A subscriber has written to me with a story which he is happy for me to publish so that it may help others in avoiding their costly mistake. It is a lesson to all of us to. He tells it in his own words.

It goes like this:-

"On leaving our camp I forgot to take "Little Lamb" (the car we tow by A-frame) out of first gear. Note - when towing a manual car behind a motorhome it is MANDATORY to make sure you place the towed vehicle in neutral gear with the handbrake off!

Did I do this - well no not really!

Well we waved farewell to our friends, owners of the farm and headed down to 6 mile creek, just on the southern side of Gympie, However we never made it till late that day.

About 5 km from the farm we heard a screeching noise, and looking into the rear vision mirror I noticed heaps of smoke. I don't know if you have ever had the feeling - on smelling burning rubber you get that horrible sick/dizzy feeling that something is horribly wrong. It was.

I had left "Little Lamb" in first gear when normally it should have been left in neutral gear, and it had had ENOUGH! Now the book says that this 3 cylinder turbo can do 7000 rpm in first gear, tops. Well I recon it had been trying to do 20,000 rpm in first gear. To cut a long story short, "Little Lamb" gave up the ghost, the oil had boiled away, the pistons had seized, and in fact, just in final protest it slammed the connecting rod out through the sump. Sorry ladies this is bloke talk, but to put it mildly, the motor was broken, a bit!

We have had the Car's health checked and have been assured the car has had a major heart attack; in fact it has been fatal. Woops my fault for not doing the normal pre-travel checks. I cant even blame my wife this time, oh well these things do happen."

© 2006 - 2008 Gail Bennett (motorhominglifestyle.com). If you would like to reproduce this article on your website please contact gail@motorhominglifestyle.com