Reliable transport and braking news
My Polo gets new brake pipes, and I ponder how we get around when our own cars are no longer an option
If there were a single word to sum up the times we live in, ‘unpredictable’ would be apt, as it seems nothing can be relied upon to remain stable. I last wrote about some interesting developments in transport that suggest change is not always something to be feared. But nevertheless the sheer uncertainty of it can also be scary and disorienting too.
I’ve been happily using my MK2 Polo increasingly regularly, occasionally replacing sundries such as a deteriorating section of exhaust. But a quick inspection I carried out of the brake pipe corrosion (picked up as an advisory on the last MOT) revealed a worrying deterioration.
I don’t have the tools to carry out the work myself and it’s not something I’ve tackled before. I enlisted my trusted local garage who were reassuringly reliable. It was booked in and fixed in a couple of weeks.
But not having a vehicle for any length of time when you need one isn’t an easy situation to navigate. A problem with something you’ve come to rely on can also become the focal point for the culmination of all life’s other stresses.
There’s a scene in the British sit-com Fawlty Towers where the protagonist, Basil Fawlty, snaps when his recalcitrant Austin 1100 breaks down and so he thrashes it repeatedly with a branch. It is one of the most relatable and memorable scenes if you have watched it.
For a short while my car became the conduit for many unrelated frustrations. While I’d never consider thrashing the Polo with a stick, mentally it became a much bigger deal than it needed to be.
Engaging in the unhealthy addictive behaviour any car enthusiast knows only too well, I scoured local cars for sale for a quick solution. The state of the used car market was something of a shock compared to the last time I’d looked. Some cars that are broken or suspect are now changing hands for considerable four figure sums. The gems that do appear which are mechanically and legally sound get snapped up quickly.
It is certainly not as easy to pick up a cheap runabout for the winter as it used to be. Fortunately the predicament I’d created in my head dissipated with time at a rate proportional to the dissipation of general other stress going on... funny that. I decided to make do and resume using the Polo once it was fixed up.
It did make me wonder if flexible car rental is an untapped market. If I could pick up a car within reasonable distance, dropping it back when I liked and be charged an affordable pay-as-you-go rate or monthly subscription fee, I’d be very interested. Some of these schemes do exist already but are too expensive and not widely available enough. But we need big ideas to solve big problems. How we get around in future concerns us all and is something we should be thinking about.
For me, for now the Polo is back on the road and costing comparatively little to run. I wouldn’t recommend a 30 year old car for reliable transport, but a bit of mechanical know-how picked up from having an older car certainly doesn’t go amiss and stands you in good stead for keeping any car on the road and warding off the rising costs of ownership.
It’s hard to say what’s next for my automotive adventures. Time seems to have slipped away rapidly this year. I was hoping get to another car show in the Polo sometime in September or October but I think the window of opportunity for that has almost closed. Similarly I expect any plans for doing much else to the car will also have to wait a while.
On a more upbeat note - I’m hoping to go to the next NEC Classic Motor show in November and / or the Restoration show in March. In the back of my mind I’ve still got a hankering for a new project of some sort, but with a potential house move on the cards first, that could be some time in the making. In any case I look forward to whenever the next opportunity comes along again to see some old vehicles, and meet their enthusiastic owners. I hope that will get some of my own ideas and enthusiasm flowing too.