Hehe twice I wish I'd joined the AA.... no, tell a lie. Once (august 2002) I wish i'd used the services offered by my parents' membership; once (tonight) I wish I'd not swapped to the RAC.
2002, on buying the Polo, I should have forked out the £25 or whatever it is for a full inspection by a qualified bloke. He might then have spotted that the rear brake system was completely knackered and saved me ten times that fee in kwikfit repairs the very next day!
And tonight... well, I don't know whether they'd be getting any less hammered than the royals seeing as its bank holiday eve, but i wouldn't be thinking "oh, i should have swapped to the RAC".
After poking around with the throttle cable, pulling the valve open to spray Webbs (?) carb cleaner stuff and Redex into the thottle body (which hasn't done a blind bit of difference to the judder) I must have worked the holder loose. Went out to the pub, thought that the pedal felt a bit funny - not being as high as usual - and the performance was down a bit... half a mile from destination, all power suddenly went, and ended up trickling the rest of the way at about 15mph on idle. Already being late, went in and joined peeps.
Stupid, stupid!
On exiting bar, called RAC....... who said there likely wouldnt be a patrol available to help me fix it and/or get home until past 1am (ie later than it is now i'm writing), and it would be a bloke from a local garage rather than the orange van lads. Eugh. Far as it is, I could have walked home to get tools & torch and back before then.
So, called mates over to give me a hand. Got car moved so that there was a nice floodlight pointing under the bonnet, struggled the air cleaner housing off, found the culprit. Turns out it works much like a bike caliper-brake, and the thing that holds the cable in place and tensions it had come unclipped from the holder part. Fixed it in about 10 seconds after figuring which bit went where and put it back together (with some help from a magic magnetic nut-rescuing necklace).... success! Drove home just fine, though with horrible 3-cylinder effect still intact.
Sure would have been both me pissed off to wait (and beating myself up for not calling on arrival at the pub rather than exiting) and the garage pissed off to waste time sorting that simple thing out. When I called them to cancel, turns out the contractors thought that it would be a take-it-back-to-the-garage job too rather than a roadside! Probably so they could ream the RAC (and maybe myself) for a juicy payout..
Morals....
* RAC can't cope with bank holidays
* Always carry a 10mm spanner in your VWs glovebox (ever-handy for EVERYTHING on a polo.. except maybe the wheelnuts)
* Have a magnet on a stick as well!
* It CAN
sometimes be simpler than it looks
* Even a gentle touch on the throttle cable can f*** your s*** up
* Don't mess with things you dont understand!
Got no excuse to check the spark plugs now though.