I hate cars. I repeat: I hate cars.

The Discovery went in today for the track rod end. The steering started clonking last week so it clearly needed doing. While they were at it, they centred the steering wheel, checked underneath for any major rust (none) and adjusted the handbrake. All good. In fact, I had been expecting them to tell me the underside was a festering mass of rusty holes as I never got around to undersealing it. Also it's apparently worth about £1200-1400 should I want to sell it. I really don't want to, but I'm getting worried about diesel prices...

So for once, I was feeling quite cheerful about the whole thing. I drove around in work, I took a printer to a site, etc, etc. Then while getting some food before coming home, it started shaking down a road as I slowed down and I realised the handbrake had seized on. It wasn't seized on completely but enough to make it significantly difficult to move.

So I took it back to the place, and have probably destroyed the handbrake shoes, but I didn't really have any choice. I didn't have any tools, any light and my mechanical ability is pretty crap. Land Rover handbrakes don't use the rear brakes like most cars, they have a separate brake which locks around the propshaft to the rear axle.

I probably yanked it too hard. I've done this on pretty much every car I've ever had. I pull the handbrake up hard enough to eventually mean it needs adjusting. The only one that didn't suffer from this was the Pimpmobile which had the handbrake on the dash, on the right side of the wheel. Sounds weird, but I liked it. Then again, absolutely nothing phased that car, except wet roundabouts (rear wheel drive and nasty tyres) and long hills (fuel supply issue)...

This is a cheesy but entertaining German video about the Mercedes W123.

The thought of replacing the Discovery with something like a Suzuki Jimny makes my blood run cold. If such a thing were to happen though, I would certainly have to jack up the suspension and put better wheels and bumpers on it, like the one above. Ironically, despite it's appearance, the Jimny is built more like the Discovery than most soft-roaders, with a separate chassis and low ratio gears and actually has some decent off-road ability. Unlike the cretinous fake 4x4s like the BMW X5, etc, etc.

What does Jupiter sound like? Now you can find out.