Well we finally made it to Ceduna. It was only a short 300km from the Nullabour Roadhouse….. but at a top speed of 60km it took us all day!!!

We crawled into Ceduna at about 4pm yesterday and headed straight to the Nissan dealer to get the car checked out. The first response we got was… “we are fully booked until next Tuesday…”

After a bit if begging and pleading, they agreed to at least have a look at the car and see what was wrong. Now the great thing about modern cars is they are all run by a computer chip, so the mechanic only has to hook up a device and the computer will tell you exactly what is wrong with the car. So the mechanic hooked up the computer and……. Nothing!

Isn’t technology great!!!

We went for a test drive and I showed him what the problem was, the car couldn’t get over 2000 RPM when driving. He checked a few of the basics (Oil, air filter, air sensor, plugs and pipes etc) before discovering that the Turbo was leaking exhaust. Problem was he couldn’t tell where from, and would have to remove a lot of the engine to diagnose further. Of course after driving all day at 60km the car was a little hot last night.

So, I am returning to the dealer this morning to see what can be done. He explained that they are unlikely to have a spare turbo sitting on the shelf and it takes 3 business days to order parts, so even if it is a small job, it will be next Tuesday before they can do anything anyway!!

He agreed that it would have to be a warranty job, and we will have to speak to Nissan in the morning to see what they can do. He suggested they may agree to relocate us back to Melbourne and have it serviced by a local dealer, but we will just have to wait and see what they say.

So, it is looking like this might be the end of a great holiday.

Also today, we will farewell our traveling companions the Bates Family. We have already held them up an extra day as they very kindly stayed with us to make sure we made it off the Nullabour (which was very much appreciated).

It will be sad to see them go, and I think the kids will really miss them as it has been great traveling together and we have really all had a ball. I guess we will see them soon enough back home, and it will possibly be sooner than later!!

So, Ceduna is now where we call home until we can figure out what will happen with the car. I am pretty sure that Custom Fleet would provide a rental car to get us home, but how do I find a rental that will tow the van with the correct plugs and electric brakes etc?? I guess if worse comes to worse then we will have to use the RV Total Care to get the van home again, but we can cross that bridge when we get there.

Fingers crossed….

Wasn’t all bad news yesterday though, we booked into the caravan park near the Nissan Dealer, and Judith, Andrew and the kids joined us for a great pub meal to celebrate Fi’s Birthday. We had a great meal after so many days stuck in the outback, and managed to well and truly drown our sorrows about the car. A good end to a long slow day!!!