Broke down on the way to my holiday in Cornwall

Absolutely gutted. I'm having a terrible month, mother dying, work issues and much more, so was very much looking forward to my holiday in Cornwall for ages, for me to relax and enjoy the 996 and for my daughter who had just finished her GCSEs just a week Saturday to Saturday. Planned everything, got a major service done at William Francis last week to make sure the car is tip top (£900 odd), cat in cattery (nightmare). Left this morning at 5 o'clock to ensure a relaxing drive from suffolk to St Ives, all was going well until we hit the A303, got past Stonehenge (207 miles into the journey) at about 9, suddenly the car loses all power ABS light on but no others, I coast to a stop and managed with my 16 year old daughter to push the car into an off ramp for Yoevil A37 (middle of nowhere). Tried starting but not so much as a click and the spoiler had not retracted. Called GEM the breakdown service I pay for (premium car to garage, occupants to destination). Initially superb, a mechanic turns up from a company called Rivermead, he was truly excellent, the OBD didn't read (in any mode) so he went through all he could, eventually he went to the fuse box and found fuse 1 box 3 was blown, tried replacing that and the car started perfectly on all 6, then we noticed smoke coming out from the right hand side of the engine and the fuse blew again so obviously there was a deeper issue than fuses, after that replacing the fuse did nothing because just turning the key to the start position blew the fuse with no attemt for the motor to start. He narrowed it down to the ignition circuit and tried coils which he could reach by removing the coil protection plates but after that didn't work he was scuppered without better access. So .. it goes back to GEM for recovery to a garage, now approaching 12 pm I make calls to garages and eventually find William Crawford which appear to be the only option in cornwall, they were absolutely lovely but only sales folk were in company so all they could say was, bring the car in before we close at 4 and we'll see what we can do but we are very busy (perfectly reasonable ofc) the lady who dealt with me even offered personally to drive is to the train station after, nice!) I wait another 40 mins and GEM eventaully get back to me saying that there is absolutely no garage able or willing to pick the car up and take it/us to William Crawford and by now it's gone 12:30 so we wouldn't get to william Crawford before 4 anyway. GEM contacted me about this time to state that the ONLY option available was a company who would pick the car up (albeit quickly within an hour) BUT they would only agree to deliver the car to William Crawford on SOME day between Monday and Friday. A ridiculous situation with my needing to leave Cornwall on the Saturday but my only option so I agreed. The company that turned up within the hour was AGAIN Rivermead and they were AGAIN truly excellent, the guy loaded the car with extreme care (even though the tow ring had been lost), the driver took as to a train station and gave us some great advice, Rivermead were a ray of sunshine on a terrible day. Anyway, car gone, touring holiday gone my daughter and I spent the next 5 odd hours on the train getting to our holiday home in St Ives. How the hell I get the car to William Crawford, get the car fixed and have a holiday then get the car back to Suffolk is yet to be decided. .

So sorry to read about your nightmare. Hope things go as smoothly as they can getting the car problem diagnosed and sorted. Hope you and your daughter get some relaxation on holiday.

Sorry to hear this. Fuse C1 is the engine electronics and the smoke sounds like some wiring is getting hot and melting. I've just had a browse round and seen 2 issues causing this. One was a bad cam adjuster wiring harness: https://www.renntech.org/topic/54750-bad-cam-adjuster-wiring-harness-causes-the-c1-fuse-to-blow/ and the other a broken coil packs (cracked and melted): http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?p=1492504 Good luck getting it sorted. Is a hire car an option for the week or are you happy just soaking up the Sun in Carbis Bay? On a lighter note, did the breakdown recovery guy have seven wives?

Just another note, probably not much use now, but the car can be driven perfectly fine with the cam adjusters disconnected. If it was that causing the smoke, disconnecting it may possibly prevent the fuse blowing and allow you to continue on your journey without doing any harm to the car.

Interesting, the car had a major a couple of days ago and they had changed the ancilliary belt, all sparkplugs and did some work around the coilpacks, seals or somesuch, they also replaced a part (£165) to attempt to cure bad slow running but I can't remember the name (3 letters like pfm or something), I don't believe in coincidences.

Sorry to hear this sounds like an awfully stressful situation. Very much hope it does turn out to be a dodgy coil pack. These cars do have a tendency to be very dramatic about a problem that in most of cases turns out to be something relatively minor to fix.

No, me neither. Was gonna say it's likely been created by something the garage did, but thought better of it.

Me too but the coil pack issue seems to have blown C2 not C1 fuse. And thanks for the thought.

Got me here Alex, no idea what you mean, probably me being a bit thick. (I blame the stress )

Old nursery rhyme Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_was_going_to_St_Ives As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Each wife had seven sacks, Each sack had seven cats, Each cat had seven kits: Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St. Ives?

Ahhh thanks

:grin:

Update: Finally Rivermead agreed to deliver the car to Williams Crawford today (Monday), I breathed a sigh of relief, end of major issue I thought. Too ealry though, called William Crawford to organise and they think they can't look at it for two weeks! this would mean a non holiday and my car being 400 miles away when I return home next Saturday (by bl@@dy train!). Tried SCS in Honiton, same story. I have to call William Crawford tomorrow morning but it's not looking like there's anyone who can/is willing to help.

Can't you get the car rescued to your home. At least once it is there you can decide what to do on your own terms. Incidentally the rear coil spring snapped on our golf on the last day of our cornwall holiday at the begining of June. We were in Helford and that is 333 miles from home. No local garage would even look at it as all too busy. Very frustrating, I feel your pain. Anyway enjoy your holiday at worse you will have to get the train/coach/bus to pick up your car.

sorry to hear of your misfortune. These alternatives might be worth looking into. I've not used any of them, but have heard good things. assuming the recovery agent was https://rivermead-garage.co.uk/ then Bahnsport or one of these might be fairly close to them. I appreciate it's a trek from Cornwall to get there, but it might be en route home, or a shorter trip back to collect in the near future. https://bahnsport.co.uk/ https://canfordclassics.co.uk/ https://www.brookspeed.com/ hth