Goodbye? (4 juli 2011)

Maandag 4 juli 2011

Today our car was serviced and the problem we have with our right rear wheel was investigated (it’s getting very hot). The good news is there is something wrong with the brakes, as opposed to the wheel bearings. Some relatively minor parts needs to be replaced, brake pads and something that activates the brake.

Now for the bad news: the parts, worth about 200-250 AUD, need to come from Japan… This takes 3 to 4 weeks and we cannot drive any further with our car except for short distances (10 km or so at a time) because the break pads have worn excessively to less than 10% of being completely worn.

 

Our last hope for our current car, but we are not holding our breath:

  • A dealer somewhere in Australia may have the parts we need (very unlikely)
  • A wrecker has good pre-loved parts (extremely unlikely as there are not many of our type of car in Australia)

 

Lessons learned:

  • Never buy a grey market import
  • Dealers are expensive but know what they are doing in Australia; Citroen dealers in the Netherlands are not to be trusted though
  • Buy something that has been sold a lot if it is a somewhat older car, so you may have a change at a wrecker

 

So what’s next, unless a ‘miracle’ happens:

  • The car will be sold to a wrecker and ends up as spare parts for other cars in need
  • We send/give away all stuff we do not need anymore
  • We probably will hire something and finish our trip that way

 

Although this seems to be disaster for our trip in Australia, this is NOT the case. This car brought us to some AWESOME places!!! And we have done most of the things we absolutely wanted to do:

  • Uluru / Kings Canyon
  • Gibb River Road
  • Bungle Bungles
  • Gaining 4×4 experience through tracks such as (parts of) the Oodnadatta Track, Francois Peron National Park, Karijini National Park, etc

The remainder, such as Kakadu National Park and traveling to Sydney, we can probably do with a hired car (2WD), except for Fraser Island but that was more of a bonus for us.

This may also allow us to do other stuff that we thought we had very limited time for… However the cost of our stay may sky rocket 🙂 (like having dinner at “Vue du Monde, one of the most expensive restaurants in Melbourne).

 

 

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