Diary of an Ordinary Van

[Vee4]

Dead Unlocky

I can never resist a pun, even if it is a bit contrived. Dead Lucky was the title of a book giving a now-discredited account of the final years of Lord 'Lucky' Lucan. See the Dead unLucky posting or the 'official' Lord Lucan website for more details.

Back to today's subject:



I'm starting to have a problem with the passenger door lock. When locked by a single press of the key or by the anti-hijack locking, sometimes it will not open by pulling the handle, i.e. it is behaving as if deadlocked. This is inconvenient for me because I often have to park up against a wall and climb out of the passenger door, but it represents a safety hazard because a passenger would not be able to open the door in emergency. The door will deadlock and open normally with the key. There is an unusual sound from the lock when it is operating too.

This is the kind of niggling fault that I would not have had with the Mk5. I'm thinking of doing a comparison chart - watch this space.

I've booked the Ordinary Van for a repair while it's still under warranty.

[Altransit]

My Focus drivers door does something similar. If you lock the doors from inside, you can't open it again from the inside
You have to get out of the passenger side, or open the window and use a key in the lock

It will be interesting to know what they find

[Vee4]

It will be interesting to know what they find.

I'm hoping the repair shop will do the decent thing and change the whole mech. Trouble is, with warranty repairs, they don't feel it necessary to tell me what they've done.

[Vee4]

Door Lock update

I took the van in to the dealer on 21 June 2012. I verified the problem before handing over the key, but the mistake I made was in not demonstrating it to someone from the workshop. They could not find anything wrong (of course).

When I collected the van, I had the service reception call the workshop and ask if the door had been stripped and examined, which apparently it had. Anyway, the lock worked normally for about a week, but now it has failed to open on two occasions and the slightly odd noise during the locking phase has returned.

I'll have to book it in and lose another day of work, but I'll be sure to demonstrate the problem this time.

[ake]

Demand a courtesy vehicle, so you can still work, you are entitled to one in the terms of the warranty, sometimes you get something different to drive for the day

[Vee4]

Demand a courtesy vehicle, so you can still work, you are entitled to one in the terms of the warranty, sometimes you get something different to drive for the day

Thanks for the note. It's been a long time since I logged in. Work has been completely crazy since the start of the year - lots of hours but not lots of money.

I've never been offered a 'courtesy vehicle'. The cynic might conclude that it is an 'unwritten' policy of the dealer not to offer unless the customer is insistent. Usually, I resign myself to a day at home doing paperwork, which has to be done some time anyway.

The warranty will be up at the end of August and it has crossed my mind to consider buying an extension from a third party company. The Ordinary Van has been very good apart from niggles, as described in these pages. Since it's only me driving, I'm thinking I might just hope that the OV continues to be trouble-free, and shell out for repairs as necessary. It will be in at the routine service intervals, of course.



Still no sign of Lord Lucan ...

[ake]

You can also buy an extended warranty from Ford, I'm sure Azer and some of the high mileage boys have them

[Vee4]

You can also buy an extended warranty from Ford, I'm sure Azer and some of the high mileage boys have them.

We did give this an airing a couple of years ago. I'll have to check the latest situation with the dealer.

[Vee4]

Home Before Daylight

I just finished reading Home Before Daylight by Steve Parish. It's a memoir of his time 'on the road' with the Grateful Dead and its various offshoots from the late sixties until Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. A dry but nevertheless fascinating read. I can certainly identify with the title ...



The other day, I was heading north in the daylight and the Ordinary Van (that one's for you, Altransit) to keep an appointment with the ST Water Inspector. Yes, you guessed it: trouble with my waterworks. Cue song: Flanders and Swann The Gas Man Cometh. It's rare for me to be travelling in the daylight and as I approached the Catthorpe interchange (M6), over to the east I saw for the first time a newly erected wind turbine and some partially completed columns waiting to be topped out. On my way to The Smoke on Sunday, I resolved to find out what was going on so I headed in the direction of the turbines, and it turns out to be the new Swinford Wind Farm.

Two of the turbines had been topped out, with their blades feathered into the wind, and several partially completed columns were visible with collections of blades and nacelles alongside.

A view of the construction site from the east:





And a view of the construction site from the west:





The only problem was that, wherever I went, someone had left an ordinary-looking dark blue Transit van parked in shot.

More pictures are available on the Swinford Wind Farm's web site and although the type of turbine is not specified, it looks as if they are Vestas 2 MW units similar to those installed at Milton Keynes. Possibly, they are V90 Gridstreamers, indicated by the 'go-faster wing' on the rear of the nacelle. Vestas motto: Wind - it means the world to us.

I'm not going to write more now, because I'm afraid the Forum site will dump the whole lot for me!

Composed using: Forum Formatter from Melvin Software. If you find it useful, make a donation and contribute suggestions for improvements.

This posting made possible by Will amending the 'profanity scanner'.

[Altransit]

More excellent pics

I'm a little disappointed, looking at the power lines, that you didn't manage to frame the power pylon in the East Facing pictures, as well as the OV and the Turbine

The other day, I was heading north in the daylight and the Ordinary Van (that one's for you, Altransit)

Ok Ok, I get it now

[Vee4]

I'm a little disappointed, looking at the power lines, that you didn't manage to frame the power pylon in the East Facing pictures, as well as the OV and the Turbine.

Funny you should say that. I did consider it, but the pylon was an L2, so nothing special. However, there was an interesting skinny pylon:



This is the survey pylon that was put up to check the wind availability on the site, in order to convince the planning authorities that there was a genuine reason for building the farm, apart from trousering the subsidy. I'm not sure if it was me or the pylon out of perpendicular. That dark blue Transit was getting in the way again:



Wind - it means the world to us.

The other day, I was heading north in the daylight and the Ordinary Van (that one's for you, Altransit)

Ok Ok, I get it now

Ah, yes! The zeugma.

[Vee4]

Getting eMOTional

As usual, the Ordinary Van and owner have been busy. It's festival season again and working in a field in the dark is the only holiday we get.



The 'holiday' is even better without rain and with a clear sky, at this time of year, there's a chance to see the Perseid meteor shower:



The Ordinary Van is nearly three years old, so I've booked in for the first MOT! I've also asked that the passenger door lock mechanism be replaced since it's still giving trouble. The good news is that I've booked the guests for the third anniversary celebration from among the festival artists.

[Vee4]

High Flight


Neil Armstrong 1930-2012 - made of the right stuff.

Diary readers will recall that I have drawn a parallel between the development of the Ford Transit and the 'Space Race' in the 1960s. See, for example: Memorable dates in the Space Age and Transits on the Moon. It is sad that Neil Armstrong, whose death was announced yesterday, will not be around for the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing.

Armstrong was a pilot and an engineer. This combination of skills enabled him to make the first Moon landing in the Eagle with some real 'seat of the pants' flying, or perhaps I should say 'sole of the foot' flying, since he and Aldrin were standing in the LM. Read the account of the landing in the only authorised biography, First Man by James R. Hansen. It's gripping stuff.

Many tributes have been made, so I offer only John Magee's poem, High Flight which begins:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Magee wrote his oft-quoted poem in 1941 at the age of nineteen, shortly before his tragic death in a mid-air collision.

[transitandy]

Bravo

[Vee4]

That's odd!

Odd that I hadn't noticed before. Three years on and with the rainy season approaching, it seemed a good idea to pick up some new wiper blades while the Ordinary Van was at the dealer for its first MOT test.



Even after having them right in front of me for so long, I had not noticed that the wiper blades are of different lengths.

The MOT passed without comment, by the way. I did wonder about the old 'sinking feeling' but presumably that is taken into account.