couldn't sell me the exhaust as they had no stock and couldn't get hold of any either. I found one on eurocarparts and decided to phone them in the morning. There was still time for them to deliver the exhaust for Friday when I'd got the car booked in.
This morning I phoned eurocarparts.They had the stock but refused to deliver it to the garage as it wasn't the cardholder address and refused to budge. They said the part was at their HQ in Wembley, 50 miles away. Then I had a nightmare of a morning at work and got really pissed off (plus the problem with the car in the back of my mind didn't help) so I asked the boss for the afternoon off. They agreed. I phoned eurocarparts and demanded that the bloke checked the warehouse for the stock before I made the journey down there. He called back and said they had the part so off I went.
An hour later I arrived in Wembley (new stadium certainly looks impressive but will surely date quickly like the rest of this glass and metal architecture we have at the moment). I picked up the exhaust and some replacement wiper blades and went to find a local garage who could fit the exhaust there and then. The first place I asked did the job and tried it on asking for a hundred quid! I got them to a more sensible but still steep 40 quid and the job was done. The part itself was about 40 quid, the labour was 40 quid and the Merc burned 13 quid of diesel there and back (over 37mpg) which was about the same as the eurocarparts next day delivery fee so despite the hassle I ended paying slightly less! What a palaver though.
Old cars are great, but hassle like this is not so compatible with working 9-5. That said, if I was willing to be patient and wasn't in a rush to get it sorted for the weekend it would have been a lot less bother. I cycle to work and back but SWMBO has been using the Merc for her 40+ mile round-trip commute recently (the Galant is very thirsty in stop-start traffic but matches the Merc on a run) so it's important to keep it good nick. Oil change next .