Well I'm allowed...

do press ups

 

Brilliant! Let's hope you don't get hit by a very large lorry that has a Polish driver who has fallen asleep at the wheel...

 

I'm presuming that you only stopped when the battery ran flat, as opposed to stopping when the alternator broke?

If it was the latter, then you probably could have ran the car for a while longer just on the battery - to get it to a safer and more comfortable place. All batteries have a reserve capacity, so providing you keep all non-essential use of the battery to a minimum, it should be able to take you for a number of miles. If you have a diesel car (so there's no spark plugs) then it would last even longer.

Either way, it's a tricky one when the AA man gets there. He can't exactly give the battery a quick charge to get the car started, because it would fizzle out within seconds. If it's the belt, he could replace that if he has one in his van. Other than that, the only options is to let him get a battery out of his van and fit that (he'll then charge you for that part) or to tow you to the nearest garage. Depending on your level of AA cover, you might be able to get taken home.

 

Rep

 

Hope you get home soon if id known i would have driven down with a flask of Tea

 

Can get YouTube the wonders of an iPhone but they would have to be hyperlinks.
Positive side, I have a foldup BBQ, few sirloins, Cumberland swirls and more meat the parents bought me from the local farm shop.
If he takes longer than that I'll fire that up and eat like a king!
Silver lining and all that!
Found my toon jacket and some gloves so it's not so bad like.

*edit* he arrived as I was writing the above. I'll post another post on my laptop in a sec.

 

Which Farm Shop

 

Wey there was a loud bang and then my car lost speed so went as far as I could as it ran to a standstill, wanted to make a layby or sliproad but was just a few hundred yards short.
That was definitely an experience - had to fork out £110 to the relay upgrade for a year and get towed back to Co. Durham, been sat in my freezing cold car in silence as the battery was close to going flat by the end and trying to keep parallel with the AA van!
To make it worse the a19 had shut for night works around the flyover so had to go through Boro & Stockton - was getting dodgy looks as people went past as the back of my car has a championship winners sticker just beneath the brake light & at 40mph being 35 miles away took about an hour and a half to get home.
The alternator pulley collapsed, causing a knock on effect - engine is now jammed with cambelt failure.
Apparently worse case scenario my sister's fiance said is if the engine is well and truly ****ed like the AA man reckons (can't remember exactly as I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable with cars as I want to be but something about the piston rods slamming against the valves), he'll price up a new enginer or at least one from the scrappy (finger's crossed there's a 1.5dci clio lying around in one of the North East scrapyards!).
Either way it's probably going to cost around £250-300 to fix since I'm fortunate I know a mechanic - proper dealer prices would be around £600-800 for the repair.
But all this means a trip to the garage in Ryhope in Sunderland tomorrow now with my car before getting a train to Leeds since I have shedloads of uni work to do this week.

 

Homer Hill, it's in Pittington.
GRB, you don't by chance know any takeaway shops open around here at this time?
I'm bloody starving and can't be arsed to cook at this time!

 

Bloody hell Ryhope why there. How you getting to train station,

Oh yeah Haswell had a delivery to them houses on Sat.

Where you?

 

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Ouch! The cambelt (timing belt) snapping is one of the worst things which can happen to your car. It controls the timing of the valves, so they open when the piston is down, and close when the piston comes up. In the tight space of the piston chamber, this also ensures that the valves only open when there's enough room (when the piston is down).

When the cambelt snaps, the timing goes all out of sync, so the valves fly open when they aren't supposed to, and then the piston rises up and slams into the valves. This instantly bends or snaps them.

Basically, it ****s your engine. The only options are to replace the valves (a stupidly large amount of work unless the engine is worth saving) or to replace the entire engine, or to just scrap the car.

 

Ryhope - that's where the garage my sister's fiance works at. They're on a sidestreet behind the prince of wales pub and most the taxis in the north east go there as they're really cheap!
Think my mam is giving me a lift, she offered to bring me down to Leeds herself, but my flat is a bit messy and she's a clean freak so she'll start cleaning it up plus that means 3 hours out of her day at least and I can't really do that to her!

I'm in South Hetton, went on just eat and there's two takeaways claiming to deliver to here from Durham city centre but to be honest doubt they would at this time, so not looking too promising!
Might have to bite the bullet and see what my family has in the fridge/freezer.

 

Erm Pizza Dial in Houghton we have loads here anyway.

Put your probably better trying Dalton Pizza just ring around and try them

 

Aye that's exactly what the AA guy said, probably going to have to replace the entire engine then - Kev seems confident he can get it fixed for around £300 like so I'll have to wait and see.
Guess it depends on the cost as I was planning on upgrading when I get a job, but if it less than a grand it's worth it as it's a really cheap runner with about 50m/gallon, £30 road tax, canny nippy & is the top of the range for it's model with automatic lights, automatic wipers, ac and what have you so still worth a couple of grand itself.

 

Good luck with getting this sorted out Si.

 

Aye cheers mate, thanks for all on here, kept me amused as I waited to get picked up I've repped and attempted repped you all

 

You gotten food now

 

I know that garage in Ryhope, canny pub nearby called The Albion. Just don't mention Man City...

 

Aye gave up on the takeaway idea like, just had a few slices of sandwich chicken, some houmous and a babybel.
Cheers for the help though!