After a few false starts, here we go: Here we go Again! Not!

My 3rd major trip started again at Dover for the evening SeaFrance ferry to Calais. This pic just about sums up the weather in the UK for summer 2011. I was heading for the South of France, via the west coast just for a change.

In the queue at Dover waiting to board. I use Seafrance Dover/Calais since it was the most cost effective. I wanted to go from Poole to Cherbourg but Brittany Ferries are so expensive it is not worth it.

The channel was quite rough from the weather created by the remnants of Hurricane Katia. These are the waves on the Atlantic coast in the Vendee a day later.

The Lac du Jaunay was a stopping point. We last stayed here in, I think in 1982. It was a convenient campsite in my trundle down the west coast of France.

But as I trundled on the warning lights started to go crazy in the van instrument display. The engine management light came on, then went off, and on again. This went on for a few miles, on--off,on--off. Eventually, ping, the motor went into 'go slow' and any thoughts of trundling on vanished.

It was time to find a VW dealer.....

Well I bought a new van so it wouldn't be susceptible to breakdown but here I was, having sold my Mazda Bongo that NEVER went wrong, in the middle of the French countryside with my NEW sick VW T5.5 looking for a main dealer.

So surfing the internet from my Iphone I staggered to Niort only to find that the VW dealer was not a main 'concessionnaire'. So I then staggered to La Rochelle and found, on arrival that I should go to the 'commercial vehicle' depot on the other side of town. I arrived in the afternoon and they hooked up to the computer and ran the diagnostics. They then sent me back to the dealership I visited previously in La Rochelle, but it needed to be next day...too late now.

So I slowly went and found a campsite for the night.

Next day I rocked up only to be told that they couldn't 'fit me in' until 3.00pm. So I was hanging about the dealership, drinking coffee and reading French newspapers......To cap it all they went off at noon for a 2 hour lunchbreak!!!

The VW main Concessionnaires in La Rochelle.

Finally they came up with a diagnosis and advised me they need to order spare parts. It was the dreaded Exhaust Gas Recirculation Valve (EGR) and parts were needed from Germany. But it was now too late on Friday afternoon, the parts couldn't even be ordered until Monday. But I need to be in Perpignan by Sunday, I explained. Sorry, they said not much we can do. They advised that the vehicle was driveable so I set off south. But it was not going far, the motor was labouring, and I pulled into a campsite just south of Rochefort for the week-end.

The VW Concessionnaire at Marennes.

I seriously considered stripping out the EGR, blanking it off and carrying on. But, and remember I am a motor vehicle engineer, the job looked too daunting. Euro 5 compliant engines have a seriously complex exhaust gas management system with water cooled manifolds and complex electro-pneumatic controls that I was not going to mess with on the side of the road, and run the risk of wrecking my warranty and roadside assistance package. Also the engine management system had been messed with by the dealership and wasn't working well. I had no diagnostic computer to hook up and investigate the control system. Progress?

The EGR is in there somewhere!

To cut a long story short, I turned up at the VW Dealer in Marrennes, left the van with them, took a taxi back to La Rochelle, collected a hire car and drove to Perpignan on Monday evening. I stayed with my daughter and hubby, had a great but short time with them on the mediterranean coast and then drove back to La Rochelle, stayed in a hotel overnight and finally collected my van on Thursday, 1 week after it went wrong. Round trip 900 miles. I then drove back to the south of France to laze about the seaside for a week or so. The van breakdown cost me a week of my holiday so there was no chance of visiting the ancient caves in the Dordogne which was my intention.