Mas Cabardes - Aude

Everyday life in Mas Cabardès

During our Easter stay in Mas Cabardès our dishwasher stopped working. It needed an engineer who specialised the domestic appliances to look at it. This is France, and whilst I love being here, one has to accept that customer service is not high on the agenda – so we had to take the machine to them – It is impossible to get them to travel to you!

A sturdy neighbour was recruited to help manhandle the machine into the back of the car, so that we could drive the 12 miles to the next town to the service depot.

During our preparations for this it was noticed that one the tyres was going flat. We inflated it but we knew we needed a new one, do decided to combine the two trips – repair the dishwasher and replace the tyre.

We duly left the machine with the electrician and went on to find a Renault garage. We visited five garages and none of them had a tyre to suit!! This was a Renault – almost every other car is a Renault!

Finally we reached a tyre depot, where they explained “The only place you might get one of those is the Michelin depot in Toulouse” – Toulouse is some 50 miles away and I was not driving there with one tyre that needed inflating every few miles and another that would shortly need replacing.

On balance we decided to come back to the motor mechanic in the village who happens to be a former Renault employee. “

Oh Yes” he said, “Renault only put these aluminium wheels and their matching tyres on this car for about 2 years and then the company who produced the tyres went bankrupt, so Renault changed the wheels they were using.”

So, what do we do? – A four wheeled car is useless with only 2 wheels!

The mechanic acquired two new wheels. He put an existing tyre on one of the wheels and a new tyre for the other. This he assured us was totally legal and safe.

A few days later we called the mechanic to say “We will need an MOT whilst we are away can you arrange it?”

“Yes” he said, “but it won’t pass with two different tyres on the back” “We thought it was both legal and safe”

“Oh yes, it is, but it cannot pass the MOT”

We have never worked out why but another new tyre later it passed and we are now driving the vehicle safely, legally and happily! For now anyway.

And the dishwasher? – It was cheaper to buy a new one!