Enforced Stay in Darwin, Fri 6th July to Sun 22nd July
We planned to stay in Darwin for about a week. However, a rumbling noise from the front of the Mercedes had been getting louder for about 2000km. Time to do something about it.
We arrived at Judy's cousin Ken's place on Friday. Ken is a competent mechanic. On Saturday he noticed that one of the rear tyres was down to the wire on its inner edge. That's the answer!
On with the spare. Out for a test drive ... no change. Big disappointment.
Monday, phoned tyre suppliers, frightening price, none in stock. Beaurepaires managed to find two Yokohamas in Darwin, claiming they were the only two tyres of our size in the whole of Darwin. They were fitted Monday afternoon.
Geoff, the Beaurepaires manager, went for a test drive and confirmed the problem was either wheel bearing or constant velocity (CV) joint in the right front. He tried several contacts in the Darwin area, but either they were too busy to diagnose and fix the problem or we couldn't get hold of them.
In the end we rang his mate in Tortilla Flats 70km south of Darwin who said he could do it. We didn't want to leave Darwin immediately, and when we rang him on Thursday to see if he could do it the following week we found he was going away for the whole of that week (last week of school holidays) with his son.
Damn! What do we do now. I again tried a number that had failed to answer on Monday. It turned out to be Repco Services, and, yes, they'd be able to have a look next day, Friday. The good news: they diagnosed wheel bearing (CV joint would be much more expensive), the bad news: Mercedes could take a week to ten days to get a replacement to Darwin. You cannot be serious. (Cost of diagnosis: $55)
On Saturday I rang our Melbourne service centre, they gave me the number of Welch Auto Parts in Collingwood. I rang them on Monday morning. Yes, they have some is stock, and they'd send one off right away. It arrived at Ken's Tuesday lunch time (cost: $128 including freight), and was fitted by Repco on Wednesday (cost: $240). No more rumbling noise ... phew!
I spent some of the extra time carrying out caravan improvement projects. The most important was installing a 90mm computer fan to assist the airflow over the fridge cooling elements. Without it the fridge really struggles in hot weather.