Eurotunnel Booked!

It’s been a busy day for the team, not content with getting taxed we’ve also booked our Eurotunnel tickets! (saving £60 due to Tesco ClubCard)

So come hell or high water the eSpace will be departing these fair shores at 16:50** on Thursday 27th August 2009 and (hopefully!) returning from Calais at 20:20** on Monday 31st August 2009.

** Eurotunnel terms allow you to travel on any crossing (which has space) within 2hrs either side of the booked crossing FREE of charge.

I’m just off to the post office to send the voucher and form by special delivery…

I Love it when a plan comes together…

It’s been a rollercoaster ride of emotions but we now find ourselves on the eve of what some (read: Hannah & Robbie) said would never happen – the eSpace is about to take to the road, fully taxed, insured and certified by HM government!

She made us all proud on the 3rd April when she passed her MOT so the next step was to arrange insurance. Ross spent approximately 25 man days phoning various insurance companies before settling on the cheapest – Elephant, and so cover was arranged to commence at midnight on May 1st 2009. The insurance certificate arrived, and combined with the MOT certificate we thought taxing her would be a piece of cake, but as we’ve come to realise, life is never that simple. Let me explain….

The previous owner was registered disabled so the eSpace had been reclassified as being exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty (or car Tax to you and me) and it turns out that you have to go to a DVLA regional office (in our case Oxford) in person to change the classification.

Things were complicated further by the small matter of a re-spray (Her V5 has her down as being red!), her being declared SORN and having to change the ownership from me to Ross as Mr Sensible Family Man has 100+yrs no claims bonus with Elephant, and no penalty points (compared to my six!). However needing to go to the DVLA office was a bit of a blessing because as it turns out all of the above could be done in one go.

I must admit that we did toy with the idea of ‘forgetting’ to tell the insurance company that the car was now in fact black as we assumed the premium would rocket as we’d modified the car, but a quick call to elephant revealed that it could be changed at no cost!

So anyway, armed with all the relevant documentation (V5, MOT, Insurance) Ross set off to work with the aim to get into the DVLA over lunch… or so he thought. In another cruel twist of fate it turned out that Ross had in fact got his other car’s Insurance Certificate! This seriously jeopardised our planned maiden voyage after work tomorrow (May 1st) as that would only leave Ross one chance of a visit to the DVLA and knowing how pedantic the DVLA can be with forms we were sure something would go wrong.

However Ross was not going to let this beat him, after all we did legally have a right to tax the car, it was just that one crucial piece of evidence was 20 miles away at home… It was time to get ‘creative’ and in true A-TEAM style a ‘new’ insurance certificate was born! Now technology has come along way since the A-Team first graced our screens so the task was made somewhat easier by a high resolution scanner and some fancy OCR Software Ross ‘found’ lying around (OCR meaning Optical Character Recognition). Ross scanned in his Octavia’s insurance certificate and then changed the policy number, car details, dates and named driver details to match the new policy (which for any members of the police reading this i can assure you did exist!). The result is shown above** (click it to see bigger version)– Good work Ross!

We’d been warned of long queues and the advice appears to have been valid, but none the less Ross waited in line with baited breath, losing count of the number of people turned away empty handed because they were missing some documentation, or had filled it in wrong. Eventually it was his turn, and with a quick glance at the ‘fake’ insurance certificate and MOT a tax disc was issued for the princely sum of £101.75 for 6 months. Job done!

MOT Update:

Since we’ve had all the documentation out we’ve scanned it all in case some of you (again read: Hannah & Robbie) dare doubt our integrity, so below you’ll find our MOT certificate** (Left) and our seven advisories** (right). Click them to see an enlarged version.

For those of you too lazy to look at the images our advisories are as follows:

• 001: Nearside front tie bar/rod has slight play in pin/bush [2.4.G.3]
• 002: Offside front tie bar/rod has slight play in pin/bush [2.4.G.3]
• 003: Nearside front seat belt slight fluffing or fraying [5.1.B.2b]
• 004: Windscreen has damage to an area less than 40mm circle outside zone ‘A’ [8.3.1d]
• 005: Offside front lower suspension arm corroded but not seriously weakened [2.4.G.1]
• 006: Service Brake only just met required brake efficiency [3.7.A.8]
• 007: Rear number plate deteriorating

In response to these:

• Tim & Ross have tightened the service (hand) brake
• We can’t see any damage on the windscreen!
• We’re planning on getting a new rear number plate as its ruining her otherwise unblemished appearance!

** Sensitive information has been omitted to protect the innocent

Lights, camera, nostalgia...

Wednesday. I'm in a good mood (I'm = Tim). I got a new domestic toy/ gadget today: a steam cleaner (one of these).

So i set about steam cleaning the 15 years of dirt build up in all the little crevices and in the carpets. It took a little while, but it looks pretty good. I then had a go at the engine, but i suspect i might have been there for about 2 days trying to get it clean, so i'm going to wait for the Gunk to arrive and use that instead.
Anyway, this is getting boring. With the bonnet open, i realised that i hadn't wired the Audi style strip lights in properly yet, so i did that. And then fitted what is turning out to be my favourite add on so far...

You've come a long way baby

Whilst looking for a cheap supplier of new number plates it dawned on me that we want to replace the rear plate on the Espace because the current one is tatty and lets the rest of the car down.

:-)

7 Seater

Thanks to some bartering with several people on eBay breaking Espaces, we now have an extra 2 seats for the princely sum of £20.  Should make the test runs a bit more interesting :-)

Kitty swells to £10!

The re-spray is already paying dividends, within hours of the photo’s being posted to the blog we received our first online donation of a full ten English pounds via PayPal!

Let’s hope the money starts rolling in…

(hint hint readers!)

Re-spray for £10 anyone?

Now we’ve passed the long awaited MOT test we’ve decided to turn our attention to the aesthetics of the eSpace, ‘pimp my ride’ style!

For those of you’ve who’ve seen the chariot in person you may have noticed the somewhat ‘depressed’ state of paint work, so we thought this would be a good place to start…

Armed with a tin of £9.99 B&Q black 15yr masonry paint we set about transforming her into the star of a certain 1980’s TV show… see if you can guess which… (we’ve still got to make a spoiler and add a red stripe)

[Click the thumbnails to admire the paintwork close up!]

 

 

 

 

 

Before and after shots:

  

Thank you Tesco

Thanks to Tesco’s Clubcard i’ve just turned 5 bits of worthless paper into £60 worth of Eurotunnel ticket vouchers. So that’s paid for the outbound journey (and £1 of the return)!

I should be able to convert another £30 in may but we might not to take the risk of waiting till then as bank holiday weekend crossings are bound to start selling out.

The Multiple Oracular Transmission

Dear All,

Ahoy-hoy.

I would like to share with you some news. Last Friday, the workmanship of Private Wackett, Private Bradley, and myself, was put to full examination in the guise of the Multiple Oracular Transmission. Fortunately, the test subject, Espace, was up to scratch and we have been granted the ability to use it as transport for 1 year, once the beaurocrats have been appeased with some guineas for tax.
The Multiple Oracular Tramission (or MOT, to Jens Lehman) Certificate now resides in a safe place, ready to show those impertinent French and a.n. other Jonny Foreigner who so wishes to see our papers.

We look to set sail in the ship soon on a journey, where we hope to bring back such legendary artifacts such as the Potato i hear that Drake has been banging on about, and something called Tobacci which Chris Columbus has been insestently puffing on since his return.

I hope this correspondance makes it's way to the correct personnel. I'm off to see those wenches about this damn stain in my tunic that won't come out, and i may stop at the local tavern for some of that genuinely disgusting ale that One Tooth McGready has been concuncting.

Yours always,

Lance Corporal Jellyman