Rubbers bands can fix ANYTHING.

• By Alison
• 19 January, 2010
• 4 Comments

A while ago, when the world was frozen – Mr Boxer Shorts and I made a huge mistake. It was a mistake that only the lack of heating and a damp smell can provoke. We live to regret that decision every day. Brace yourself for a revelation of the most mundane variety…

We sold our leaky cold SAAB and bought a heated Renault Megane Scenic.

I am sorry, this is a post about cars. But don’t worry, there are rubber bands in this post. Just hang in there.

As a rule, I don’t like cars. I don’t wish to talk about them. I have no particular knowledge about them. The type of car that I like is usually pistachio green. And shiny.

But I now know what I don’t like. And I don’t like Renaults. (And I’m not too keen on red now, neither)

We didn’t just have to crack the ice off the car in order to have a look at it when we bought it. We had to pour hot water into the lock to open it, and our fingers were in danger of sticking to the key. We were so frozen from sitting in the SAAB with no heating that we were nearly suffering from hypothermia. We should have known that looking at a car under those circumstances was likely to make us skip over the details, and buy a dud purely based on the fact that it had heating that worked.

We were also slightly swayed by the cup holders. What luxury – somewhere to actually put my coke! And the fact that the car opened with a button, instead of having to use the key in the door. We were almost giddy over the little tables behind the seats for the kids to use which also had drink holders. But those high end features didn’t make the Renault Scenic a quality car. It was a dud.

Like a firework filled with sand, or a man wearing tighty whiteys that are just too tight.

In the light of day not long later, we saw the proof of dud-dom. The first obvious thing being the fact that the sunroof over the front was broken. It doesn’t open. 

The next obvious thing being that the car feels like it’s made out of plastic. When you open and close the doors you might as well be driving a barbie car, for all the solidity you can feel in it. It feels like junk.

And junk it proved itself to be. Very soon after we bought it, the drivers window made a nasty sound, and the glass suddenly dropped loosely into the door. The window no longer winds up or down, but instead can be pushed about. Most of the time we tried to shove it upwards to wedge it closed, but by the time we came back to the car it had slipped down again and was open. Even in the rain.

Is it a telling point that no-one could be bothered stealing the car, despite the wide open driver’s window? The damn thing is a great big pile of plastic crap, and even burglars have better taste!

So I taped it shut with gaffer tape, which didn’t hold it, looked terrible, but did leave a sticky residue on the window so nasty that eventually it stayed closed when jammed upwards, and never opened again.

Apparently this is a well known fault on Renaults, and they would like £200 to fix it please. No thanks Renault.

We’re now those people that you hate to be stuck behind when going into the shopping centre carpark. We have to open the car door to try and take or insert the ticket. Actually, we’re getting quite good at that manoeuvre to be honest. But it’s not something I WANT to be good at.

But while we chose not to spend money to repair the window or the sunroof, I had no choice about paying for the repairs when the power steering drive broke off and took out the alternator and cooling system while I was driving to orchestra. Have you ever coasted down a hill with no side roads in a car that is shutting down on you – not enough power to keep the radio or headlights on – with a massive bus on your tail? It was a little eeky, to say the least.

After a three hour wait for the RAC, and then a tow home we had to pay nearly £500 to replace the broken power steering drive.

And the legacy of THAT is that now the radio no longer works, as since it was disconnected to repair the power steering it needed a code to reset. We have the book, we have a code written down in the book… and yet it won’t accept it.

So now the car is windowless, sunroofless and soundless.

But the fun doesn’t end there. Just before christmas we drove to the airport in the pouring rain and the wipers stopped working. We had to abandon the car in Battersea, transfer all our bags to a “streetcar” and continue our journey in that. To get the streetcar pickup point in the first place we had to drive along at snails pace with our heads sticking out the windows like dogs in order to see where we were going. The children thought it was funny, but we were less amused.

Add wiperless to my imaginative list.

And by the way – those drink holders I mentioned? Useless. Guaranteed to totally FAIL to hold an ordinary can of drink upright. And yet perfectly guaranteed to remain sticky when the can spills the total of its contents as it falls over. 

The sunroof, the window and the radio are all annoying, but don’t affect the driveability of the car. The wipers on the other hand – pretty much a necessary item in this recent snow and sleet.

I was unable to drive anywhere. And I had to sing to myself when I did drive.

On the up side… I like my singing. But no-one else does.

I’d had enough. I put on my determined hat (it’s stripy) and headed off to Renault in downtown Elmers End to get the radio code checked. Apparently the code is correct, and it’s the radio that’s broken. It will take £60 just to look at it and tell me if it’s fixable or not. If it needs replacing, a Renault one will be a couple of hundred. Thanks Renault, and no thanks.

Then the more important issue – I headed off to a local repairer to ask him about the wipers – he phoned up and found out that the part costs about £150, and then £60 labour. Thanks Renault, and no thanks.

I don’t want to spend £210 on a car that will probably fetch about £400 when we sell it on ebay later this month (that’s what it’s come down to!)

But the bottom line is – until I have something else, I need to be able to drive the car. I’d LIKE to be able to listen to the radio as well, but we don’t always get what we want. It’s the wipers that need sorting.

And that’s why, last week my neighbours watched me jemmy open the front panel of my car – and armed with a pair of scissors and bag of rubber bands – semi blindly fish about under the plastic housing until I’d fixed my wipers.

Yep, I now have an advanced degree in mechanics, as long as rubber bands are involved. I have fixed my the wipers of the car with 3 rubber bands bound around the movable arm mechanism. And a week later it’s still going strong. Total success.

Now I am wondering just how many rubber bands it will take to fix the window (and just where I attach them).

By the way, if you see a red Renault Megane Scenic for sale on ebay… don’t ask about the wipers!