Dr Kev. - Kam Servicing Network.

Hello again!

What a week this has been, with the papers full of the tragedies in Bali. I don’t know; there’s a sniper outside the Senate, bombings in Bali and a war against an invisible front-line of terror. In more reflective moments, I fear for my daughter and her generation.

Closer to home (and less important on the global scale of things, though of great interest as a diversion from everything else), Derby drew last week. Better than a loss, yes, but it stemmed from some very mediocre pay. However, as the players aren’t being paid, I am just grateful that they care enough to carry on. Thank you boys!

On Monday, I think that the luckiest man in the world came into the workshop. No, he hadn’t won the lottery, discovered buried pirate treasure nor been invited to Elvis’s re-emergence gig– something far more important that all of that! Mr Dustan (name changed to protect his innocence) brought his 2.5-litre Vauxhall Omega into the workshop, complaining that the car was backfiring with no rhyme or reason (a little like Eminem’s music then?). He wasn’t wrong – in fact, the car was making the sort of noises that would have my little girl creasing up in fits of giggles… As he had an urgent business meeting, I gave him the keys to one of the courtesy vehicles and told him that we’d call as soon as we had any information.

Scott was the lucky person assigned to the job and, naturally, started with the most obvious things first. After hooking the car up to our diagnostic computers, he found that there were no problems at all. Everything looked spot-on. Under the bonnet, the story was no more revealing – all of the plugs were brand new, as were the ignition leads and even coil packs. Mr Dustan had left a note in the glovebox detailing the work that had been done by other garages to try to cure the problems. So far, some £400 had been spent, with the car off the road for the total of five days.

By this point, Scott had exhausted the obvious items, so called on me to press the throttle while he lay under the engine. No dear reader – don’t worry, the car was safely off the ground at the time!

“Kev, hold it there!” Scott had to shout over the shotgun effect of the engine. “Keep the revs right where you have them!”

Happily sitting in the driving seat, I couldn’t hear a word, so took my foot off the accelerator and stuck my head out of the window! Scott was not amused.

“Right Kev, when I shine this torch onto that bit of wall, you keep your foot exactly where you have it on the accelerator. Right?”

I nodded and watched the wall. Then, when the revs reached 2,500, I spotted the point of light and held steady. Slowly the others gathered around the car, attracted by the irregular booming from the exhaust.

“Kev, I don’t understand this at all. If you ignore the banging, you can hear a faint popping from under here.” (By this point I’d come out of the car). “I’ve checked the timing, and it was spot on.”

“I’ve got an idea” piped up Shaun. “Take the timing belt covers off – the belt might have slipped. I’ve only seen it a few times, but it can happen.”

After wrestling with stubborn bolts for a few minutes, we had the timing belt covers off and, in the tradition of the best Sherlock Holmes mystery, it all became elementary.

As we turned the engine over (gently), it became apparent that the tensioners had worn significantly, and this allowed the timing belt to rub against the engine. As a result, the last four teeth were missing! Once the revs climbed higher, this caused every piece of engine timing to fall out of sync, hence the shotgun effects!

Once we had replaced the tensioner and jockey wheels and fitted a new timing belt, the car purred. I gave Mr Dustan a call at his conference.
“That’s incredible Kev – how much did you say it was again?” Evidently he had expected a higher bill!

So, why was Mr Dustan so lucky? Well, he must have been only a few hours away from the belt snapping and a resulting bill of thousands. We got to it just in time – and I find it incredible that the other garages couldn’t find this problem. Still, Mr Dustan went away delighted, singing the praises of Kam as he drove home, several hundred miles north.

Now, next week, you’ll be in the very capable hands of Dr Raj as I am off to the Big Apple to see some friends of mine over there. I’m looking forward to taking in the sights, some shows and I’ll be stopping by Ground Zero to pay my respects. Maybe I’ll even come back with some new ideas for our workshops to mull over!

Until the next time,

Dr Kev Allen.