Rat damage fixed

We drove to Townsville on Monday and put the car in for service first thing Tuesday morning. Fortunately we were planning to stay over until Wednesday anyway, because we didn't get it back until mid-afternoon on Wednesday, although we were promised the car back by 5 PM Tuesday. The service people didn't even start diagnosing the problem until mid-afternoon on Tuesday, so they had no hope of finishing the job that day once they discovered it wasn't easy. Apparently the technicians eventually had to pull out the dashboard and then the back seat before they finally tracked the problem to its cause: insulation chewed off the wires near the fuel pump. Then after fixing the wiring they had to put the car back together again! On the plus side, we were pleasantly surprised at how relatively low the repair bill was, considering how much work had been involved. Meanwhile we drove around in a cute little Mazda supplied by the dealership at no charge to us, doing some shopping and visiting Carlyle Gardens again (see separate post).

Rats revisited

We took the car to the auto electrician, who inspected it and said that he couldn't find any exposed wiring or other obvious problems, so the next thing to do was have it checked by the computerised system at—you guessed it—a Subaru dealer. Subaru doesn't make the necessary software available to other fixit places (at least not until a car model is at least 3 years old, which is when the basic warranty expires), so it's a dealer or nothing. The electrician said the car was safe to drive, but we of course could not trust any of the instrumentation. He didn't charge us anything for the inspection, either. The first chance we'll have to get the car looked at is the week of 17 November, so that's when we're going to Townsville; we wanted to go there anyway around that time. After we left the electrician's, we stopped at a service station to top up the fuel. It took very little, thus confirming that the fuel level was what we'd thought it should be. Of course, the gauge is still showing empty. Meanwhile one of our neighbours gave us some rat poison to put in the engine compartment. I hate rat poison, because some animal or bird might eat the dead rat and be poisoned in turn, so I'm reluctant to use it.

Rats!

When I returned on 9 October after a week away, I discovered that the car was showing an "out of fuel" light and the gauge was at the completely empty end of the scale. I speculated about whether it really was out of fuel or if a sensor had failed; and if it was really out of fuel, why that might be: a leak? thieves? I knew that we'd not driven enough since the last refuelling to use even half a tank. Well, after Eric got home from his travels (a week later), we put another 10 litres (2.5 gallon approx.) into the tank, but not only did the light not go out, but other warning lights came on. Scary ones, that the owner's manual said meant "contact Subaru immediately". So of course we didn't want to drive it anywhere. Today, Monday, I called the service department at the Subaru dealer from whom we'd bought the car, and he said "can't tell without putting it on to the computer; you'll have to bring it in to a dealer, but probably best to go to the closer one in Mackay" (only 150 km away instead of 300 km). So I phoned the Mackay dealership, who said much the same thing, agreeing that with no idea of the cause, they couldn't say whether driving it would be safe or not. They suggested calling the auto club, which I had considered doing in the first place. So I did. The auto club bloke arrived, checked fuses, hmmmm'd a bit, opened the bonnet, took one look, and immediately said: "There's your problem: rats!" showing us a piece of chewed insulation (teeth marks clearly visible). "If you don't drive it a lot, they come down the hill and build a nest in the car, often on top of the fuel tank, and chew the insulation on the wiring. We see a lot of that here." He said the car was safe to drive, but there was no need to take it to the dealer as the local auto electrician could deal with it. So I phoned the auto electrician, who laughed ("We see a lot of that here!") and made an appointment for us to bring it in on Wednesday. I guess we should drive the car more often!