Service!

 We had the usual drop-off and school run this morning. Today is the last day before half-term, but Ellie was as eager as usual to get to school.

Once home, we grabbed our stuff and headed in to Chichester. The Gorse Fox dropped the Silver Vixen in the town and then drove on to the Skoda dealership. The car was due for its second service. Dropping the car off he confirmed that they would check on the recent fuel gauge problem and the fact that the key was occasionally undetected. They said they would look at these items, and the car would be ready by 17:00. The Gorse Fox left the car in their capable hands and walked back into town.

The Gorse Fox met up with the Silver Vixen and we did some shopping before the Gorse Fox had to pop off for an appointment. We joined back up afterwards and stopped off at "Ask" for lunch. We were lucky. We were the first customers in and managed to get seated and placed our orders before they filled up, which they soon did. There were customers being turned away before long. We had a lovely lunch then made our way to the bus stop. The plan was that we would home in plenty of time to collect Ellie, and the Gorse Fox would make his way back into Chichester around 16:00. It was 13:55 as we got off the bus and started the walk home. It was 13:57 when the Gorse Fox received the text message to say the car was ready. We dropped the shopping off at home and the Gorse Fox turned on his heels and headed straight back to the bus stop.

Once in Chichester, the Gorse Fox went to the dealership. The car had a clean bill of health. There was a video of the inspection and comments that it was "like new". They did, however, find no problem with the key nor with the fuel gauge. The Gorse Fox got in the car to drive home and the key immediately failed. He went back to the service desk and they concluded it must be a battery problem in the key. (The Gorse Fox had put a new battery in a couple of months back... but though it was the right size and specification, it wasn't a Skoda battery). The service rep changed the battery for a Skoda battery. Everything worked. That doesn't prove anything, because the problem is intermittent, but at least we got a new battery out of it!