As some of you may know that not long after Lady Dorothy went in for her MOT last year, something happened to her that stopped the gearbox from shifting up a gear...
This meant that the speed had to be kept to about 35 mph max, so no long journeys until fixed. This totally sucked, as this stopped us from attending Silverstone Classic and The Retro Run...
We were to be the first ever automotive media to undertake The Retro Run and document it. Luckily, the team at Silverstone have been amazingly understanding, and have postponed our entry - the only thing we had to do now was get the car fixed!
Now, many of you will feel our pain when we tell you how difficult a proposition this turned out to be. So many places we spoke to just gave us a flat out no when we mentioned the make and model. Some gave us a yes, but not without a teeth sucking, vague response of "It'll be at least a grand!"
We thought we were onto something when a detailer we knew advised that the mechanic he worked with would do it, and off she went...only to end up coming back to us two weeks later when the mechanic lost his unit due to the landlord selling up.
Add to that our support of stressful family events - time consuming, difficult and very tiring for all of us - and it was the end of 2021 before we knew it, and Lady Dorothy was still not fixed. Luckily for me, Ben had tirelessly been scouring forums, Facebook posts, reddit - you name it - for a place close to us that could do the work, and voila! West Coast Transmissions came to our rescue!
We spoke with Colin, and he asked us to bring her in last Tuesday. As we had the HR-V on review, we decided to make a road trip of taking her to Blackpool. Now this isn't that far away from us, but it certainly takes a long time when you cannot go fast!
So it was to my complete surprise to get a phone call from Colin at the beginning of this week to tell me that she was all fixed and ready to come home. The problem? The oil pump at the base of the gearbox had seized and stopped the governor from working properly.
Ben and I are absolutely delighted!! She is fixed, roadworthy and back on the road again...What a way to start a day.
A huge thank you to Colin and West Coast Transmissions in Blackpool. If you ever need any automatic gearbox work done on a classic Mercedes Benz, this is the place to go.
Thank you all, and enjoy!
Annabelle 馃槉