Who's a numpty then?

Nice day last week so thought we'd go out for a 100 mile round trip to the Suffolk coast. Before leaving i checked as usual the oil, water and tyre pressures; all OK. On my return after driving fairly "enthusiastically" i could here a gurgling noise. I opened the boot to find the expansion cap sitting on the grille where i had left it after checking! No overheating all day, only a slight coolant loss from the tank and i've used it since with no signs of overheating. I don't want to tempt fate, but maybe the gods were smiling on me!

Norm

I left mine off, dropped the boot lid and it snapped the engine cover flap
At least no harm done, and Sufflok is pretty

I will call you lucky norm from now on.😃

thankyou very much bluestreak but i think "numptynorm" has more of a ring to it!

My brother has a car the same as mine - a 2004 TF135. He moved from near Portsmouth to near St Ives a year ago and made the same mistake as this. He checked the coolant, drove to Cornwall and drove around for a couple of weeks. When he took the car in for servicing the mechanic said that he had found the cap down the side of the expansion tank. He suggested that my brother might like to check that he replaced the cap after checking the coolant level in future! :drive:

Mickle5: i've nearly done that a couple of times! I guess being so used to "modern "cars without these little differences makes one take them for granted.
Norm

blue TF135: it looks like he was even luckier than me. It just goes to prove that not all of these engines are as fragile as we are led to believe. ( i do hope i won't regret that last remark!)
Norm

Many years ago I checked the vitals on my dads Lancia Beta and topped up the oil, drove 10 miles to my girlfriends and then 30 miles to Victoria coach station for her journey back to uni and then back home, some 70 miles.

As I got close to home a mate caught up with me to tell me the car was smoking badly!

Turned out the oil filler cap was no where to be seen and the car had been pumping oil on to the exhaust manifold!