St Wolfgang - SABOTAGE!!

There's a UNESCO listed town not too far from where we are staying called Hallstat which sits right on the edge of a lake called Hallstatter See.  It is also home to a salt mine that has been in existence for some 3000 years so we thought that might be worth a visit. 

We hopped in the Kangoo and coasted down the hill from where we are staying and once we hit the flat I revved the engine to get it into third gear and found there was no acceleration forthcoming.  A quick glance down at the dashboard showed a nice red "stop" light and the spanner light also lit up.  Turned the car around and nursed it back home and rang Renault Assist and explained the situation.  They were terrific and organised a tow truck and a lift to the nearest Renault bloke who was fortunately only 20kms away at Bad Ischl. 

Hole in hose - note: chew marks elsewhere

After a bit of pfaffing about at the dealership (they'd closed for lunch) a mechanic had a quick look at the car and put it onto the computer.  He said he thought he knew what it might be and hoped he was correct as it would be a quick fix.  Up she went on the hydraulic lift and out came a piece of hose which moved air into/from the turbo (I'm no mechanic) with a nice hole chewed out of it.  

It seems it wasn't our Slovenian apartment friend cutting the brakelines at all but rather an animal here called a marder which has a habit of chewing rubber hoses in your car.  Nice one.  

A marder in action 

For a fee of €40 the mechanic put in a new hose and I was on my way arriving back at the house by about 4pm.  A day wasted but the kids had wanted to veg about at home for a while so it worked out OK.

That afternoon I read that they can sleep in your engine bay at night because it's nice and warm which is fine until you move the car to a new location.  As the little marder is quite territorial they can go a bit nutso if they smell the previous marder about.  The end result being they can go pyscho on the hoses in your engine bay.  

Spoke to our host about marder attack prevention and he suggested an old jumper or pullover thrown under the car at night as a human smell would put them off from coming too close.

Played soccer with the kids after that and stunk up a t-shirt pretty good so I bunged that under the car and hoped that'd stop a recurrence.

Probably no need to personally sweat up a shirt as any random piece of the children's clothing would have put down a 500m exclusion zone around the car and made any marder think twice about stepping near his house ever again.  

"Mum, why do I have to have a shower?"