£1000 Challenge Mitsubishi Galant
Our Mitsubishi has its first breakdown as it covers its 5000th mile in our hands, but it really couldn’t have picked a better place in which to do it
When driving an old car, never turn to your colleague and say: ‘I’m not sure what to write about next week, nothing has happened to the car recently.’ That’s what I’ve learned after all of this.
It seems that our Mitsubishi is equipped with voice commands, because as we headed over to the British Motor Museum for the feature you’ll find on page 10, it clearly heard my words and duly gave me with plenty to write about.
Just ten minutes from our destination – having travelled 60 or so miles from the office – we pulled up at some roadworks and I noticed the engine was stuttering and the traction control warning light was on. The faintness of the warning light and the fact that it was coming on for no good reason confirmed to me that the alternator problems that I thought I’d solved two weeks ago had returned.
Tightening the belt and thorough voltage testing with a multimeter had pretty much convinced me that I had solved the issue, but apparently not. Previously I’d always been able to restore charge by revving the engine, which I guessed was enough to prevent the belt from slipping. Now, though, it didn’t matter how much I varied the revs – the alternator refused to kick into life.
The Galant’s engine was sounding rougher and rougher and then eventually cut out. We pushed the car into a convenient service station forecourt on the opposite side of the road during a gap in the traffic to get it out of the way and I set about investigating.
The belt still had good tension and I was sure that it wasn’t slipping, so there was clearly a bigger problem afoot. In a huge stroke of fortune, however, I noticed that BMW MINI specialist, Fosse Garage, was just next door and the couple of Triumph TRs that I could see parked on their premises suggested that they weren’t classic-averse.
Dreading having to go through the rigmarole of getting the Mitsubishi recovered, I went over and begged them to have a quick look at the car. To their credit, they agreed and even loaned me a powerpack so that I could get it started. After a quick minute of prodding around, one of the mechanics managed to pick up a signal from the alternator, albeit briefly, leading him to suspect that, rather the entire unit being dead, it could just be dodgy wiring.
Needing to head off over to the museum to get on with our photoshoot, I gave Fosse Garage the go-ahead to fix the wiring in the hope that this would solve the issue. Meanwhile, Features Ed Chris was speaking to Alex Riley, whose years in TV clearly haven’t turned him into a diva because he offered to come and pick us up and drive us the last few miles to the museum.
A couple of hours later, halfway through the shoot, Fosse Garage called to say that they had replaced a few of the alternator’s connectors and that it now appeared to be working fine. We still had to get back to the car, of course, so we were doubly indebted to Alex, who, having driven classics on a daily basis in the past, was full of sympathy for our predicament and dropped us off at Fosse Garage when the day’s work was done.
I would be lying if I said that the journey back to the office was anything but nerve-wracking for me, because I knew that if we broke down again, and the alternator really was on its way out after all, there would not be a conveniently-placed garage this time; it would be a recovery truck and a very late night.
Thankfully, the Galant performed perfectly on the way home, with no signs of even the slightest drop in voltage, even when I was forced to use both the headlights and the windscreen wipers.
It’s disappointing that the Galant’s breakdown-free record has come to an end because our old £1k Challenge Rover 216 managed it for 12 months; it did once spit out half of its coolant on the side of the road, but made it back to the office quite literally under its own steam. I just hope that this is the first and hopefully last time – I doubt that we’ll be quite so fortunate with where the car chooses to break down next time…