In for brakes (again) ahead of a road trip

Another post so soon after the last one. Well, you have to when things happen don't you. I have just spent a Friday morning with Bowling-Ryan. John was having a bad day, a Mulsanne wouldn't play ball, my Arnage was on the lift and an assortment of other cars all with painful to rectify faults were all conspiring to make it a hellish Friday for the team.

Firstly, let me say that John, Steve and Dennis at Bowling-Ryan always do a great job but the range of emotions they experience during a day must be exhausting! Some of the problems they get thrown to sort out are crazy. As a customer you don't think about the problem your Bentley has, as you drop it off and drive away, but you should. It takes skill and many hours of checks and rechecks to get some of these issues sorted. I really didn't appreciate the time it takes until, on Friday, I waited for the Arnage to be sorted and observed the goings on.

Well, I observed the goings on until I was press-ganged into work. When I say work, I followed John to drop a car off and bring him back. Technically, I think this makes me a part-time employee.

Anyway this is not a blog about Bowling-Ryan. However, they should have a sit com based on what they do. It would be a sure fire hit.

So my squeaky brakes had returned and because of an imminent trip abroad they needed to be fixed. On the ramp it transpired that the only obvious issue was that one of the shoes replaced previously was cracked. Given that the pads were also worn to a level that put them in the ball park to be replaced, Steve cracked on and swapped all the rear brake shoes/pads. To cut this long story short it appears to have cured the problem, at least for now (never say never).

One thing that did transpire is that I found out where the slow puncture was coming from on the rear offside. As you can see in the picture below, I have been screwed. Literally. Because I was worried and couldn't find anything I put some gunk in the tyre which actually sorted the issue, but does mean that the tyre can no longer be repaired. Tuesday will see me down at my local ATS for a new Bridgestone!

A long trip, in the planning for some time, has meant that I have gone over various tools and things on the Arnage. It is only now that I find that half the toolkit is missing - how does this happen? Who thought so little of the car that they would simply "lose" the jack, toolkit, wheel brace, warning triangle and other stuff. So I have spent some time putting a canvas bag of essentials together including a 2.5T scissor jack with ratchet handle, tool roll, triangle, yellow vests and other paraphernalia that hopefully won't be needed but will be very useful if something goes wrong.

The toolkit may not be original but it's functional and should enable basic maintenance if required.

So, very soon is a trip to Angouléme, en Francais to see racing on the Circuit De Remparts. If Erin behaves herself it will be a trip worth reporting. I'll keep track of any issues, fuel use and so forth and let you in due course.

By for now!