Owning a Car in Africa — Our Firsthand Education with Murphy’s Law

Did you buy a jalopy?

Coons’ grandfather posed this question to us at an extremely poignant time. He may be in his 90’s, but he’s still got it. Neither of us knew what the term meant (a dilapidated old vehicle), but could guess from his tone. The answer… maybe?

It all started out fine, as it always does. The car checked out fine with the mechanic when we bought it with its “reconditioned” engine. We drove 750 miles from Joburg up to Victoria Falls for our wedding. After that, we took our mini-moon in Hwange National Park, easily navigating the rough dirt roads as we spent three days searching for animals. Then, we turned around and started the 1,700-mile trip down to Cape Town to meet Kristian. After a particularly long first day on the road from dawn till dark, we finally arrived in Johannesburg, exhausted. We had a reservation at Westmoreland Lodge, basically our second home at this point. They had a lot of cars in the main parking lot so they directed us to another gate. Not thinking and ready to be out of the car, we pulled in. SMASH!!!

Noooooo. We forgot to check the height with the rooftop tent. We had hit the barrier the spans the top of the gate. Devastated, we surveyed the damage. The tent, our home for the next six months, was mangled. We dejectedly checked in and headed to our room for the night. Ever one to be proactive, Kourtney found a tent repair company in Cape Town that we contacted. After we described what happened and sent a few pictures, they weren’t too worried about being able to fix it. We could finally breathe again.

In significantly worse spirits, we took off the next morning for Cape Town, stopping at some nondescript truck stop town en route for a night (way more expensive than camping). Once we arrived in Cape Town on the third day of straight driving, we headed straight for Shorty’s Adventures. Shorty is a jovial guy and assured us he had done this multiple times himself and had fixed numerous tents in the same condition. Phew! He took the tent off the car and said he would have it ready in a week.

Once we picked up Kristian, we drove PJ almost every day, venturing out along the Garden Route and into wine country to explore the best South Africa had to offer. Everything went great (minus some weather) and PJ had no issues. After a teary goodbye, we set our sights on the next stage of our trip – a road trip up the coast along the famed Garden Route.

We knew we needed a new suspension system and wanted to get a full service before we headed out on along the coast. After taking care of those things in Cape Town and getting our tent back from Shorty, we thought we were golden. We spent our days hiking and driving along the coast and our nights cooking outside and sleeping in the rooftop tent. This was the African dream!

But, alas, the good times did not last. We were due in Joburg on the 18th to get Kourtney (Coons!) a new passport. After a few hours of driving on the N1 (their equivalent of route 95) on the 17th, PJ started making some noise and losing power. Kourtney quickly pulled off to the side of the road and killed the engine. We checked the oil – empty after an oil change a week ago. 9 liters in a week… not good. Coons spent some time trying to call a tow company, to no avail. A roadside patrol stopped and thankfully put us in touch with a mechanic from the nearby town of Winburg. We also took Shorty up on his offer to help us out wherever we were and had him contact a nearby mechanic. Turns out, Winburg is not a big town and only has one mechanic — Ian. Thankfully, after he received two separate calls, he decided we were important enough to come help out right away.

We started the car up for Ian and he immediately told us to kill it. Instant diagnosis. Never a good sign. Turns out we had blown a bearing in the engine and wouldn’t be going anywhere in a hurry. He towed us back to a guesthouse in Winburg and got us settled in for the night. $40 per night, excluding breakfast, without Wi-Fi, and with only a bathtub. WHERE ARE WE?!

After checking out the engine, Ian informed us that we had two options: buy a new engine or have him completely rebuild ours. OUCH! After some angry calls with the place we bought the car (they don’t guarantee the second-hand cars) and rejecting their shitty offer for us to pay to tow the car to them (they won’t answer our calls anymore anyway), we told Ian to go ahead and order a new engine. We just wanted to get back on the road and continue our trip. We still had a long journey ahead of us… we were still in South Africa!

Given that it would be a few days to get the car fixed, we set our sights on getting the hell out of Winburg. This place was in the middle of nowhere. We decided to enlist the receptionist at the guesthouse for some help.

Coons: Can we get a taxi to Welkom (where we could rent a car) or to Joburg?

Receptionist: Oh no, don’t take a taxi – they’ll definitely rob you.

Coons: Cool, cool, cool. How about a bus? We can just hop on and pay cash, right?

Receptionist: No, you have to transfer money to their account to secure a ticket. They don’t accept cash anymore, too many hijackings along the highway.

Coons: Ah right, hijackings. Great.

Thankfully, Ian finally found someone who had the same bank as the bus company and could transfer money to them to pay for our bus tickets. Johannesburg, here we come!

After spending the weekend in the city and with no good news from Ian, we decided not to let this stop our trip and rented a car so we could still spend the week at Chris’s hiking cabin in the Drakensburg mountains and snowboarding in Lesotho. During the week, we got periodic updates from Ian:

• “The engine I thought I could get you is the wrong one, I’ll keep trying.” Shoot!
• “Seems like they did the heads on this engine as the gaskets look new.” Baxter, you know I don’t speak Spanish.
• “Your engine has been discontinued, so all I can do is take it apart and see if we can rebuild it.” Are we going to have to go home early?!
• “We found an internal water leak as well” Well that can’t be good…

At this point, we had made the decision to go home for a week to visit Coons’ grandfather whose health had taken a turn for the worse. Ian had been trying to source parts for a rebuild but was having trouble finding some key parts. Thankfully, Mike (who helped us buy the car) had found a used engine in Joburg that was imported from Japan. We had Ian call the shop and it looked like it would work. We stopped by the shop before heading to the airport, paid for the engine, and told them our mechanic would be there the next day to pick it up. Not an ideal situation and we know we’re taking a gamble on a used engine (although it does have a 30-day guarantee), but at least we had a plan and the car would be ready when we returned next week.

After being home for a couple of days, we checked in with Ian on Friday, Aug 2th to make sure he was able to pick the engine up alright. Response from Ian – “No! My bakkie (truck) stripped its diff!”… great! So Ian said he would send a courier to go and collect it. This eliminated one of the main reasons we wanted him to go get it, so he could make sure it was the right engine, but ok, nothing we can do. After a couple of days of nothing, we finally get word on Tuesday, Aug 6th that he got the engine (we were set to land the following day).

Coons: Did the engine make it?

Ian: Yes, but it’s the wrong model

Coons: Noooooooo!!!

Ian: But it’s not a big problem! I just have to build your engines intake, exhaust, and coils to this one.

Coons: (You couldn’t have led with that, Ian!?) Ok… so it will still work?

Ian: Yes

Coons: Wow. Ok. So when will it be ready?

Ian: It should be ready on Friday

Spoiler alert… it was not ready on Friday. Turns out Friday was a holiday — must have slipped his mind! Determined not to let this derail us, we rented another car (and this time actually paid for the cross-border clearance) and spent the weekend in Swaziland walking around with rhinos. On Monday, we got confirmation from Ian that the car starts, but there is a water leak in the middle of the engine. He’s hoping it will be a quick fix. We’ll return the rental car on Tuesday and head on down to Winburg.

So that’s where we stand. Twenty-seven days after we initially broke down, we’re set to take a bus down to Winburg to collect PJ and hopefully continue our African overland trip. Thankfully, we’ve been able to make the most of our time apart, but we’re really excited to be reunited with PJ. We’re hoping we’re past the most difficult part, but it’s Africa, so who knows. It’s all part of the adventure! Stay tuned for our third PJ installment, which will either have us crossing the Namibian desert and entering one of the worlds most remote areas in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve, or selling the car and going to Europe (kidding… maybe).