Day 76 Calais
We were up and ready for the 8:30am appointment for the engineers to look at our van. It was about 10:30am when 4 men came across and pushed the van into the workshop. Around 30 minutes later we were given the bad news… When we were filling the AdBlue at the motorway services on Sunday we ended up putting it in the diesel tank. This has caused the whole diesel system from working and will need a complete overhaul ie Pump, injectors, filters, tank and lines will need washing out and / or replacing. Once again with the help of google translate it was explained to us that it could be more than 6 weeks before they could look at the repair and more importantly have all the necessary parts. I explained I had no breakdown insurance and that getting the vehicle back to the UK could be a problem. My options were limited
1.Stay with the van but they were not sure how practical that was
2. Book into a hotel with Tucker for a very long stay which would be expensive
3. Return to the UK and allow the van to be recovered separately
The service manager suggested I contact our insurer, NFU mutual, to see if I could make a claim. After making the call and them checking with the relevant teams their end they confirmed that they would cover the cost of recovering the van back to the UK to a garage of my choosing. Thet might even cover the cost of the repairs. The bill will be in the many thousands so they explained I would lose my No Claims Bonus and the excess on the policy was £400. I found this most acceptable. The assistance company that use was now on the case and being fluent french speakers I was able to hand my phone to them to talk to the garage. By now the time was ticking on and we still needed to exit France by 11am tomorrow. The Car Hire company was only 200m approximately down the road but were closed for lunch and reopen at 2pm. We needed to hire a car and get to Calais and then try and find a Channel crossing operator that would take foot passengers with a dog. Once again after calling Eurotunnel and P&O they stated that Tucker needed to be in a vehicle to cross. We started o make preparations to travel to Calais knowing that we would probably be carrying whatever we take with us.
At 2pm the garage took me to Avis hire car offices to get a one way hire to Calais. Yes they could do that but they only had one car available even though the yard was full of cars. I was offered a Fiat 500 which I had no choice but to accept. I took a 2 day hire. Drove back to the Garage and loaded up the small car. We were soon on our way after thanking everyone for their kindness and getting reassurances they would take care of the van.
Driving a left had car was not a new experience but one I hadn’t done for many years and also I have driven automatics for the past 20+ years and this was a manual and was very small and basic. During the journey I am relying on the phone / iPad for navigation and Tina to relay instructions which she would confess she is not very good at. The USB sockets were not charging our devices but we later found out that the radio need to be switched on and apple car play became available. We asked the assistance company to find us a dog friendly hotel in Calais which they duly did. They also got us a quote from a french Taxi company to take us through the tunnel and return …. €1500 Ouch. The trip was stressful what with the driving, the navigation and trying to sort out the logistics of getting home.
We arrived at the hotel at around 7pm. We had contacted my son Andrew to see if he could came over to France and collect us. However he has no passport. We thought about asking our friends to return home early but it would be another 4 days before they would get to us. Eventually we contacted our daughter and her partner immediately volunteered to drive through the night and meet us at the hotel early in the morning ready for a 8:30am crossing. I changed the booking to his car and added him to the adults being carried. He took so much pressure of our shoulders by offering to collect us… He is a star.
We ate in the bedroom of the Hotel Ibis and settled down for the night. Tina remembered my CPAP machine and even brought the power adaptor however it was used in the van on 12v so no good for a hotel room. I will have a very uncomfortable nights sleep. We are due to see Asa for breakfast in the morning.