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This might be trying to save money too hard

“On more than one occasion, he would take a road trip, get within 200 kilometers (~124 miles) of his destination. (Max tow limit of his CAA plan). He’d pull his fuel pump relay, then call a tow truck to take him the rest of the way and save gas.”

13 thoughts on “This might be trying to save money too hard”

  1. I had a friend who was moving house and wanted to get his old non-running Lotus from one side of the country to the other. He didn’t want to pay the transportation costs so joined the AA, using his new address a week before his moving date. On moving day he pushed the car out into the road, called the AA and had his Lotus delivered by AA Relay to his new home.

  2. Bloke in North Dorset

    I’m getting a weird response from the site. I can see all the posts in the top level domain and can drop down in to this post, but as soon as I try to read comments in the other posts it tells me too many redirections.

  3. LOTUS. Loads Of Trouble, Usually Serious.

    My Insurance says it’ll pay the recovery costs for the first instance of a particular fault.

  4. Bloody hell. I’m known for being a bit careful with money but this takes the biscuit.

    On the subject of old Lotus cars. A relative of mine bought a old S registration Lotus Elite (old S reg that is) which he restored and drove. However he got involved in a minor accident on a local dual carriageway. The accident was not his fault but the car ended up on the embankment with petrol pissing out of the side due to the impact with the vehicle that hit his vehicle. My relative went to open the door to get out of the drivers side only to find that Lotus, in their infinite wisdom, had apparently fitted the car with Morris Marina style door mechanisms. The door had jammed with him in the car and petrol pissing out. In order to get out he had to turn the ignition back on in order to get the passenger side electric windows open so he could climb out. I’ve always looked at Lotuses with suspicion since them

  5. I can see all the posts in the top level domain and can drop down in to this post, but as soon as I try to read comments in the other posts it tells me too many redirections.

    Happening to me too. If I leave it an hour or so, it starts working again.

    On moving day he pushed the car out into the road, called the AA and had his Lotus delivered by AA Relay to his new home.

    Given that it was a Lotus, they probably didn’t suspect anything was amiss. Bet it wouldn’t work if you tried it with a Toyota!

  6. I can see all the posts in the top level domain and can drop down in to this post, but as soon as I try to read comments in the other posts it tells me too many redirections.

    Same here since the new theme…

  7. Harry Haddock's Ghost

    Lotus, in their infinite wisdom, had apparently fitted the car with Morris Marina style door mechanisms.

    A. K. A. Range Rover door mechanisms.

  8. Door handles – yes, it’s called “parts bin engineering”. For a big manufacturer intending to build lots of a model, they’ll design something to suit their needs/vehicle styling. For smaller manufacturers, or models with lower expected sales figures, or just if money is tight (c.f. when Land Rover needed the Discovery to be a success to survive, and didn’t have much money to design it) – they look around and see what’s in the parts bins that’s “near enough” and that’s what gets used. I thought Range Rover had it’s own door handles, but the Discovery definitely used parts bin design and Marina (or was it Maestro ?) door handles (IIRC LR were part of the failing BL group at the time). The Discovery actually was a Range Rover up to the floor pan, only the bodywork above that was new – and they used the older engines in the Disco (e.g. carbs on the V8 while the RR had gone to the first incarnation of EFI) as a differentiator to justify the higher cost of a RR..

    But on the original comment. Many years ago I was getting delivered with my broken down car (terminal engine problem) by the AA. We had a stopover at a depot in (IIRC) Birmingham where we got transferred to a different truck for onward progress. One of the AA guys told this story of how they used to get lots of callouts from festivals back in the 60s because “my carb’s been stolen” – and then the customer would expect their scooter and themselves taking home (in reality, they just didn’t have any money left for petrol). The AA got wise to this, so they’d get taken to a workshop, handed a carb that had been stocked specially, and lent the tools to fit it – and of course, got a bill for the new carb. Ouch.

  9. When I was young I had a part time job at a little motor repair outfit. The blokes showed me that you could sometimes unlock the doors on some old BL cars with a new ice lolly stick (flat wood thing). It just formed to the required shape and had enough strength to turn. They said don’t try it on the ignition as more torque was needed and you didn’t want it snapping off.

  10. “On moving day he pushed the car out into the road, called the AA and had his Lotus delivered by AA Relay to his new home.”

    But wouldn’t they get a bit suspicious if you say to the AA recovery man ‘Just take the car, don’t worry about me, even though I’m hundreds of miles from home, I’ll make my own way back’?

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