Fix It Again Toni

OK so I went back to the garage on Tuesday with our van, they had arranged, as promised, a courtesy car, I had expected a FIAT 500, which reminds me of a VW Beetle that’s shrunk in the wash so was really surprised when they supplied me with a Nissan Quashkai, which is a very nice car, was a pretty decent spec as well, the only problem I had to give it back, mind you its not big enough to accommodate the 4 of us and Steven’s wheelchair!

Anyhow, the vehicle ended up taking a lot longer to sort than had been expected so couldn’t pick it up until, Thursday morning, this time it was complete and in good working order, they had also cleaned it into the bargain.

So, as far as the dealer goes, all is well that ends well, they came up with the kind of service expected.

However it does still leave a serious issue in my mind over FIAT Ducato Vans, should a vehicle less than 3 years old with only 40,000 miles on the clock (not to mention the fact that it is designed as a commercial vehicle and is receiving a fraction of the wear usage and abuse that a commercial vehicle is normally subjected to) have 2 wheel bearings AND a centre bearing go? I think not! This is a serious failure on the part of FIAT, made worse by the fact that, for some bizarre reason wheel bearings are not covered under the extended warranty, what dot eh extended warranty company know that they are not telling us? In a sense its not a big deal to me as the cost is being picked up by Motability but it does point to a serious fault with the vehicle and to my mind if its not covered under warranty it’s a fault they anticipate so, as for our next vehicle, I don’t know yet what it will be but I know what it wont be, and it wont be a FIAT!

Skegness by the sea

I am starting to write this post quite late at night just to occupy my brain (what brain I hear you say!) for a while but will drop off to sleep soon so will have to pick up from where I left off tomorrow.

OK so 4^th July might not be a special day in the UK, but for our US cousins it certainly is, it’s the day they celebrate their independence (from us I believe, so why we wish them a happy independence day I am not too sure!) anyhow, we spent this 4^th July in Skegness of all places!

We went for a trip to the seaside! Normally these days we go to Felixstowe if we want a day trip to the seaside, because it takes just over 2 hours to get there, Skeg is about 2hr 45 minutes, we used to go to Cromer a lot but found that was too long (at 2hrs 30m) now we have kids, we have also been to wonderful Hunstanton but never been to Skeg, would not have normally considered it but we have a good friend who resides (hope you like how posh I make it sound Sue!) in Lincolnshire, we got to know her at Grapevine many years ago and have seen her there every year except for last year (she normally stewards) she had a wedding to attend last year so was not able to make it, this year we have made the decision not to go ourselves, personal reasons largely centred around my health and the fact that we just feel its too much to cope with for us and the kids now they are getting that bit older, maybe in a few years time we might give it a try again, but then we were also not impressed with various aspects of the event over the past couple of years, except that as we stop going they seem to have started gearing up more for disabled facilities! Ironic I know!

Anyhow, having not seen Sue for almost 2 years and no signs of when we might see her we had arranged to meet at Skeg, which we duly did, the journey there was a little frustrating because the roads are pretty slow anyhow and it wasn’t helped by 2 major roads along our rote being closed, requiring fairly lengthy diversions on slower roads, and the re-awakening of my navigation skills with the map (Sat Nav works fine until there are unexpected road closures and it certainly had not expected this one!) just as well I can still read a map!

Anyhow, we got there in one piece and meet up with Sue, pretty easy to do actually, and headed onto the beach, the beach is flat and sandy, gritty sand but sand none the less, it was a beautiful day with lovely weather, it was a little cooler than it clearly has been inland but that’s no bad thing, some of us still managed to get sunburnt, we had a long time on the beach, punctuated by going off the beach for some lunch. And the kids have been so well behaved today, Nat was thoroughly entertained.

It was great to see Sue again and we chatted a fair bit, when Nat would let us!

Skeg was very busy but seemed to cope with the crowds, there were loads of takeaway kiosks and the like along, and just off, the front, as well as plenty amusements but there was little point in going spending money on amusements when the kids were happy to be on the beach.

We were impressed with the prices of food and drink in Skeg, large ice cream (probably the nicest whipped ice cream I have tasted in a long time) for 65p! would have cost about 1.30 in Bedford and other places we go!

Although we were less impressed with the car parking charges, £1 per hour and we were not even exempt from it because of the blue badges (disabled persons parking permit, as opposed to disabled badges, to the uneducated!) and the cost of spending a penny has been seriously impacted by rising inflation and credit crunches, it now costs 20p in Skeg, 20p come on what is that all about? They didn’t even have gold plated taps. There is no way that we do 20X as much wee as we used to when it only cost 1p, although I did my best to get my moneys worth when I did use the facilities, it was a bit of a surprise though for Joy who took Nat to the toilets, from our location on the beach, leaving her handbag with us, only to have to treck all the way back to get her 20p and go back again!

After our afternoon beach session we ‘bribed’ nat off the beach with the offer of a donkey ride, yes that’s right they have donkey rides on the beach, she was scared at first but by the end of the ride she was loving it, thanks in no small part to the way that Sue was in encouraging her to enjoy it, she has a real gift with our kids, or should I say she is a real gift for us with our kids? Time she relocated to Bedford I think J

Anyhow, after a very good day we drove back, much more straightforward this time as we were able to ensure our route didn’t take in the closed sections of road and there seemed to be less cars too.

We are please with both our kids, they did us proud today, being so well behaved and a real pleasure to take out for the day, we even got away with nat not askign to go on lots of rides during the day.

So, over all, Skeg is a really good seaside resort, there were plenty of things to occupy the kids had the weather not been so fantastic, the beach is level and sandy, which is ideal for us, although the sand is that fine gritty (sharp sand) type which isn’t quite so nice and its colour made it look a little dirty, but other than that the beach was good, plenty of space for the crowds.

Parking, well over priced but seemed to be plenty of it although with our 'cavy mobile' which is like a Transit van sized vehicle, the car park nearest the beach wasn’t accessible as there was a height limit, 1” below our height, didn’t want to chance the barrier, and the one we did go into the spaces and layout made it very tight so difficult to manoeuvre in and out of space and quite tight to get the kids in and out of the side door, we managed to get on the end of a row which made it easier. When will they learn that generally cars need more space these days than they did back in 1960 whenever it was that the standard car parking space was invented? There was also a totally inadequate number of disabled parking spaces so these were all taken by the time we got there.

Toilet facilities, done enough on that, the disabled toilets would have probably been too small to meet current regulations and were very tight, fortunately we do most of Steven’s changes in the car, the access to the toilet, turnstile barriers where you pay also mean that mums with buggy’s cant use them so I think most of them have acquired a Radar Key which didn’t help the length of queue at the disabled toilet.

Plenty of food outlets and places selling beach good and they all seemed reasonably priced and clean. And access generally was very good, didn’t like the wheelchair accessibility at McDonalds because they only had one route to the front door wide enough for wheelchair access and that was right next to the bike park so when, as happened, someone lays a bike down instead of standing it up the wheelchair access is totally lost! That’s a real bad point.

We would definatelly consider going back again some time but only really if it was too meet up with Sue or someone else as it is a bit of a treck from us, also nto realy suitable if yopu want a quiet and isolated beach, the amusements are located convenient to access but not in your face if you want to keep the kids from begging to go on every ride on offer.

I didn’t start writing this as a ‘report’ on the resort but perhaps I should have done, I might take up reviewing places we visit, particularly from our disability issue perspective, as it might be useful to other folk as well.

Car Problem

For the past few weeks we have been having problems with the car, well I call it a car but it’s a Fiat Ducato, which is the Fiat equivalent to the Transit, it’s a wheelchair accessible adapted vehicle.

The problem is that it has been making rather strange noises when driving, I was pretty convinced it was a drive/transmission related issue rather than engine as it only happens when actually moving, it started a couple of weeks ago and has got gradually worse, yesterday I finally got round to contacting the fiat dealer to get it booked in to be looked at.

One of my BIG bugbears with the vehicle has always been that, before we signed the contract for this particular vehicle I specifically went to the local fiat dealer, in Bedford, to make sure that they were able to service commercial vehicles, they said yes! But by the time we had the vehicle delivered they had stopped doing Fiats altogether! Leaving us with the option of going to either Milton Keynes or Northampton. A minimum of 22 miles.

We tried the dealers at both locations for servicing but weren’t happy with either, for a number of reasons, but this time round when we needed to get this problem looked at I discovered that there is yet another dealer, also in Milton Keynes, who can service the vehicle now, so I have opted to take it there, I took it to them today for them to look at and they have diagnosed the problem and booked it in for 2 weeks time to be sorted, hopefully.

Anyhow, so far this new dealer seems to be much better, their whole communication and customer service skills seems streaks above the others and they have been making the right noises throughout, obviously time will tell but at last, half way through our 5 year contract, we seem to have found a dealer who we can rely on and trust to look after us.

So the biggest problem I had today was finding my way to the dealer! This should not have been a problem as I have sat nav and that is normally totally reliable, the thing is that sat nav is only as good as the idiot who programmes it and because I transposed 2 digits it took me to the wrong place, the actual postcode was MK6 4AG but I entered it as MK4 6AG leaving me at completely the wrong end of the city! Then not having a clue where to go as I hadn’t realised what the problem was! Perhaps I need to learn from this and make sure that I take a written note of addresses with me just in case there is a problem, however I wont have a problem finding the fiat dealer again as I have set it as a favourite on my sat nav, I am a fan of such technology and always feel that the problems encountered are due to human error more often than actual problems with the technology itself and this problem illustrates that clearly, it also illustrates that I am only human and fallible.

Anyhow, you are probably wondering now what the problem was, it turns out to be a bearing that’s wearing out so they have had to order the part in and, as I said, have booked it in for the problem to be rectified in a fortnight, one good thing for us is that we don’t have to pay for the problem with the vehicle as it is a motability vehicle and the costs are covered under the contract hire scheme.