You couldn't make it up, disaster trip 2024

[chaser]

Ok then garage said between 2 and 4 thousand pounds and the repatriation was alleged to be 7 thousand so after a lot of thought I said ok do it then and they would do it before the date they said.
So that's back tracking a bit as I had got to the car hire in my last post , so nothing was going to happen for at least a week so we got this car and headed for the coast, about an hour later when we were about three miles away I run up a broken kerb and burst the tyre so no spare and Julie gets on the phone to hertz which took about an hour while we sat there in the middle of nowhere.
Anyway eventually another breakdown truck arrives and loads the car up , remember it only needs a new tyre and no mention of what we are supposed to do.
The lorry driver was pretty good though and took us to a street away from our hotel.
Never seen hide or hair of this car or another one since , so we had an hire car for an hour and to be honest this put me right off driving the van back.
Anyway we got this studio overlooking the sea and had 6 days there.

 

[Just smiffy]

The End…?

 

[chaser]

The End…?

Just the start mate.

 

[Mikey RV]

Charlie, can you not just get your camper bought back with the guy your using before they repair it so you can get it home and then fix it saving you a big French bill.

 

[Lenny HB]

It’s just how you use your MH. We do 200 miles in the UK each year and 9000 overseas so chances are we are going to breakdown overseas….

We do less than a 1000 in the UK and 8000-9000 abroad.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Larrynwin]

You’re doing fine chaser , I’m playing Santa at Christmas and my whiskers are doing just fine

 

[chaser]

Charlie, can you not just get your camper bought back with the guy your using before they repair it so you can get it home and then fix it saving you a big French bill.

If id have known about him at the beginning it would be at home the first day.

 

[chaser]

While we are at canet there's phone calls back and forth, and I have completely gone off driving in France, the garage is supposedly got the parts and going to do it so I don't go back on my word and left them to it then I found out about this other bloke.
So cutting a fair bit out now the insurance offer to pay for us to go home, but they reckon it's going to cost £300 each to get us back and they couldn't really go to that much and yet ryanair from Carcassonne to east mids was only £36 each on telling them this they said they don't do ryanair but if we booked it they would pay us back.
So at this point,just fed up of the whole thing, and book Ryanair online on my phone and get the tickets sent to my phone.
Then , bugger me my phone packed up, couldn't get get my email or the tickets.
So try to get my email sent to Julie's phone, I have the email address and password but what did Google insist on doing but sending a code to my bloody phone that wasn't working.
That's why my messages on here went a bit sparse.
So I have an old phone with a broken screen in the van so got to return to Carcassonne to get my old phone to see if I can get all my stuff back, well managed it and got our flights back on Wednesday.
Right not been on to the garage to see if it's done, but had a bill off hertz for a tyre and for not returning the car with a full tank, how the hell I was supposed to do that when they had took the bloody thing and never saw it again.
Now a new development but not sure if this will come off or not, but my son and his mate say they will fetch it and got on to LV and they are prepared to pay for their flights and taxi from the airport to the garage and the breakdown policy will still be in force for them.
So thinking about that now .
But the top and bottom of it is we are home and the vans still there.

 

[chaser]

Another topic more light hearted since having to use restaurants, we have found there are more serving fish and chips it's more like fish fingers but it's a start

 

[chaser]

I know this sounds like a advert for lv breakdown insurance, but I just couldn't believe what they were prepared to do for us, we didn't make use of a lot they offered us as having seen horror stories on here about breakdown companies we couldn't believe half of it was serious, and it still keeps on coming.
Never having used breakdown before it came as a complete surprise, and they didn't argue about anything.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Figaro]

You've certainly been through the mill on this trip Charlie.
I know you've posted before that you may give up travelling abroad, and that would be a shame if you never enjoyed your holidays in Gravelines again.
But all is not lost, even if you decided your cross channel days are over, remember there are lots of great places in the UK to visit and I know you enjoyed a dabble with pub stops a year or two ago.
Get the old girl back, fixed up and on the road for more travels.
Apart from anything else, what would you do with your new Jackery thingy ?

 

[Figaro]

I know this sounds like a advert for lv breakdown insurance, but I just couldn't believe what they were prepared to do for us, we didn't make use of a lot they offered us as having seen horror stories on here about breakdown companies we couldn't believe half of it was serious, and it still keeps on coming.
Never having used breakdown before it came as a complete surprise, and they didn't argue about anything.

Based on your experience I'm going to look at LV breakdown cover at next renewal

 

[chaser]

You've certainly been through the mill on this trip Charlie.
I know you've posted before that you may give up travelling abroad, and that would be a shame if you never enjoyed your holidays in Gravelines again.
But all is not lost, even if you decided your cross channel days are over, remember there are lots of great places in the UK to visit and I know you enjoyed a dabble with pub stops a year or two ago.
Get the old girl back, fixed up and on the road for more travels.
Apart from anything else, what would you do with your new Jackery thingy ?

That ecoflo thing was another revelation, it was really working well , we hardly used any gas even though the weather wasn't the best but it's still in the van, so hope it hasn't been nicked.

 

[MichaelT]

Based on your experience I'm going to look at LV breakdown cover at next renewal

See the other thread about LV not insuring motorhome anymore

 

[Bobby dazzler]

You've certainly been through the mill on this trip Charlie.
I know you've posted before that you may give up travelling abroad, and that would be a shame if you never enjoyed your holidays in Gravelines again.
But all is not lost, even if you decided your cross channel days are over, remember there are lots of great places in the UK to visit and I know you enjoyed a dabble with pub stops a year or two ago.
Get the old girl back, fixed up and on the road for more travels.
Apart from anything else, what would you do with your new Jackery thingy ?

Totally agree some great places in the UK. My van is getting a bit long in the tooth so using it a bit more in the UK now. Hope you get it sorted chaser and have some more great trips in it

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[chaser]

Totally agree some great places in the UK. My van is getting a bit long in the tooth so using it a bit more in the UK now. Hope you get it sorted chaser and have some more great trips in it

Yes I know it's been a disaster but now we are back and can look back , we have had this van getting on for 10 years now and never had a missed beat in 3000 miles continental travel every year apart from lockdown so if it gets repaired properly and we get it back for not much money it still won't stand at a lot.
It's just that when you are there and can't do much about the stress it really gets to you.
Hertz are the biggest b....... Just can't get your head around what they did to us, could have been kids or dogs or old people and they just left us in the middle of nowhere, no call to see if we were ok or anything.
And how they could say we took it back without filling it, how could we if we hadn't got it.

 

[chaser]

See the other thread about LV not insuring motorhome anymore

The van is actually insured by nfu it's only breakdown through LV.

 

[Wanders from Glos]

I feel like a welfare coach listening to someone with PTSD. It’s scaring me witless, the idea of being stuck.

So frustrating for you and you managed it so well it seemed to us at the time.

 

[Barchetta47]

The van is actually insured by nfu it's only breakdown through LV.

When our cambelt went in Spain our breakdown with LV, provided by Britannia, was excellent and mirrors the service provided here. The only difference was the MH was repaired in Salamanca and we were flown back to pick it up.

 

[Puddleduck]

I feel like a welfare coach listening to someone with PTSD. It’s scaring me witless, the idea of being stuck.

So frustrating for you and you managed it so well it seemed to us at the time.

I am so pleased chaser you are home safe and well. The rest is a B..... with knobs on but on the overall scheme of things on the most important.

As Wanders says being stuck with no help is a nightmare. Now I am using a wheelchair I am even reluctant to leave the house, frightened I end up abandoned. My head tells me I am overthinking this but just going out of the house I start to panic. Loads of places I would like to visit but just not able at the moment.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Flairy]

Alls well that ends well I hope.

 

[Northernraider]

Broken down in .... Norway!

View attachment 957820

And why is it always raining when breakdowns happen.

 

[Flairy]

I’m only going to drive in the sun from now on

 

[Northernraider]

This experience and others is even making me nervous about going abroad again. Imagine this with 4 dogs and no house to be returned too

 

[Rogerwyn]

Should never worry about breaking down abroad that’s why we pay insurance, or you can fix it yourself’s even that has its benefits, many year ago had a injector go down while towing through France but which one had to improvise

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[chaser]

This experience and others is even making me nervous about going abroad again. Imagine this with 4 dogs and no house to be returned too

Looking at it now, it's not a very likely event though is it, I have never broken down anywhere I couldn't get back from in my life and that includes driving vans for a living.
So unlikely in fact that before this trip I was even debating whether to bother with breakdown insurance at all.
Through the years I have had most of the usual ones. As, green flag and other independent ones but never been very confident they would do anything I couldn't do myself by reading all the horror stories on here and other places.
But for £153 this lv insurance is an absolute no brainer , just to get you pulled off the road never mind anything else.
But with hindsight if we ever do decide to go again I will get the details of someone who can pickup the van and bring it home, don't get mixed up with garages and stuff over there, just get it home as it's a nightmare deciding what to do.
If it's something small yeah well ok get it done but something that seriously puts you off the road.
Get it home.

 

[Lenny HB]

Makes me pleased I coughed up for the 5 year warranty on the new van as it includes Fiat camper cover so if anything goes wrong they should get it to a dealer who can fix it with no cost to me.

 

[Shrimp]

Glad you are home.
PS. It’s still raining, Brittany coast.

 

[Phill D]

Have I missed it? Is the van fixed and home!

 

[MichaelT]

Makes me pleased I coughed up for the 5 year warranty on the new van as it includes Fiat camper cover so if anything goes wrong they should get it to a dealer who can fix it with no cost to me.

Same here, I'm thinking they would have some power over the local garage to get it in but who knows and hopefully we'll never find out.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}