do bad things really always happen in threes? if so i’d be ok with it, because then we’d be done now. first we had the issue with the alternator, then the gearbox decided it was time to retire and last our coolant system managed to spring a leak. a small one to be sure – does that count as lucky or unlucky given we were 50km out in the middle of nowhere when i found out – but a persistent one. back in town the local mechanic traced it to this part:

it is of course inconveniently located under the intake manifold, which makes this a ‘fun’ job. the guys in denham didn’t have the part and i suspect they didn’t really look forward to the difficult job either. our friendly rover mechanic acquaintance in geraldton advised us to rather not push our (rotten?) luck any further because these plastic parts are known to fail catastrophically. when they do that they dump all the coolant into the environment and the engine overheats really quickly. a lose-lose situation if ever there was one. shane also mentioned that he had the part in stock, because it’s known to fail and because he generally replaces it when the timing belt is changed.

timing belt …. should be changed when the car is 7 years old or when it’s done 180.000km. ours is 7.5 years old and has done 160.000km. so we decided to book the car in for a major service (timing belt, oil pump, high pressure fuel pump and probably a few other bits that ‘are known to fail’). in the meantime we enjoy geraldton ….