The van’s back again

I did indeed take the van all the way back to the dealer’s at Weston on Wed 18th Jun, with the hope that I’d have it back today (Sat).

The good news:

• A phone call last night (Fri) confirmed it would be ready for collection this morning, so I took the kindly-loaned-but-otherwise-‘orrible courtesy car (Rover 25. Ugh) back down the M5, luckily missing the worst of the Saturday morning “let’s all rush down to Cornwall while the weather’s nice & clog up the motorways” traffic.
• It’s not blowing reversing light fuses any more, and the reversing light is actually working
• They replaced the split breather hose on the fuel tank – they had to remove the fuel tank to do this.

The less good news:

• They seem to have lost a fair amount of fuel in the process
• The reversing camera doesn’t automatically switch on when reverse gear is engaged (they hadn’t thought to check that). Apparently, the garage that the dealer took it to had “tidied up” the wires at the reversing switch on the gearbox. They’ve probably disconnected the reversing light feed to the camera in that process.

We can live with manually switching the camera monitor on when we need it and they agreed to sort out the wiring when we’re back (in September?). So we’re now looking for a tomorrow night or Monday departure from Thornbury. Excitement is mounting. Time to start packing.

There’s a possibility that one or two of Joy’s friends may make use of the house while we’re gone – so I’ve started writing out lists of instructions for things like gas valve; water stop valve; boiler/heating; shower; fuse board location; fridge; freezer, etc. Hopefully these notes will make sense.