The Hairiness of Cars

Some time last year my dad gave me his car. It is a P-reg Polo and I call her Little Red. She's not so little and more pink than red but I love her and she loves me.

Since getting her I've had to pay a fair amount of money on the MoT and tax. I haven't had to pay for insurance yet as the car is still in my dad's name and I'm a named driver - however that is due to be renewed soon and that's when the official handover of ownership will happen (I've been saving me pennies, 'onest guv).

To the hairiness. I was out with my friend R a couple of weekends ago, we went to a DIY store to buy a garden fork as R was going to help me with the garden (more on that in another post). As R was putting some of her things in the boot she asked me whether my car had sucked up a dead cat. I looked at her, I looked at the back of the car where she was pointing. Coming out of the exhaust pipe was what looked like half a dead cat (or squirrel or possibly small hairy dog). Feeling a little worried - after all I live on an ASBO estate and anything could happen - I pulled said hair out of the exhaust... and it kept on coming, like the thing from the black lagoon. It looked like hair extensions - maybe there was a dead chav up there, who knows?

After pulling out about two metres of hair, I began to get worried, maybe all this hair was supposed to be in there, so I phoned my brother S. "Push it all back in," he said, "it's probably part of your catalytic converter." "Um..." said I. "Don't worry if you can't push it back in, the car will still work." he reassured me. For the next few days I drove around with a pony tail of hair trailing from my exhaust. Other cars kept a respectful distance, being not quite sure what was going on.

However, I couldn't continue like that. While Little Red was still working well, she was becoming more noisy and more reluctant to put up with my driving, so last week I went into the garage. Turns out the hair was the sound insulation from the back box of the exhaust (hence the increased noise). One day later the problem was solved (no sweeties for me that week), although the reluctance to put up with my driving does have me worried - maybe Little Red is letting me know she needs valeting!