I bought a car last year.  It’s a second hand Focus that was two years old but in pristine condition.  I got a Focus because Herself wanted one.  It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I’m glad I got it.

Earlier this year, I was pootling along the motorway when I checked my speed.  I like to try to keep within the speed limits.  To my amazement I was doing 0.  And my rev-counter said 0 too.  And I was apparently out of petrol [having filled up the previous day].  Something wrong here thinks I.  Then I realised all the instruments had failed [I can be slow on the uptake sometimes].

It is tricky driving when you don’t know what speed you are doing.  Too slow, and you run the risk of road rage from the trucker behind you.  Too fast, and it’s a few more points on the old licence.  I found the best answer was to tuck in behind the slowest driver I could find.  Then I could explain to the trucker that it was them that was holding us up.

I got it fixed a few days later.  It cost a fortune as the whole unit had to be replaced.  Funny how they can never “fix” things these days – they always “have to replace the unit”.  It cost me an arm and a leg despite my protests that it was only just out of warrenty.  However I was glad to get the car back and paid up.  They pointed out that I now had a metric speedometer, as if this was some kind of consolation.

Actually it was.  I can now legally overtake a lot of cars.  Because people are driving with speedometers showing in m.p.h. and they have to mentally convert from the old money to new, they tend to err on the side of caution.

The other side effect of the repair is that the garage forgot to reset my milage counter.  When I collected it, it was at zero.  As the Americans would say – Yeeehawww! [I don’t know why that they say that, but in this case it seems appropriate].

Anyone like to buy a three year old car with a genuine 3000 on the clock?