# Oh Dear! broken down in France



## bambi2 (Oct 19, 2007)

Travelling from the Aveyron to my friends in the Charente in my Rapido,I stopped for a few minutes in a lay by not too far from Rodez turned the key and NOTHING! it would not start!! :? as I live in france I rang the assistance, a breakdown truck arrived with what looked like a pair of Gippo's, they would not look under the bonnet, they loaded the Rapido and drove me and it about 50K we went through Figeac and turned right towards Aurilac, I was getting pretty worried by now as I am a woman on my own with lousy french, anyway we reached a place called Maurs and stopped by what looked like a scrap yard, they told me to leave my van with them and get a taxi for the next 300K, I refused to get out of the lorry and made them take me to a nearby camp site, when no one came to look at the van after a couple of days I had a chat with a nice gendarm 
who said she would get me help, which she did but at the same time my friend arrived and dismantled the alarm and got me going, but it did it again in the charente and it ended up on another breakdown truck, when it got to the garage it started again so the mechanic thought it was O.K. this time I stuck my heels in as I get fed up with men not believing me, so they did a more thorough check on the Merc sprinter part of the van and found it was the ignition switch, thank goodness I am back on the road :roll: but I still don't trust the van! Bambi 2


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## cabby (May 14, 2005)

what a wild life you lead.  I would not let this worry you about the reliability of the van, it is little things like this that keeps one going. odd times things may well go wrong, it is how you respond that is the priority. you seemed to be very sensible and coped rather well I thought. keep on touring.

cabby


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## tony50 (Oct 16, 2007)

bambi2 said:


> Travelling from the Aveyron to my friends in the Charente in my Rapido,I but I still don't trust the van! Bambi 2


Hi , Ignition Lock faults are not uncommon ,especially if the motor I say 5, 6 +years old and that's not just Mercs. drive and forget it glad you are back on the road , the thing is if a mechanical or electrical fault comes up get it fixed it's not like the human body it cannot repair itself.

Tony A


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## rosalan (Aug 24, 2009)

I am so sorry that you have had a breakdown and been treated as a second class brain. It really annoys the hell out of me and I am not a woman. A human being has a mechanical problem = this is the issue. Nobody should be judging your competence or lack of it. I would not expect to go to a bar and ask for a drink and get told I may not be thirsty.
As already said, if it now works and has been diagnosed. Until the next time 'it works'! I am assuming they replaced or repaired the offending part so job done.

Having said that, although I have a fairly young van, for the first several miles after leaving home, I am constantly detecting sounds that could be potential problems in the future. So far I have now reached Andalusia and I had not anticipated the fridge door catch breaking - it did! I had not considered worrying about that and it still broke.
The best part of your story is that you know exactly how to contact breakdown services and to make a fair guess where to point their chauvinistic eyes.

Enjoy all

Alan


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Infuriating.

I used to have a young lady in my office who did our ordering. Often she would be ordering parts for vehicles or machinery using the part numbers. Even then storemen would still come over smart with her. 

On one occasion I happened to listen to her side of such a conversation. As she answered unnecessary questions, I could see her getting more and more annoyed. Eventually she lost it and yelled, "just send f....ing part number xyz1234" and slammed the phone down. Brilliant I thought, Alan.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Motorhomes might not suffer from it so much but cars and vans do, mainly due to having a lot of weight of keys on the key ring, all the weight bouncing over every bump buggers up the insides, /now I usually only ever have a house key, ignition key, and a £1 token for the trolley, as one doesn't carry cash, so common.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

The first thing I do with any new van is disable the immobiliser. Hate the damn things.

Ray.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

raynipper said:


> The first thing I do with any new van is disable the immobiliser. Hate the damn things.
> 
> Ray.


Immobilise the immobiliser, quaint idea, don't think Aviva would like me doing that, not that I'd know where to start looking for it.


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## tony50 (Oct 16, 2007)

rosalan said:


> I am so sorry that you have had a breakdown and been treated as a second class brain. It really annoys the hell out of me and I am not a woman. A human being has a mechanical problem = this is the issue. Nobody should be judging your competence or lack of it. I would not expect to go to a bar and ask for a drink and get told I may not be thirsty.
> As already said, if it now works and has been diagnosed. Until the next time 'it works'! I am assuming they replaced or repaired the offending part so job done.
> 
> Having said that, although I have a fairly young van, for the first several miles after leaving home, I am constantly detecting sounds that could be potential problems in the future. So far I have now reached Andalusia and I had not anticipated the fridge door catch breaking - it did! I had not considered worrying about that and it still broke.
> ...


The problem is that the mechanic or technician in this case probably turned the key several times and (which could happen ) it started every time , ignition switch faults can be hard to detect as you switch from 1 , 2 to 3 position one part of the switch probably has a partially burnt pole and does not always make contact I can assure you this is quite possible I don't believe the mechanic / technician disbelieved, more probably on the ladies insistence which was correct he tried it again and the fault occurred as it has happened to me when checking a customers reported fault, sometimes a fault in this case would not appear at all when vehicle was in my hands , if it was your vehicle and the fault did not occur in my hands would you pay for a new starter motor , ignition switch , battery, just in case it was one of these items that was faulty ? I think not .
ps. You may need a garage one day , or out of hours yourself you better not take a abrasive attitude not that you seem to be a man who would take advice.
PPs We never disbelieved the customer

Tony A


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## DavyS (Jan 10, 2009)

Made me wonder, if you are broken down and a truck arrives, with poor local language, how do you know they are the ones arranged by the breakdown insurance and not some guys from the local scrap yard just touring around looking for broken down vehicles?


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## bambi2 (Oct 19, 2007)

DavyS said:


> Made me wonder, if you are broken down and a truck arrives, with poor local language, how do you know they are the ones arranged by the breakdown insurance and not some guys from the local scrap yard just touring around looking for broken down vehicles?


My goodness!! glad I did not think of that, I would have been in a right state.


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## javea (Jun 8, 2007)

bambi2 said:


> My goodness!! glad I did not think of that, I would have been in a right state.


I hope it doesn't happen to you again but, if it does, give the breakdown company a code word to pass on to the recovery people and you will know if they are genuine or not.

Mike


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