Women, know your limits; leave the hard sums to the blokes

It seems like everything needs doing at the moment

Harley needs MOT (booked)
BMW needs MOT (booked)
Slothda needs 2 tyres (next weekend) and 30,000 service (booked)
SWMBO's car needs MOT (booked), 4 tyres (this morning), 80,000 miles
service.

Now the 80,000 includes a cam belt change on her Paxo, so I consult the
Haynes BoL. Rather than the normal "you should tension it with the
special tool but if none is available you can get it close enough by
whatever" instruction, where was a far less optimistic "you and all your
family will die if it's not done with the magic Citroen electronic
tensioning tool".

So I pop over to the Citroen garage and ask how much to have the cam
belt replaced.

"Not sure", she says, "looking at the list it will be between £105 and
£125, including all the parts and labour"

"Does that include the VAT?" I ask.

"Oh no, it'll be about £220 to £240 with the VAT in"

I left at that point and decided that the "just able to twist belt
through 90" would probably be close enough.

 

Your family must be truly blessed to have such a competent man around. One
day perhaps I'll find someone to do my sums.

Seriously, Citroen are taking the pee.

PS: Can you also do plumbing?

 

Gyp says...

You have 100% VAT in Gloucestershire? I'm not moving there.

 

Not as much as the local VAT man though.

Pipes, rads, tanks, valves etc no problem.

Transplumbing, no.

 

You need a specialist, I can give you a number.

 

Ahh, that'd be VAT as in "Vague Additions to the Total" then

--
Dan L (Oldbloke)
My bike 1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr
M'boy's bike 2003 Honda NSR125R (Going)
Spare Bike 1990 Suzuki TS50X (Patio Ornament)
BOTAFOT #140 (KotL 2005), X-FOT#000, DIAABTCOD #26, BOMB#18 (slow)

 

Bathrooms can be a right pain, but if it's a new bathroom suite rather
than modifications to an existing suite I'm sure you'll get along fine
without me.

Fine, though I need to work on my grouting to get it perfect.

 

My hero.

 

Believe me, if I could get time off from work I'd be there in an
instant.

 

Good luck, recently someone who did work on my car didn't use the
correct tools when he replaced the cam spray bar (ribe bolts in the
cylinder head, see, requiring ribe sockets), so he managed to
cross-thread one of the bolts in a 'make-do' scenario. He also told me
that there was nothing wrong with the cams, despite them being a bit
short of oil due to the cam spray bar problem.

Just under £500 later to fix his supposed 'fix' (including another cam
spray bar and other bits I had already forked just under £170 for) I
have a car that currently works, but according to the mechanic that did
a proper job on it, it cannot be guaranteed to last as there was so
much swarf in the engine. [1]

Men, know your limits - use the right tools for the job!

[1] The cams were very severly worn, so worn I cannot believe that the
first guy thought they were fine.


--
Lesley
CBR600FW
SBS#11 (with oak-leaf cluster)
BOTAFOT#101A UKRMHRC#12
BONY#54P BOB#18
Real burds don't take hormones, they rage naturally