Dr Kev. - Kam Servicing Network.

Hello Again!

It has been a funny old week. First of all we've got the continuing Beckham will-he-won't-he situation. Is he staying? Is he going? Does he even want to go at all? You'd think that with all the good he has done for football that he'd be treated a little better than this. Even the Queen wants to reward him - and that's saying something as I can't imagine Her Majesty singing footy chants on the terraces or even on the royal sofas.

Talking of the Queen, her birthday honours list was published recently - and she is the only person that I can think of who gives things away on her birthday. Then again, what can you give a woman who has everything? Antibiotics?

And then there has been this extremely hot weather. Sultry in fact - and not made any better by Mr Higgins' Austin Maxi which, bless it, needed the floors and sills doing for MoT. Shaun drew the short straw and was welding in temperatures approximating the surface of Mars. However, all was not lost as we had a fleet of vans in the workshop, to which we were fitting our insurance approved immobilisers

I can imagine the looks of puzzlement on your faces now - how could a fleet of vans have helped? Well, these vans belonged to a local food transport company and were refrigerated vehicles! With the permission of the owner, the lads took five minutes every so often in the back to escape the exhausting heat!

This week's tale of woe concerns a long-time friend of mine, Mr Adrian Booth (name changed to protect his stupidity - I'm allowed to say that, we've known each other for years!) and his Peugeot 406 HDI. Now, a few weeks ago, I was best man at Adrian's wedding and ever since he'd been on honeymoon. Rather than going to the sun, he'd headed to Iceland to see the incredible landscape. You can imagine what a shock this current heat wave was to him when he returned!

Anyway, before he left, he had booked the car in to have the air-con regassed but when it arrived at our Heanor depot yesterday morning, I could tell something was badly wrong. Adrian was nearly in tears.
"What ever's the matter?" I asked.

"Look Kev," Adrian held up his left hand. There was a mark around his ring finger where his ring should be - but no ring! Surely marital bliss couldn't have ended so soon? "My hands got so hot this morning as I drove here that I had to take my ring off. I put it on the dashboard, then a lorry pulled out, Kev." He paused for a sniffle. "I hit the brakes, and the ring slide down into my air vents! I can't find it!"

"Don't worry Adrian, we'll find it." That's what good mates are for, stepping into the breach when things go wrong. "Take a courtesy car, and let me get on with this. I'll call you when I've located it."

I knew that it would be one of the jobs that was going to take quite a while, so I looked around the workshop for a willing volunteer. Andy was swamped with MoTs, Elliot was fitting Stunners to the large queue of vehicles parked outside the workshop and Shaun was still repairing the Maxi. Looked like a job for yours truly then... Wonderful.

The first thing obviously was to have a good look all around the air vents, the foot wells and all the nooks and crannies around the dash, just in case the ring had miraculously reappeared. Sadly, it wasn't going to be that easy. So out came the heater motor and the vent assemblies. No ring, not even in the connecting pipework. I then had to uninstall the sound system I'd got for Adrian's wedding present to get to the back of the console so that could come out. Still nothing. All I wanted was a little glimmer in the dark to give me some clue.

By the time I'd finished, there was virtually no dashboard left. Pipes were hung over the steering wheel to keep them out of the way, miles of wiring was neatly bundled up in each foot well and I'd lost about four stone in perspiration, even though I'd been taking regular breaks in the fridges! And still no ring. I couldn't phone Adrian and tell him that I hadn't found it, I couldn't do that to a friend. I had even dropped bent nails attached to string through the remaining vents to try and hook the ring back up.

So I decided to leave it until morning, perhaps sleep-rested eyes would be able to spot it. I knew that it would be perfectly safe, as all of our vehicles are stored inside secured premises over night.

Standing wearily in the office, I was enjoying a final cuppa of the afternoon, when one of our young apprentices came in.

"Kev, I was just moving that 406 back a bit for the night and I found this." He held out his open hand - with Adrian's ring on it! "It was just sitting on the steering column, so I thought I'd bring it in to store with the rest of the found valuables."

I almost couldn't speak! The ring must have been wedged in a pipe and slipped out unnoticed when I put the pipe over the steering wheel! As you can imagine, Adrian was overjoyed when I gave him the good news, and all marital harmony is now restored apparently!

It just goes to show how something so simple can cause so many problems - and should be a lesson to you all not to put small valuables near air vents or other small entrances into a car's internals!

I'm going to try and cool off a bit. Until next week, please don't send me any more lost wedding rings!

Dr Kev Allen.