Extra items in your vehicle breakdown kit?

[Bill Edwards]

I guess it's just luck... I'm surprised myself by the lack of punctures to be honest. I've had engine failure, gearbox failure, wiper motor failure but made it home on all occasions.

All were on that bastard Mk7 transit

Yes, I hear few good things about the transits built in the past 10 years or so - build quality has plummeted.

I've only ever had a couple of punctures in tyres that sealant would have coped in all my decades of driving, most of the time the tyre is too far gone for a dribble of snot to seal it. I always carry a spare wheel and on the vehicles that use them a few spare tubes.

I never travel without a spare, punctures happen too often and there’s the big things - blowouts, slits - that could soon leave me very stuck.

The times I’ve got to my vehicle to find a flat are many, and reliability is essential.

 

[premmington]

Only once I have ever needed a first aid kit in a car - I never had one.

Pulled over in traffic in a town centre - 10 year old carrying a glass bottle - fell on it and deeply cut his wrist-arm up to his inner elbow. Proper arterial bleed.

Ended up taking my belt off to use as a tourniquet - then finally a 25mm endless ratchet strap from the boot of my car, then my T-shirt came off and taping that around his wrist and arm with duct tape to stem his bleeding.

Wrote on his forehead in black marker pen, the time I stopped the circulation to his arm.

Passer by rang an ambulance.

The next day the Police and the boys parents showed me a "phone video" of what had happened - this included the point I slapped the kid round the face to sit down and hold his arm up. What shocked me was how far the blood was squirting on the recording.

The kid is now driving and he uses our garage for car repairs - so he must not have held a grudge for me thumping him!

 

[rtcosic]

One thing I have noticed is how life saving techniques change over the years from when I first started in the 70's.

Ah! Another one who was taught this method first?

 

[Robotstar5]

Ah! Another one who was taught this method first?

The Holger Neilson and Sylvester Broche methods were still in some of the old textbooks we had