This can’t be happening

You know how I got my lemon of a Renault back on Wednesday?

Well … it got towed back to the service centre yesterday.

I. Kid. You. Not.

I drove to the hairdresser to get my roots done on Thursday morning and, as I was looking for a park in busy Darlinghurst, the car started frantically beeping at me.

I looked down and the dashboard was flashing “Stop!” and “Engine failure” messages. And I thought “This can’t be happening”.

There was literally nowhere to pull over, but the car was very insistent that I did. So I parked in a no-stopping zone and hyperventilated a bit, turned the car back on and coasted down the road to a one-hour parking spot.

The beeping and flashing red lights had gone, but my panic remained.

I called the service centre – it took about four goes to get through – and told them the car they’d just given a new engine had been flashing failure messages.

Cassidy sounded a bit flustered and said she’d need to talk to Richard. Two seconds later she announced I’d need to get the car towed back to the service centre.

I would need to get it towed.

Right. Thanks.

And that’s how the rest of Thursday was lost to me.

I cried. I called DD and cried some more. I got my roots done and then I called the NRMA, who were very busy and took forever to answer. Finally, they said a tow truck would be with me in the next two hours.

Soon afterwards, I got a text message saying it would be there in 37 minutes, which seemed very exact, but welcome news.

A nice bloke in mirrored sunglasses arrived and loaded up my car and we headed to the service centre together, having an animated discussion the whole way about how shite European cars are … which was funny, because he was European. He used to be a mechanic and reckons he refused to work on Renaults because they were so farked. He was also furious that a friend had bought a Renault recently, without talking to him first.

The tow truck driver reckons a Toyota Yaris is a much better bet. My sister would agree, that’s what she drives when her son hasn’t commandeered it.

My brother in law offered to meet me at the service centre and yell at everyone, but I’ve decided that can wait. I want to see what they reckon is wrong with the car first.

I wasn’t feeling very warmly towards the service centre when they made me sit in reception for an hour to get my freaking courtesy car back. It was apparently in the car washing machine and impossible to retrieve.

FFS.

Anyways, at 3.45pm I was back in the red Renault and the orange Renault was awaiting a diagnostics test.

I will not be taking the red Renault back until a valuation of the orange Renault has been emailed to me. I will not be falling for that trick again.

Can you believe that my car – with an entirely new engine – lasted less than 24 hours?

I can, since it’s my life and that car.

As a friend noted, it’s like I’m on Candid Camera.

Except I’m not.

Song of the day: Snow Patrol “Chasing Cars”