If you`re reading this because you secretly enjoy hearing about other people`s misfortune, especially those on holiday, then the final bill was CHF1,417.10. It works out to be something like £630. If you`re also interested in what it was that was wrong in a car-person sense, pray read on.
I do have a photograph of the bill but GetJealous appears to scale photographs to just about the point that you can barely see them, so I`ve no doubt it would be unreadable. It says:
Material
Kühler [radiator] CHF550
Lüfterkupplung CHF310
Thermostat CHF85
Kühlmittel [coolant] CHF36
Arbeit [labour, I think]
There`s a breakdown here, but basically the total is CHF336
Then there`s some tax and stuff to top it up. The chap tried to explain to me that something else had broken which he thought caused the radiator damage - no doubt this is the Lüfterkupplung. I know nothing about that word other than that I`m intending using it as the name of my band. Any ideas?
It impressed me that the labour cost barely £150, especially that he actually came to visit us on the caravan site and then came out on his bicycle to rescue us when we broke down in the road. I`m also jolly pleased that the breaking-down-in-the-road incident wasn`t the car overheating and breaking something major. Oh - and I`m now even more sure that the car didn`t overheat when the hose first popped off, because I looked it up in the manual and it`s one of the car`s Priority One Dings. So, non-moving temperature gauge aside, it would have told me we were overheating if we were.