Big Red has been with us a couple of months now. We haven’t been far. One tank of fuel ⛽️ – shockingly expensive

one weekend in deepest Luncolnshire 🐑 🐏

a day out to Clumber

and the Platinum Jubilee weekend in the field of fine wines 🍷

That’s about as much as we’ve done so far.

Today was supposed to be a day out and van picnic on the shores of Lake Tittesworth in Staffordshire, except we only made it as far as Woodall services 🛣

Before we’d even left the village we had a beep and a red light for low coolant, which was odd given the fact its a new vehicle. We decided to pull on to the motorway and straight off again at Woodall to buy a top up bottle.

When we eventually popped the bonnet to inspect – no idea where the handle was, and no vehicle manual in the age of QR codes and interwebs – it was indeed below the minimum and mostly splashed all down the inside of the engine bay.

This would be an ideal time to discuss what on earth was going on, except KB was waylaid by some Tesla driving geezer who had wandered over to admire the van and discuss at great length camper vans in general 😴 💤

When he finally toddled off, we had a look and discovered this:

Really had no idea how it had been caused, so rummaged through the massive bag of wildax paperwork and the entirely insufficient citroen pamphlet which contained the QR code to download the handbook.

The advice was that the coolant system is pressurised so any loss of coolant can cause engine damage. 😲⚠️⚠️🔧🔧😲 this is the point where we decided not to move.

The warranty page of the Wildax book mentioned a year’s free breakdown cover when new, so I went back to the citroen pamphlet and found a number to call.

We got through to what turned out to be the RAC who said they would send someone out to look.

I made butties whilst we waited. He arrived before I’d put them on plates.

After a good examination he diagnosed a rodent incursion. Apparently coolant tastes sweet, how he knew, I’m not sure. He said it needs a new coolant reservoir and can’t really be driven, if it overheats, the engine is knackered.

To get a recovery truck out could be hours, so he decided to escort us home, via the service road rather than the motorway, having gaffer taped the visible nibble hole, with a warning to stop as soon as safe to do so if the light came back on.

We had to stop twice in the less than 3 miles to travel.

We chortled after his suggestion of using water rather than expensive coolant to top up necessitated the use of the shower head out of the bathroom exit to fill his cannister. He said he’s going to check his dash cam footage for that later 😂

So the van is off the road, Amazon has been consulted for rodent repellent spray, and bait traps have been laid willy nilly around the premises.

When Citroën can be contacted during office hours and we have an appointment, the lovely RAC man said to call them back to arrange for a flat bed recovery truck to get it there.

Fingers crossed for a full recovery 🙏

#campervancapers