Sudden Loss of Power

Written by Dave:  There are many things you hope don’t happen when you are traveling.  A breakdown is one of those things.  A breakdown on the side of a highly traveled, high speed roadway is another.

We had just entered France on a Saturday morning, and decided we would get off the back roads and drive the toll roads to get to Cannes quicker.  We had already been traveling for several days, and were getting tired.  The back roads were 15 miles farther, were free, but would be 9.5 hours travel time.  The autovia was expensive in a camper, but we would cut about 4 hours off our trip.

I had eased the camper onto the autovia, and was enjoying the ability to drive without the constant clutching, shifting, braking and accelerating that the back roads require.  We had been driving for about 15 miles when we hit a long hill.  The camper will make it up inclines, but slowly.  As I was holding the pedal down, I felt a ping under my foot and the pedal fell limp.  Combined with this was an immediate loss of power.  I knew exactly what it was.

I quickly assessed the situation, and saw there was an exit just a bit further ahead that angled down to a parking area.  The camper is not aerodynamic, and doesn’t coast well.  Losing momentum, I was able to just make it to the start of the exit, and just off the roadway.  I coasted as close to the guard rail as I could and put on the hazard lights.

As it turned out, the cars exiting were still traveling at a high rate of speed, and I wasn’t as far off the road as I hoped.  Every passing semi-truck shook the camper causing some unease.  I knew that there were some safety vehicles that patrol the roads, and hoped one would arrive soon to offer us some protection.  I put on my safety vest and went to inspect the accelerator cable.

Disassembling the housing to the cable, it was obvious by the frayed and snapped cable that we weren’t going anywhere.  Fixing it would be tough, but I just needed to travel 300 yards and we could park.  Nancy set out to find some metal capable of crimping, and I started trying to tie a frayed metal shielding over a stiff wire together.  Not an easy task.

After about 20 minutes, the safety truck arrived.  He put on his flashers, and I felt much better.  Unfortunately, the driver had no mechanical abilities, and no English.  My French is very poor, but we found a bit of common ground in Spanish.  He said if I could get the camper to the parking area, he would call me a tow truck.

I decided that it didn’t need to be a pretty fix, just functional to travel a short distance.  After several attempts, it finally somewhat tied.  Nancy produced a wire, and I wrapped the wire as tightly as I could around the tie, and crimped it.  A tie strap was used to hold the repair in place, and it was time to try it out.  The van started, and I had acceleration again.  We drove to the parking area and waited for the tow truck.

It turned out to be more of a flatbed hauler, and it was quite large.  The driver spoke very little English, but just enough to say he would bring us to the repair shop, and we could stay in our camper until Monday when they could get the part.  He would give us electricity for the two days we had to wait.  So we made the best of two days in the lot of the repair shop.

The part arrived Monday morning, and they had us repaired by 10:30.  Driving away I realized that the cable had been frayed since the day we bought the camper.  That is why the pedal was always so sticky.  You couldn’t see it because it was in a shielding.  The pedal was now silky smooth, and easy to operate.

I then realized, as bad as it seemed to breakdown where we did it could have been much worse.  The cable could have snapped on a remote mountain road in the middle of nowhere, as we have driven those.  It could have snapped on a narrow road in downtown Paris.  There are many places we have been that would have been much worse.  If it was going to break, it happened in about the best place.  I knew help would arrive sometime.

So we set off again for Cannes, several hundred euro lighter, but thankful to be fixed, safe, and on the road again.

We did make it to Cannes by 4:30, and were able to get some wonderful French bread, croissants, and a chocolate tart.  All ended well, as we settled into our new campground in Cannes, France.