Well.. this is the story of last night... I was too distracted by the lovely shineyquarter last night to write it..

But first a bit of background. I have a car... a 1992 Rover 216 GSI.. its nice. I like it. It used to be my grandparents. All electric, leather seats, metallic paint (night-fire red), 1.6l turbo petrol engine.

Its not the sort of car I expected to have as my first car.. not at all.

However.. I am a great believer in cars having names. I have been unable to find one for mine. She's just defied naming. Nothing seems to fit, and I have thought about throwing it open you, my LJ friends, to help me come up with one.

Anyhow.. off to work the other night. I reverse back to exit the garages.. then change gears to drive away. It stalls. Not too bad you might think.. except this is an automatic. Automatics DON'T stall. Doesn't happen. Hmm bad.. I try to get it started again.

*wirrr*

Nothing

*wiiiirrriirrrirrrr*

Sweet naff all.
Shit.

Look under the bonnet, nothing seems to be wrong. Try her her again. Still nothing. The engine is now flooded so I push her back into a safe spot and head back indoors to wait for the engine to drain a bit.

15 minutes pass

Still nothing... fuck. Ok so I call the RAC (sort of like the US auto club I guess) they say they'll be with me within the hour. Great. So I call work and tel hem I'm not coming in tonight.. or if I do it will be half and hour.. so no point really. They were cool with that.

Less than 45 mins later the RAC man turns up. In a nice orange van. Most quizzical was he. There didn't seem to be anything wrong, the cars computer didn't seem to think there was anything wrong, and yet it didn't work.

I have a better car than I thought too. When I opened the bonnet he told me I have the best engine in a rover.. a honda one! Its the same 16 valve engine that a honda civic uses. Similar, or same parts for most of the rest too. Supposedly its a big selling point... bonus!

Apparently there was only one thing that could cause this (he said after fiddling around under the bonnet for a while) the 'ignition module' was broken. He didn't think they stocked one in the van either.

This was bad.. he reckoned it would be impossible to find the module by iteslf and I'd have to replace the whole assembly. This could cost up to £600 (not including labour). Eeek!

Upon phoning his tech support he was told that the one for the rover engine would work fine and that they SHOULD have one for that. He was surprised... and checked. Much to our great relief (especially mine) they DID... AND it worked!

w00t!

So after shaking hands and paying him (£51.50 for the part... yay! :D) I relaxed... lighter of pocket, but happy at least.

I think I've found a name for her.. and she is Phoenix.