Servo

When I was growing up, a servo (service station) wasn't just somewhere you bought your petrol and ciggies ( a good mix), you could get your car serviced there too. Not only that, but the guy that owned the business probably knew you and your car as well.

Well, there's not as many petrol selling places where you can get your car fixed these days. You either take your car back to the dealer and get it done properly (but pay a lot for it), take it to somewhere like K-Mart Auto (and pay a lot for it, but not necessarily get it fixed), or search out an old fashioned servo and get it done properly at a reasonable price.

Sarah's been having trouble with her Daewoo Nubira just lately, it's been running really rough. She took it to K-Mart Auto to get it serviced and they replaced her spark plugs and HT leads and did a few other things, recommended a few things, and charged her about $500.

Not long after that, the car started running rough again, so her grandad and I replaced the fuel filter (one of the things they recommended). A couple of days later it was playing up again, so Donna rang up K-Mart Auto, told them the problem and Sarah took the car in for them to have another go at fixing it.

The verdict? One of the spark-plugs they'd put in was faulty.

I used to have a Daihatsu Charade that had a similar problem. My local servo back then had replaced the HT leads, but when it played up again and one of the plugs looked stuffed, they correctly surmised that the reason the brand new plug was the way it was, was because one of the brand new HT leads was stuffed.

I started to suspect that maybe they hadn't installed a faulty plug, they were just clutching at straws.

Now there's a servo about five minutes drive from us, near the Wellington Point railway station. it's one of those old style servos where they actually come out and pump the juice for you. The last time I had that done was in Gatton about two years ago, and before that, I can't really remember. That used to be what service meant.

Anyway, Donna used to get her car serviced at the place in Wello, and whenever we drive past there on a week day, there's always a heap of cars parked out the front waiting to be worked on. A good indication of its popularity. So Donna rang them up and got Sarah's car booked in for this morning.

The verdict? It was the ignition module. It was that that caused the plugs to fail. Not only that, but a couple of the plugs were cracked, because whoever worked on it before had done them up too tight and broken the insulation. Oh, and the new HT leads were cheapies too.

If you're having trouble with your car, try and find the little servo in the backstreet that looks a bit like a museum piece and has a heap of cars parked out the front every day. There's a reason all those cars are parked there. You might notice, it's a different bunch of cars each day too.

Oh, and Donna hadn't taken her car there for a few years, but Geoff (or is it Jeff?), the owner, still remembered her.