What does an exhaust do?!

The majority of my blogs seem to be about my car troubles, and I am afraid this one will be no different.

This is probably to do with the fact that, as I have said before, my knowledge of the inner workings of cars is non existent.

I don't think my family were aware of the true extent of my ignorance, until early one Tuesday morning.

There was a problem with the exhaust, which resulted in me sounding like a teenage boy racer cruising around in a souped up car.

In typical Laura fashion I decided to leave it for a few days, when I was free to take it to the nice man at the garage.

However, this backfired, literally, and I was left stranded on the hard shoulder of the M5 after an almighty bang caused me to pull over.

So what does this damsel in distress do in her time of need? Call Daddy, or as he is better known in this blog, the car oracle.

On the phone he asked if the exhaust was scraping along the road.

Now, how many of us actually know what an exhaust does? Surely I am not alone in my complete and utter ignorance?

Walking round to the back of the car I saw that the exhaust sticking out the back was fine, and was nowhere near the road.

On reporting my findings I was greeted by a puzzled silence from the car oracle, who asked me to check again that nothing was hanging down on the road.

He then told me to slowly leave the motorway at the next junction and come home.

So I started off again, with my car making the same horrendous scraping noise, but it wasn't long before cars were flashing me to pull over.

I gave up, and after a second SOS call to the car oracle, he was on his way.

On arrival he knelt down to look under the car, and beckoned me over to see a metal pipe scraping the road.

Apparently this was the exhaust.

Now I am serious when I say this, I had no idea the exhaust runs under the car, from the back to the engine.

To me, cars go. I have no idea how, but they do!

After the car oracle had finished tutting at me in disbelief he tied the offending piece of metal up with string and we headed home at a leisurely 30 miles and hour.

This marked the start of a busy day for SuperMum, who spent her lunch break rushing from work to the garage to pick up my newly fixed car.

She too was in disbelief at my lack of car knowledge, and so was my boyfriend Joe when I recounted my sorry tale to him that night.

So I am off to have lessons in vehicle maintenance from the car oracle, so I will know what to do when the next disaster happens.

I will keep you posted!