ratbag
Member
- Messages
- 135
Don’t laugh please....
Put the GT on Dutch Motorail last week (it was a bit of a tight fit) down to Italy as I couldn’t be bothered to drone down the autoroutes all day again….
As I boarded the car onto the train, the loader told me not to put the alarm on- me thinking I knew better turned off the “anti lift” and “movement sensor” bits of the alarm and left the alarm set.
Nice trip down, dinner and a nice bottle of wine in the restaurant car going down the Rhine valley, good nights sleep in a private cabin ,arrived to a beautiful day in Italy, got on the train wagon to disembark, the car was completely dead………. Clearly the alarm had been awakening Swiss, German, and Italian peasants all the way down for 800 miles…..
The GT was so dead I struggled even to open the door to get in. At this point there were 25 frustrated drivers behind me in their Porsches, Morgans, TR6’s and assorted classics on the rail wagon who were going nowhere with a fat dead silver GT going nowhere fast and blocking their exit from the train….….
Tried to put it into neutral so we could push it off…nope, not without power.
Have to open the boot and jump start it. Nope. Can’t open the boot without power.Grovel around on the floor for the emergency boot release and eventually get it open. Ok now I can borrow some jump leads off the Porsche two cars down and jump it off the car behind me…nope car behind is an MR2 and also has a battery in the boot and the jump leads won’t reach…
By now an assortment of people had gathered on the platform (including my wife who pretended not to know me) to watch the “stupid rich Englishman” and procede to take photos, laugh, and shout “helpful” advice…..
By now I had really no idea how I was going to get my car and 25 others off the train and I was in panic mode….eventually a jumper box was found by a angry Italian train man who was clearly shouting at me in Italain how stupid I was setting the alarm (OK OK I get it )
The car fired up, and the waiting drivers cheered and clapped and fired up their engines. Lots of warning lights were on, including “Steering failure” and “GO TO DEALER”.
Put it into gear- electric handbrake will not come off, tried everything to no avail- by now the drivers behind wondered why the Maserati had finally started but was not moving…in desperation I pitted 405 bhp against the handbrake and JUST managed to crawl off the train with the handbrake fully on….RELIEF and hide around corner.
Handbrake suddenly comes off, car will soon charge up, off we go, stop for petrol, fuel flap won’t open, panic mode again, electrics are still messed up, if I turn it off to reset everything will it restart?
It did and everything back to normal…great tour of the lake Maggiore, Lugano and Como,….coming back the German Motorail train broke down in the middle of Germany (terminally) at 6am, we were offloaded on a siding in the middle of nowhere, and told to make our own way 400 miles to Calais…..
Was it all worth it? Well the touring bit was great in the middle……
Put the GT on Dutch Motorail last week (it was a bit of a tight fit) down to Italy as I couldn’t be bothered to drone down the autoroutes all day again….
As I boarded the car onto the train, the loader told me not to put the alarm on- me thinking I knew better turned off the “anti lift” and “movement sensor” bits of the alarm and left the alarm set.
Nice trip down, dinner and a nice bottle of wine in the restaurant car going down the Rhine valley, good nights sleep in a private cabin ,arrived to a beautiful day in Italy, got on the train wagon to disembark, the car was completely dead………. Clearly the alarm had been awakening Swiss, German, and Italian peasants all the way down for 800 miles…..
The GT was so dead I struggled even to open the door to get in. At this point there were 25 frustrated drivers behind me in their Porsches, Morgans, TR6’s and assorted classics on the rail wagon who were going nowhere with a fat dead silver GT going nowhere fast and blocking their exit from the train….….
Tried to put it into neutral so we could push it off…nope, not without power.
Have to open the boot and jump start it. Nope. Can’t open the boot without power.Grovel around on the floor for the emergency boot release and eventually get it open. Ok now I can borrow some jump leads off the Porsche two cars down and jump it off the car behind me…nope car behind is an MR2 and also has a battery in the boot and the jump leads won’t reach…
By now an assortment of people had gathered on the platform (including my wife who pretended not to know me) to watch the “stupid rich Englishman” and procede to take photos, laugh, and shout “helpful” advice…..
By now I had really no idea how I was going to get my car and 25 others off the train and I was in panic mode….eventually a jumper box was found by a angry Italian train man who was clearly shouting at me in Italain how stupid I was setting the alarm (OK OK I get it )
The car fired up, and the waiting drivers cheered and clapped and fired up their engines. Lots of warning lights were on, including “Steering failure” and “GO TO DEALER”.
Put it into gear- electric handbrake will not come off, tried everything to no avail- by now the drivers behind wondered why the Maserati had finally started but was not moving…in desperation I pitted 405 bhp against the handbrake and JUST managed to crawl off the train with the handbrake fully on….RELIEF and hide around corner.
Handbrake suddenly comes off, car will soon charge up, off we go, stop for petrol, fuel flap won’t open, panic mode again, electrics are still messed up, if I turn it off to reset everything will it restart?
It did and everything back to normal…great tour of the lake Maggiore, Lugano and Como,….coming back the German Motorail train broke down in the middle of Germany (terminally) at 6am, we were offloaded on a siding in the middle of nowhere, and told to make our own way 400 miles to Calais…..
Was it all worth it? Well the touring bit was great in the middle……
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