My Alfa Spider

Collecting the car.

So along came the following weekend and my wife and I set off down on the Friday night to stay with some relatives that were only about 30-40 mins away from the car. I called the owner the following morning and arranged to pick it up at about 5pm Saturday afternoon. Annette and I drove over in the pouring rain to meet the owner, his dad and of course collect the car. After about an hour chatting and having a quick test-drive around a car park, I set off in the Spider with Annette following on in another car. Within a minute of setting off I stopped at a petrol station to fill it up. How good I felt on a busy forecourt standing filling up my new car with petrol. That was until a lad in a Clio pulled up behind pointing at the back of my car. As I looked down, I could see petrol dripping quickly from the bottom of the petrol tank. To say I felt depressed was an understatement. I could not believe that my pride and joy had failed me so quickly. Annette called the previous owner and he said to bring it straight back to his house.

To our enormous relief, we located the problem very quickly. It turned out that the clips holding the rubber pipe that connects the nozzle pipe to the fuel tank pipe had come loose and the tube had slipped down leaving a small gap. Basically the majority of the petrol had got in the tank, but some had leaked out, ran across the tank, round and down the back of it and dripped off the bottom. This meant it looked like it was coming out the bottom of the tank. What a relief. The only down side was the smell in the boot from the spilt fuel that took ages to disappear. Oh well. Better than a hole in the tank.

So with that minor disaster out of the way, we set off again for the 40-minute drive back to our relatives. After only 10 minutes we entered the beginnings of what was to turn out to be an enormous deluge of rain. I could not believe it. Although rain was forecast, this amount was unbelievable. By the time we arrived at our relative’s house, we had driven for 30 minutes in torrential rain. I was very sad that my first real drive in my new car was in conditions that I will never take it out in again. However I would like to point out that I could not find a single drop of rain on the inside of the car. Although the car will never have to face such conditions again, I was however very pleased with the result of this unplanned rain test!

After the previous day’s excitement, I was hoping for a leisurely drive home. The weather was considerably better, dry with a little cloud, so off we set, again with me in the Spider in front, with Annette following on behind. The journey is about 2 ½ hours and the journey begun without problem. The Spider drove beautifully along the motorway cruising at the speed limit of 70mph without any fuss at all.

Shortly after the half way mark I pulled off into a service station and parked up. Annette parked up near by. After a short stop to answer a call of nature it asked Annette if she fancied a drive in the Spider. She replied ‘yes’ instantly. Having not really taken much notice of the controls of the car, I quickly pointed them out to her and she was ready to go. The car is fitted with an imobiliser so I showed her the starting procedure. Insert key. Turn through 180 degrees. Press button on key fob. Wait for light to appear on dash. Turn key to start………….. Absolutely nothing. Not even the weakest attempt to start. OK, don’t panic. Perhaps I did something wrong. Go through procedures again and …………….. nothing. OK, this time I’ll take a few deep breaths and say a few choice words in my head before trying to start it…………..Nothing.

Now at this point I noticed the car parking next to us was unusually quiet. A glance to the back and I realised it was being pushed by two garage attendants and what turned out to be the owner, with the owners wife in the driving seat. A subtle 30 seconds of ear wigging and I found out that they had filled the fuel tank with completely the wrong type of fuel. Aha. This had to mean a visit from a breakdown service and not 10 minutes later a chap from the AA arrived. Once he heard what the problem was it was a simple case of arranging for the car to be towed away and drained. I then managed to persuade the AA chap to have a quick look at the Spider. My insurance cover included breakdown cover but it’s with the RAC. Anyway, he was a very nice chap and had a quick look and decided the immobiliser was at fault as the battery was actually fine. This was as much as he was prepared to do, which was very decent of him. I then called the RAC who turned up 30 minutes later. I explained the problem and showed him by going through the starting procedure and ………………the damn thing turned over. It didn’t start first time but it turned over. I couldn’t believe it. The RAC chap checked a few things and came to the conclusion that the problem lay in the key fob for deactivating the immobiliser and that the batteries in it were not very well charged. In other words, upon pressing the button, a signal is received to make the light on the dash illuminate, but the full code was not getting through so the car would not start. As you probably know, a flat battery will regain a little charge when left for a while, hence it starting after waiting half an hour for the RAC to appear.

This meant we could get home. Annette took the wheel and under strict instruction not to stall, as it will mean another 30-minute wait in order to start it again, we set off.

Finally we arrived back home and covered it up for its first night at it’s new home. What a relief.