Day 7 Beyond a Joke Now

We packed everything up excitedly ready to leave as soon as Geoff picked the car up. But it wasn't long before Geoff was back. He was fuming. They had sent the wrong part and it would be now tomorrow that the car could be fixed. another day in Nyngan! Finally the next day we set off. Yay! On our way now  

But we only got an hour west of Nyngan when the warning lights came on again and we limped into Cobar and back on the phone to Subaru and the diagnosis was that although the hose had been changed the DPF system needed a 'regen'.  Hours later we tracked down a diesel mechanic that had the right scan tool. It took 3 hours  and three cycles to get the soot levels down. He instructed us to take it for a 30 minute drive the next morning before coming back for a soot reading. It was a bit higher but still within normal range.  I kept thinking I was hearing the telltale whooshy noise but Geoff was adamant it wasn't there   So off we set from Cobar with high hopes. 13 km down the road and lights back on! Back to Cobar and back onto our new friend Trent from Subaru. This time Subaru wanted us to be towed to Dubbo as there was a service centre there. We reluctantly agreed but were rather distressed when told that we would have to pay the $1500 for the tow. (Subaru later agreed to pay) Seeing by now it was late we could not get a tow until the next morning so once again we had to stay overnight in Cobar. We were picked up at 6am by the towtruck and off we went to Dubbo. Four hours replacing our steps- so depressing. They dropped off the van in the caravan park. It is so hot and we have no shade. Here we stayed for 2 days while they found a new DPF unit which apparently cost $6000. The hose hadn't been put on properly in Nyngan and hence the whooshy noise again. As there were no DPF units in Australia in the end our friend Trent drove to Gosford and they took one off a new car and then he drove to Blue Mountains and dropped it off at the NSW service managers place who drove it out to Dubbo where he supervised the repairs. Finally the next day he brought it back to us promising all repairs done and it was serviced and checked. No more problems he said.     

  We stayed overnight at Nyngan again, this time in a nice caravan park by the river. Early the next day we set off with great enthusiasm and optimism. Four hours of trouble free driving and then boom! All the lights are back on and the car loses power going up a hill. We are past knowing what to say at this point. We are out in the middle of nowhere, no shelter, high 30's temperature and no phone reception. It was a bit scary. However, we were blessed to quickly come upon a rest area with a shelter and presto- Telstra reception. Seeing it was the weekend there was no one at Subaru answering their phones so it was onto NRMA. Geoff had a lot of trouble convincing them to send a towtruck. They wanted to first send a patrolman out from Cobar to see what the problem was (4 hours) and then they would go back and get the tow truck if needed. Obviously this person was in Sydney somewhere and had no idea about the distances in the outback. At the thought of going back to Cobar again I was close to tears. Eventually Geoff got them to agree to send a towtruck from Broken Hill to tow us there. At least it would be in the right direction! It took four hours for the towtruck to arrive. It was very hot and dusty.     

 

Geoff is starting to think that the only way we are going to get out of NSW is if he pulls the van himself. So after four hours of waiting in the heat it was another four hours in the tow truck heading into the sun before we finally got into Broken Hill at 8pm.