Road Tested: N-Zed

(This post was originally published on life-offtrack.com on Feb. 15, 2012.)

I’ve found a new appreciation for the freedom of the road, which makes relocating cars our new favorite cheap way to travel. (If you’ve missed our adventures relocating vehicles in Australia, check out this post.) So when we wanted to head from Auckland, on the north island of New Zealand, down to the south island, finding a campervan to relocate was a priority on our list. We used the same services as we did in Australia to look for opportunities: transfercar and standbyrelocs. But unfortunately, we hesitated on a couple of offers and missed our chance. So we were back on the bus.

It’s an 11-hour bus ride from Auckland to Wellington. From there, we’d hop on the ferry to the south island. We took an overnight bus, getting a pass through Intercity that would cover not only our bus fare but the cost of the ferry as well. The Interislander ferry can be tough on those faint of budget.

The Interislander ferry on a rainy morning. Photo by Nellu

It was a harsh wake-up call being back on mass transit after having vehicles all to ourselves. At one point, after being rudely awakened in the wee hours of the morning by a passenger telling her life story in painstaking detail to the man next to her, I turned to Nellu and said, “I forgot what I hate most about the bus… other people.”

Our bus driver whose name I believe was Ed sounded like Murray from Flight of the Conchords. And boy did he like to talk. This bus was a milk run bus that made many stops throughout the night. Every time a new group came on, Ed went through the rules one more time, repeating an elaborate story about kicking a man off because he was smoking, and then having to call the police to arrest him because he wouldn’t get off the bus. “It’s tough to see a grown man cry,” Ed said, “But by smoking, he was breaking the law and his ticket was invalidated.” The first time Ed told this story it was mildly interesting. The fourth time, it was sad.

But despite the talking and the subsequent lack of sleep, we made it to Wellington, on and off the ferry, and on to another bus to Nelson. We ran into some trouble as we arrived in Nelson due to flooding there. But after some time and a hitchhike, we made it to our lovely holiday home on Tahunanui Beach.  We’d have 11 days there, filled with friends and Christmas celebrations and a lot of time getting caught up on our work, before heading back north for a flight to South Africa.

On the way back, we vowed to snap up any relocation we could. There were no campervans available but we did find a van we could drive from Wellington to Auckland. Certainly, it had to be better to sleep in a van than in a car, even if it wasn’t a campervan.

When you relocate, you never know what condition the vehicle will be in when you get it. Usually, they’ve been cleaned up but our van this time was dirty,  really dirty, both inside and out. The man at the desk at the rental car agency bragged that the Hobbit production team had been using the vehicle and dropped it off just before Christmas. It would be a bit inconvenient to live out of the muddy van for a few days but the production team angle makes for a good story.

It was late afternoon when we picked up our van so we drove for a few hours before stopping for dinner—takeout from a food joint that made everything from Chinese food to chicken burgers—which we took to eat on one of New Zealand’s wide beaches. We watched groups of people tailgating and enjoying a beautiful Boxing Day holiday. It’s moments like these that I appreciate most the more we’re on the road.

We drove for a few more hours and settled in for the night at a rest stop. The next morning, we resolved to get coffee at a McDonald’s where we hoped we could use the free wifi to check our email.

This is the point in what should have a very easy trip where everything started to go wrong.

The gas tank was almost empty so we pulled into a station to fill up where we could use the “save 4 cents on fuel” coupons we’d earned at the grocery store. I was very proud of our diligence in collecting these coupons. Even though it would only save $1 here and $1 there, these were dollars that we could spend on something better.

It had briefly crossed my mind that the van could have a diesel engine and I flipped through the materials the rental agency provided to check but found nothing. Surely the agency would have told us if the car was diesel, I thought. And we weren’t responsible for paying a diesel tax associated with such vehicles, so we barely thought twice about filling it up with 20 liters of unleaded.

This was a big, costly mistake and one that we’re blaming on the lack of coffee.

We were about 10 km outside of the town of Tokoroa when we first started noticing problems.

“Every time I accelerate, we lose speed,” Nellu said. Our Hobbit-mobile struggled to overcome even the smallest hills. By the time we had reached our McDonald’s, the van started to stall. Nellu was able to coast into a spot in the parking lot. He jumped out and checked the gas tank. On the back of the door there was a small sticker that read “DIESEL”.

It’s funny what you don’t see when you’re overtired.

We crawled inside the McDonald’s with my laptop. We’d planned to use the free wifi to research what to do about our problem, but this particular Mickey Ds had no internet. We ordered our coffees (flat whites) and waited for the slow staff to bring them over to our table. Nellu and I both sat on the same side of the table, defeated, and stared over the chaotic scene in front of us.

An older couple sat directly to our left and started playing the where-are-you-from game with us. “Israeli?” the man asked Nellu who was clearly not in the mood to play.

I was hoping that Nellu would chat this couple up and maybe, by luck or coincidence, they would have not only the expertise but the tools to solve our problem. But he wasn’t feeling chatty and I knew I shouldn’t push it. So we sat quietly sipping the coffee we needed to take on the next couple of hours.

Nellu was pretty confident that all we needed to do was get the bad gas out and the engine would quickly recover, but you’d be surprised how few people actually know how to siphon gas. There were two gas stations in walking distance and we checked with both to see if they had the materials we needed to siphon out the bad unleaded.

I loudly announced our problem to the woman at the front desk at BP hoping that if she didn’t know how to help us, someone who did would overhear and offer to help. But no dice. Ironically, BP does not have siphoning tools “for environmental reasons” and the guy who usually performs this service for them was on vacation for two weeks.

But there was a car parts store in town where we bought a 20-liter red, plastic portable gas container to receive our bad diesel/unleaded mix, a five-liter container to fill with fresh diesel and what we thought was a siphon hose. The hose turned out to be a siphon for the portable gas containers and not the gas tank, so I headed over to the hardware store across the street. The woman at the hardware store suggested I should favor shorter clear tubing over a longer length. We learned later that this was bad advice. The hardware store closed for the day as I walked out with my short tube.

But Nellu and I were resolved. We could do this. We had a few tools. We could siphon the gas out. Maybe this problem only needed to cost us $50. We took turns trying to suck the gasoline into the clear tube to create the pressure needed to usher our bad gas out of the tank. It didn’t work. Instead of getting a stream of gasoline rushing through the tube, we got a cupful at a time.

Who knew it’s so hard to siphon gas.

But I learned that gasoline actually doesn’t taste as bad as you’d think. I remember Harry Connick Jr. talking about gagging when siphoning off gas during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Considering my over-active gag reflex, I assumed I would have the same reaction but I’m proud to say I didn’t. Gasoline does, however, have a greasy feeling that sticks with you no matter how many times brush your teeth or rinse out your mouth.

Several people along our tools-gathering path informed us that not only did we have to clean out the tank but we also had to clear out the injector tubes or the engine simply wouldn’t work. It would be damaged, they told us. Nellu and I started to lose our confidence.

But as our desperation became stronger, a young couple from Wellington (clearly on vacation) drove past and asked if we needed help. “Do you know how to siphon gas out of a tank?” I shouted.

The man, who we came to know as Scott, parked his car and came over to help while his wife Renee and their five-year old daughter Piper watched. Nellu and Scott tried to no avail to get access to the engine underneath the front passenger seat to check the injector tubes. This project was quickly spiraling out of control. We decided that it was not a do-it-yourself operation and Scott loaned Nellu his phone to call the rental car company for help. The rental car company referred us to their roadside assistance company with the reminder that we would be financially responsible for what ever it would cost to fix this problem.

The roadside assistance company was zero help. They informed us that it would be very costly to get someone out to help us today since it was still the Christmas holiday. It was December 27th. They found a tow truck for Nellu but the truck operator asked him where he’d like to have the van towed since many businesses were still closed. This guy was clearly no help either.

As we started estimating the costs in our head—the cost to get the van towed, the cost to empty the gas tank, the cost to clean out the injector tubes, the cost of returning the van a day late to the rental agency—we became exasperated. “You know what I really want to do,” Nellu announced. “I want to blow up this van so at least will get our $1500 worth.” $1500 was the amount of money we would be responsible for if anything happened to the car.

Thank God for Scott and Renee who proved to be quite resourceful at our moment of need. They spent over an hour with us, loaning us their phone, and in the end researching and finding someone who would help. They hooked us up with Bryan and his company, Tirau Motors, a one-stop shop mechanic and tow operation that was not only working that day but could come pick us up in about an hour. I didn’t get Scott and Renee’s details. I wish I did because we would have been lost with out their help.

Bryan picked us up, as promised, about an hour later and we got help from a few random men to push the van in neutral from the McDonald’s parking lot to the street and pulled it up onto the flat-bed. We drove about 30 km north to Tirau, where his shop was located. On the way we chatted and learned that it was a very common mistake to put unleaded into a diesel running car, even by people who actually owned the vehicles. I suspected this all along. In fact, I kept telling everyone, “This has to happen all the time.”

It took Bryan less than 10 minutes to clear our gas tank. He raised the van up with a lift, unscrewed a bolt under the tank and let the unleaded drain out. Once the gas tank was clear, he filled it up with our diesel and threw in some of the diesel he had in his shop for no cost. He then pressed the gas pedal to rev the engine and clear out injector tubes and our big problem went up in a puff of smoke.

We got the shy Bryan to pose for a picture before we headed out. If you are in need of a mechanic on the north island of New Zealand, Bryan and Tirau Motors are top notch.

Bryan: Our knight in cotton armor.

All the worse case scenarios we had been considering never came to pass. We were quickly back on the road, heading up to Auckland to return our van on time, and even managed to visit Hobbiton itself, the town of Matamata, which was used as a backdrop for the Lord of the Ring movies.

Our credit card statement may bear the scars of our bad decision but we’re both really glad we didn’t blow up our Hobbit-mobile.

TIRAU MOTORS LTD TIRAU (The fix)

Gas/Automotive

$248.51

BUNNINGS - 9432 TOKOROA (Our too short plastic tube)

Merchandise

$4.05

MOBIL TOKOROA TOKOROA (The replacement diesel)

Gas/Automotive

$6.12

REPCO TOKOROA 18 TOKOROA (Gas containers, siphon tube)

Gas/Automotive

$36.26

GULL ATIAMURI ATIAMURI (The bad unleaded)

Gas/Automotive

$33.43

Total Cost of Putting Unleaded in a Diesel Van

$328.37

~ Molly