We are at the moment traveling in the Bulcans and have been walking in the Rila Mountains south of Sofia, really good few days and brilliant weather! The 7 Lakes walk was particularly good although very popular and the last weekend of the season so I think most of Sofia seemed to have been out,!!
We moved up to the north side of the range to the ski resort of Borovets with the intention of doing the highest peak the next day, only to find the lift to the start of the day walk would not be running again until the following weekend and then that was it for the summer season . So too late to do the walk, but we took the lift up to see what we were missing anyway - ski area looked quite good, but it would have been a long not so beautiful walk after the 7 Lakes!
Next day not feeling so well, so stayed another night in a lower lift carpark just outside of the town. Only one in it most of the night. In the morning come time to move on the camper wouldn't start!! No starter, no solenoid, all indications good, up with the bonnet no clue about anything! A car leaving the park stopped and asked if I had a problem, to which I told him the starter would not work. He then said his brother was an auto electrical guy and could have a look at it for me, would only take him 10 minutes to get there, so okay! Bloke arrived in shiny black Merc with all the laptop stuff to plug in. While he was doing all this, I phoned my breakdown number in UK (AA!) and they agreed that as I already had someone there l might as well go with them. By this time the guy told me it was the ECU which he had out and I needed a new one or he could repair mine for half the price with a years guarantee! That would be 850Lev or 1650Lev!! Now here the alarm begins to clang!!
When he returned half an hour later with the fixed ECU refitted and crawling around the front while I was kept occupied by the other bloke, all was declared fixed and that would be €850 - twice as much! That was a no way was he getting that, and it was 850LEV WHICH WAS STILL £400!!! By this time the other guy had gone but he was still talking to him on the phone, and he took my money and gave me a receipt. He then left and I started to wonder what the hell had just happened!
So what did happen?
The night before, around 9 in the evening a car parked close to the front of the van at 45 Deg with its engine running for about 10 minutes, someone got out of it, and the lights were left on, thought they were probably doing the usual carpark toilet stuff but could not understand why they had come so close. Also we had felt a couple of movements against the van which we both felt were strange. Did have a look out of the window but could not see anything except headlights, and it was very dark out there!
So back to the next day, if you are still with me on this, I was by this time very wound up and nothing seemed right, started to work out what had happened. The night before someone had gone under the engine and cut the lead to the starter solenoid. In the morning someone sat in a car the other end of the empty carpark and waited for us to try to start then coming rapidly to our assistance..
They had twisted the solenoid wire back together when they put the ECU back in, not easy to get at or see.
I have managed to do a battle damage repair to the joint in the cable, hopefully it will get us home.
The blokes were Serbian. The cars they were in were Serbian registered. I was told for tax reasons when I asked them why!
The receipt was Serbian.
The local police were not interested - but that is another long story!
We have now moved on up into Rumania but feel very insecure, lost a lot of trust, but there's a lot of very nice helpful people out here so we will get over it!
This was a well planned job, and could be worked almost anywhere on this type of base vehicle. There is no cover under the engine so everything is accessible, and I don't think any alarm device would cover it. The wire was very easy to cut, but not so easy to rejoin. They only twisted the ends together to make it work, and it would have shaken apart again on the Bulgarian roads!!
And today it's raining, the first time for 4 months! So now feel our journey home has really started!
Now having a day off, staying in a Rumanian monastery carpark for a couple of nights and going through the account only to discover we were ripped off another extra €5 when the port tax taken when crossing the Danube by ferry from Bulgaria at Oryahovo to Bechet in Romania. Another official taking advantage of exchange rate and ignorant trusting tourists!!
So who can you trust? We have met so many lovely helpful people on our travels, I dare say we will be caught again.
Isn't travel exciting!!
John
We moved up to the north side of the range to the ski resort of Borovets with the intention of doing the highest peak the next day, only to find the lift to the start of the day walk would not be running again until the following weekend and then that was it for the summer season . So too late to do the walk, but we took the lift up to see what we were missing anyway - ski area looked quite good, but it would have been a long not so beautiful walk after the 7 Lakes!
Next day not feeling so well, so stayed another night in a lower lift carpark just outside of the town. Only one in it most of the night. In the morning come time to move on the camper wouldn't start!! No starter, no solenoid, all indications good, up with the bonnet no clue about anything! A car leaving the park stopped and asked if I had a problem, to which I told him the starter would not work. He then said his brother was an auto electrical guy and could have a look at it for me, would only take him 10 minutes to get there, so okay! Bloke arrived in shiny black Merc with all the laptop stuff to plug in. While he was doing all this, I phoned my breakdown number in UK (AA!) and they agreed that as I already had someone there l might as well go with them. By this time the guy told me it was the ECU which he had out and I needed a new one or he could repair mine for half the price with a years guarantee! That would be 850Lev or 1650Lev!! Now here the alarm begins to clang!!
When he returned half an hour later with the fixed ECU refitted and crawling around the front while I was kept occupied by the other bloke, all was declared fixed and that would be €850 - twice as much! That was a no way was he getting that, and it was 850LEV WHICH WAS STILL £400!!! By this time the other guy had gone but he was still talking to him on the phone, and he took my money and gave me a receipt. He then left and I started to wonder what the hell had just happened!
So what did happen?
The night before, around 9 in the evening a car parked close to the front of the van at 45 Deg with its engine running for about 10 minutes, someone got out of it, and the lights were left on, thought they were probably doing the usual carpark toilet stuff but could not understand why they had come so close. Also we had felt a couple of movements against the van which we both felt were strange. Did have a look out of the window but could not see anything except headlights, and it was very dark out there!
So back to the next day, if you are still with me on this, I was by this time very wound up and nothing seemed right, started to work out what had happened. The night before someone had gone under the engine and cut the lead to the starter solenoid. In the morning someone sat in a car the other end of the empty carpark and waited for us to try to start then coming rapidly to our assistance..
They had twisted the solenoid wire back together when they put the ECU back in, not easy to get at or see.
I have managed to do a battle damage repair to the joint in the cable, hopefully it will get us home.
The blokes were Serbian. The cars they were in were Serbian registered. I was told for tax reasons when I asked them why!
The receipt was Serbian.
The local police were not interested - but that is another long story!
We have now moved on up into Rumania but feel very insecure, lost a lot of trust, but there's a lot of very nice helpful people out here so we will get over it!
This was a well planned job, and could be worked almost anywhere on this type of base vehicle. There is no cover under the engine so everything is accessible, and I don't think any alarm device would cover it. The wire was very easy to cut, but not so easy to rejoin. They only twisted the ends together to make it work, and it would have shaken apart again on the Bulgarian roads!!
And today it's raining, the first time for 4 months! So now feel our journey home has really started!
Now having a day off, staying in a Rumanian monastery carpark for a couple of nights and going through the account only to discover we were ripped off another extra €5 when the port tax taken when crossing the Danube by ferry from Bulgaria at Oryahovo to Bechet in Romania. Another official taking advantage of exchange rate and ignorant trusting tourists!!
So who can you trust? We have met so many lovely helpful people on our travels, I dare say we will be caught again.
Isn't travel exciting!!
John