This week my car has its fifth birthday. Recently it has been taking up a lot of my time and too much of my money. Last month it had to be taxed and this month it has be insured and to have an intermediate service and MOT before the five year warranty runs out.
The MOT and intermediate service were last week. It is very difficult taking the car into the garage and leaving it there all on its own. The fact that it was its third MOT didn't make things any easier. When my car is in the garage I feel as if I am missing something. It's like a child's first day at school. Earlier in the week, in preparation the service and MOT I gave the car, a Mini Cooper, a good clean inside and out. I spent hours vacuuming and rubbing away at it and I could have spent even longer because it still was not as clean as I would have liked. Living up a muddy lane is no real fun for a silver mini - it nearly always looks dirty. I was not going to let my baby down and take it into the swish BMW dealer, with its artificial plants and shiny chrome decoration, looking all dirty. It has scrubbed up really well and looks like a different car. If looks alone would get a car through its MOT mine would have sailed through. It passed the MOT but BMW managed to find a leak which needed sorting plus some other minor problems. I am afraid that I am not very technically minded when it comes to looking under the bonnet of a car so I can not tell you what the problem was.
As far as the insurance is concerned I have still to sort it out. Mini insurance, who it has been insured with, sent their renewal quote about a month ago and have phoned twice to try to get me to pay there and then, which has annoyed me. Consequently I have been online scouring the insurance companies to see if I could get a lower quotation, which I have, but I can not, now, log into the website of my new chosen insurer. So tomorrow morning I shall try again. I have saved over one hundred pounds but it has taken me I don't know how many hours to do so.