MOT Time.

The run up to MOT time reminded of me of my more youthful years, running old cars, just scraping enough money together to keep the thing in petrol. I had an impending dread about how much it will cost to get it through–and surely it won’t need brake pipes again (The classic MOT swindle). That and the mere fact it's a TVR!

I booked it into the garage nearest to my work and started off to battle the rush hour traffic, which at the best of times is not much fun with the heavy clutch. Today, however it seemed even tougher than normal; I found myself in a queue of traffic where it was almost impossible to actually get it in gear. This was going pear-shaped in a big way, so I limped it to the inside lane by forcing the gear lever as far forward towards first as I could manage. This allowed the car to crawl at about 2mph. I really, really, didn’t want to break down on that road, in the outside lane.

After calling the AA and wandering off to get a morning paper it dawned on me how cringe-worthy breaking down in a relatively rare sports car really is. I ignored all the commuters looking pointing and sniggering. The flat bed arrived very quickly and the car was dispatched to a local garage that does lots of motorsport preparation–it was either that or Kwik Fit.

I knew it was a clutch issue but the fact that it went over a period of about 5 minutes was confusing. It turned out to be a leaking slave cylinder and is not uncommon in a TVR, I feared the clutch itself would be on the way out as well but it looked as good as new, which was nice and saved the thick end of a grand’s worth of twin plate AP.

I decided to go for an uprated Clever Trevor [is this some sort of TVR owners’ secret handshake? – ed] alloy part but this took longer to get hold of than anticipated which resulted in the car being off the road for about a month. Whilst the car was off the road, I got it MOT'd and got the Engine mount fitted: to my pleasant surprise the car sailed through and even the emissions were perfect–the garage couldn't believe how good they were and is a testament to the guys at Dreadnought who did all the set up and throttle body balancing!

The night I actually got it back was about as grim as you could imagine: one degree Celsius, pitch black and pouring with rain. I commented previously about how good the headlights were, well I thought they were but after that night I would now describe them as utterly crap–a recurring theme as the wipers were proving to be useless too. All this and a greasy, unfamiliar road meant I really had to concentrate on the job of getting home safely, even to the point of turning the radio off.

Since I’ve had the car back, and what with it being dark and poor weather, the car has had almost no use at all. Since the MOT I don’t think it’s even done 200 miles.

In those 200 miles of course it's been misbehaving, failing to hot start on the day of my girlfriend’s sister’s wedding and requiring a bump start was not exactly ideal. Neither is the subsequent EFI fault due to unburt fuel in the cats; hopefully they are not damaged. The speedo has also stopped working and the electric window seems to have forgotten where it is in relation to the door.

None of which is losing me any sleep; I am going to try fix them all myself.

Last weekend, when it was actually mild and the roads were dry, I decided to take it out for a thrash. Well, without any hint of irony, it wouldn't start. Three hours later, it started fine but by that time it was dark and I had gone off the idea.

Since my last journal, the highly publicised collapse of TVR has made disconcerting reading. As I write this, the future is unclear, although TVR Power have tried to source as many parts as possible. The future source of TVR's own in-house manufactured parts is also uncertain.

The car is booked-in for a full valet and treatment and the car will be up for sale shortly afterwards. The lack of use is one of the main reasons, never mind the use since the MOT. I actually worked out I had done 523 miles since the service last August. That was a surprise and confirms I can’t justify 2 cars at the moment.

Seeing as this is likely be the last supper so to speak, my abiding memories of the car will be that it looks and goes better than most things twice the price. If you can live with the inevitable niggles of a big-hearted British sports car with supercar performance then it will not disappoint. B+