Today I agreed to loan Merlin to my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, who have just escaped London for good and have moved in 50 yards down the road from us in our village and were without a car.
Merlin has basically been basically unused for 2020 apart from having all the work done in October and has been parked up down the side of my parents’ house in Maidenhead since - with no use case in sight for the next six month, when I *may* be able to travel with work again. I’m starting to get worried about brakes seizing, diesel bug flowering in the tank, battery health declining (I’ve been charging it whenever I’ve gone to see them but with the current situation that’s not been often.
My bro-in-law has agreed to strict t’s and c’s around things like gentle use until warmed up, use of branded fuels only and a strict “if it breaks / needs it you pay for it” regime, among others.
At least this way Merlin gets some exercise, its a way of getting the car down here (parking is tight so I was under orders not to bring it if there’s no need!) and most importantly, I will have access should I have a need. I’m secretly hoping they’ll fall in love with A2 and get one of their own in due course - their last car before they bought their flat in London was a newish VW Polo which they really liked, so they appreciate a good VAG car.
So, the tyre have been pumped up (they were all down to around 20 psi), fluids have been checked (all up to the mark as expected since the major service and overhaul work), I The set of genuine Audi mats are in courtesy of
@rosscanning (I bought the set with just the one rear as I have a storage box in the footwell behind the driver) and the battery has been hooked up to the Ctek once again in preparation for collection from Maidenhead on Monday.