Firstly I'd like to say a belated "thanks a bunch" to the Bulldog Twyford Subaru Garage.

You see, when I booked my old Subaru Legacy in for some work back in January, I didn't expect the response to "I have an annoyingly loud tapping sound from the engine" to be "Well, it has done over 120,000 miles!"
I am
not a qualified mechanic but even
I knew it was a
sticking hydraulic lifter. The Subaru garage's recommended remedy to this was an
oil change and even after the oil change the knocking sound still persisted. I figured that because a Subaru garage couldn't fix this then nobody could.
***
And here I am, six months later... I only wanted a
CV gaiter replaced on my 1994 Subaru Legacy so I went to my friend's nearby garage and asked if he could this job and, oh by the way, could he change the oil again please?
I actually suggested to him to run the car for 5-10 minutes until the engine was warm enough for the noise of the hydraulic lifter to die down a bit, thus allowing the engine flush to be able to penetrate the lifters. Then to give it an engine flush, which, for those of you who may not be familiar, is to run the engine with half a litre of hardcore industrial cleaner in it for a further 10 minutes. (This gets rid of all the crap in the oil system, including the gummed up oily deposits which I reckon was the cause of the malfunctioning hydraulic lifters.) Finally to drain the oil, fit a new oil filter and add new engine oil, as you do in a regular oil change.
My friend agreed that this all sounded like a
perfect plan, so he did the job to the letter and now my engine
doesn't rattle as it did for the last half a year; so to the Subaru garage I say...
"Thanks a bunch"

And today, with my car requiring further work, I was given a
courtesy car by my friend's garage because they couldn't finish the job by the time I called to collect my motor.
When seeing the courtesy car one of my neighbours said "It's hardly a courtesy, is it?" which was echoed later on by another neighbour. And by that they meant that they too were disappointed at the...
Proton 1.3GE Triple Valve.
Yeah, yeah, it's only done 48,000 miles since 1993, and yeah, yeah, it's had just one lady owner, and yeah, yeah, it was free and better than walking...
Actually,
no it wasn't, I take that back. So to my mate and his garage...
"Thanks a bunch"
Bloody horrible little car... I'm too embarrassed to drive it... give me back my Subaru.
Labels: cars, rant