Two Go Back to France (28 Viewers)

[Boldly]

I find it difficult to believe a fiat garage doesn't stock everyday service items. A sign of the times I guess. Everyone orders on line so stock only held centrally I presume.

 

[MichaelT]

I find it difficult to believe a fiat garage doesn't stock everyday service items. A sign of the times I guess. Everyone orders on line so stock only held centrally I presume.

I guess if you're booked in for a service they will order in advance.

 

[DBK]

I find it difficult to believe a fiat garage doesn't stock everyday service items. A sign of the times I guess. Everyone orders on line so stock only held centrally I presume.

My understanding is in the UK no one keeps stock these days. Everything is Just In Time. Take your vehicle to a garage and they will work out what is needed and order it from GSF or someone like that and expect it to be delivered in a couple of hours or so.

I don't know if this is the same in France. It probably is but may not apply to main dealers who use a different supply chain.

 

[yodeli]

Maybe another option....

Cheers
View attachment 951509

Oh please for goodness sake NO !!!!! Not Pont de Rupé
Not the right place at all.
Bad area
I hope no one has gone there yet! I've just read Carolyn 's post mentioning me

 

[Grianan]

I find it difficult to believe a fiat garage doesn't stock everyday service items. A sign of the times I guess. Everyone orders on line so stock only held centrally I presume.

We couldn’t get springs or bearing over the counter in Scotland - they had to be ordered in.

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[Figaro]

Oh please for goodness sake NO !!!!! Not Pont de Rupé
Not the right place at all.
Bad area
I hope no one has gone there yet! I've just read Carolyn 's post mentioning me

Oh do tell, whats wrong with Pont de Rupe ?

 

[DBK]

Oh please for goodness sake NO !!!!! Not Pont de Rupé
Not the right place at all.
Bad area
I hope no one has gone there yet! I've just read Carolyn 's post mentioning me

Frankie, we are booked into here for 1 October. They know we are a camping car.

21 Rue Paule Raymondis · Toulouse

maps.app.goo.gl

We are now staying at Camping Toulouse le Rupé and things are fine here. I have ordered the parts we need and they should arrive next week.

Just enjoying Toulouse now.

 

[yodeli]

Frankie, we are booked into here for 1 October. They know we are a camping car.

21 Rue Paule Raymondis · Toulouse

maps.app.goo.gl

We are now staying at Camping Toulouse le Rupé and things are fine here. I have ordered the parts we need and they should arrive next week.

Just enjoying Toulouse now.

You are next to one of the biggest field for Gypsies, and quite a few robberies have taken place there. Now of course things might have changed. I'm not looking for news on a regular basis. I cross my fingers the gendarmes have cleared the area, indeed. Just be careful you 2 ok?

You are not very far away from me at the moment. Chemin de Gabardie is at about 6 or 7 minutes away from where I am at the moment.
Stade Latécoère is where I used to live, and I am helping there up to monday morning for the International Canine Exposition on the 21st and 22sd Sept

16/20 Avenue de la Plaine Balma 31130

Balma. Exposition canine internationale pour la rentrée

L’association canine territoriale 31 organisera sa prochaine exposition canine internationale en septembre à Balma, haut lieu de la cynophilie.

www.ladepeche.fr

 

[DBK]

You are next to one of the biggest field for Gypsies, and quite a few robberies have taken place there. Now of course things might have changed. I'm not looking for news on a regular basis. I cross my fingers the gendarmes have cleared the area, indeed. Just be careful you 2 ok?

You are not very far away from me at the moment. Chemin de Gabardie is at about 6 or 7 minutes away from where I am at the moment.
Stade Latécoère is where I used to live, and I am helping there up to monday morning for the International Canine Exposition on the 21st and 22sd Sept

16/20 Avenue de la Plaine Balma 31130

Balma. Exposition canine internationale pour la rentrée

L’association canine territoriale 31 organisera sa prochaine exposition canine internationale en septembre à Balma, haut lieu de la cynophilie.

www.ladepeche.fr

Frankie, thank you, we have seen the gypsy camps but we have been walking around the Parc Sesquiéres and all seems safe there. The campsite here looks very secure.

I plan to rent a car next week and we will do some exploring.

 

[DBK]

My experiments using a battery charger were successful. With the cab battery fully charged the yellow warnings vanished and only the red light about charging remains on. Actually, that's not quite true, a yellow Check Engine light came on but vanished after a couple of appearances.

Equally positive the parts I ordered arrived and I collected them from the garage this morning.

I also arranged to hire a car and offered an electric Fiat 500 I took it as we had seen the campsite had EV charging points. Subsequent enquires revealed they are new and not yet working. The vehicle could be charged from a domestic socket but it takes a long time and the campsite would take a very dim view of charging an EV on our pitch I suspect. There are public charging points but I can't be bothered with using those so we will change the vehicle for a gas guzzler.

I've been considering gus-lopez 's clever suggestion to link the leisure and cab batteries with a wire. I thought I might use the existing B2B cables but I suspect if permanently connected the fuse would blow on starting the engine. By-passing the fuses with such heavy cables isn't a safe option. So I'm going to use a much thinner wire but rig it through the isolating switch for the inverter. As long as I remember to open this for starting then close it when the engine is running it should work.

All of this was going on in my head while trying to work out how much current the engine needs to run.

Initial results were the injector pump and dashboard might take 2A each. The windscreen wipers were an unknown but the fuse on the wiper circuit is only 5A so it can't draw more than 3A I think, a lot less than I expected. The big unknown is the cooling fan which might take 10A or more - but how often will it run if I stick to motorways?

I need to get the cable tomorrow, fit it and then do some experiments. But I'm still going to keep this as the Plan B if the van can't be fixed on 1 October.

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[Lenny HB]

Don't forget to disconnect it when starting the engine.

 

[Figaro]

That sounds like a very resourceful solution, well done, I confess I'd never have come up with that

 

[DBK]

Don't forget to disconnect it when starting the engine.

I will stick a notice on the steering wheel but might look at incorporating a fuse, I think I've got the bits to do that.

 

[Boldly]

Must be easier to find someone who can change a belt surely?

 

[DBK]

Must be easier to find someone who can change a belt surely?

You would think so in France's 4th biggest city but apparently not.

I'm not going to fret about it. Perhaps 20 years ago I would have spent days phoning every garage in Toulouse but now I'm happy to go with the flow.

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[Wanders from Glos]

You would think so in France's 4th biggest city but apparently not.

I'm not going to fret about it. Perhaps 20 years ago I would have spent days phoning every garage in Toulouse but now I'm happy to go with the flow.

Good for you

 

[mikebeaches]

Sorry to read about your woes.

A couple of years ago our air con packed up on the van whilst we were in France. It was baking hot and I was really keen to see if we could get it fixed asap.

We were recommended to try a branch of a garage chain called Speedy https://www.speedy.fr/ I think they are all over the place.

We just called in and they said to leave it with them to investigate and they rang 30 minutes later to say they'd found a leak, they had a suitable gasket and would then re-gas the A/C. They said give them another 45 minutes and the job would be completed. True to their word it was, and the bill was perfectly reasonable.

I mentioned it because we didn't have to book anything in advance, and I just wonder if there is a branch local to where you are if they would be worth at least a phone call? I think they do all sorts of belts. And you've got the parts.

In any case, hope you can get sorted one way or another without too much grief.

 

[DBK]

Sorry to read about your woes.

A couple of years ago our air con packed up on the van whilst we were in France. It was baking hot and I was really keen to see if we could get it fixed asap.

We were recommended to try a branch of a garage chain called Speedy https://www.speedy.fr/ I think they are all over the place.

We just called in and they said to leave it with them to investigate and they rang 30 minutes later to say they'd found a leak, they had a suitable gasket and would then re-gas the A/C. They said give them another 45 minutes and the job would be completed. True to their word it was, and the bill was perfectly reasonable.

I mentioned it because we didn't have to book anything in advance, and I just wonder if there is a branch local to where you are if they would be worth at least a phone call? I think they do all sorts of belts. And you've got the parts.

In any case, hope you can get sorted one way or another without too much grief.

Thank you, they have a branch in Toulouse.