Getting rubbed up the wrong way

Just what is it with our darn van?

We really have a love hate relationship. We love the van, but it seems to hate us.

It just feels like every other month there is another thing that needs to be fixed or is going to cost us more money then we bargained for.

It's beginning to really rub me up the wrong way.

This month I went to get a quote for bumper colour coding and found out that the rear bumper crash bar has had a whack, buckled up and is ever so slightly making our back doors rub the bumper. This means, without being fixed, our nice new shiny red bumper would get a great big dirty scratch from the doors rubbing.

I've had enough of bloody rubbing recently.

As you may know from my previous post here, our new super size 20 inch alloys are rubbing VERY LOUDLY when on full lock.

I forgot about the full lock thing the other day when trying to execute a swift three point turn in the road to avoid some roadworks and BRRRRRRRRRRRRR. 

Wouldn't be so bad if I was on my own, but I had an audience of a gaggle of road workers hanging around on their tea break who promptly turned around to see what was making the noise.

'It's me!' I smile sheepishly through the open window. 'Ahhhh. Big wheels' one replies as he puts his hands up, gesticulating like he just caught a big fish.

This means I now can't do three point turns and instead have to make pigeon point pirouettes, which frankly makes me look like a bit of a tit.

After being delivered the bad news of the bust bumper bar at the paintwork shop I had to get out of a really tight spot surrounded by big machinery outside a work depot on the packed industrial estate. And yet again a gaggle of road workers who were yet again on their tea break.

I provided them with great entertainment inching forward and back, then forward and back, then forward and back about 16 times in what could easily have been accomplished in six turns using full lock.

I wound down the window and employed the same gesture of the previous road worker. 'I can drive, promise! Can't use full lock. BIG wheels.'

I am hoping the rubbing will stop, in all senses of the word, but we have got the dreaded MOT next week. Oh, and I swear I can smell raw diesel when sat in the passenger seat, even when the window is up.

This can mean one of two things.

1. There is something wrong with the van. Again.

2. I am pregnant. Again.

Keep your fingers crossed the van sails through its MOT. And that I won't have to upgrade the van and change the blog to T6 for 6! (The husband has mixed feelings about this).