>From the home page of  Espen Lyngaas: (http://www.team17.com/~espen)

               What can happen when you move to the U.K.

   The story begins in Norway. A country well known for its fjords and 
high mountains, but also for its crappy cars. Not that we produce any
 ourselves, but the standard norwegian car would most likely not pass an 
M.O.T equivalent anywhere - not even in eastern Europe. Alright, so not
  all cars are like the one I had. I was the proud owner of a 1988 
Volkswagen Transporter. Complete with 112hp injection engine and 
everything.

  One day in june I was told that I had gotten the job at Team17, and 
plans where made to sell the apartement and the car. The whole apartment
  thing went smoothly so I'm not going to bother you with that. However 
problems started when the car heard that I wanted to sell it. (I strongly
  believe that this car did understand that I wanted to get rid of it.) 
Ever since I bought it it had a tendency to break something whenever I 
talked
 about it in a non-polite manner. You know - the things you say when it 
won't start when the norwegian cold winter has frozen the unfreezable oil,
              and the energy contained in the battery is slightly less 
than the energy brought on by a amoeba fart.

 The first thing that happened was that the gasket around the cylinders 
started leaking water into the cylinder. A normal car would of course just
 leak oil out of the engine block. This water filled up the cylinders 
while the car was parked, and to start it, I had to remove one of the 
spark plugs,
      turn the flywheel by hand for 5 minutes to pump the water out of 
the cylinders, put the spark plug back on and then try to start it.

            In Norway, repairs are so expencive that all attempts to fix 
a problem are usually made by the owner first.

 Changing the cylinder gasket on one side was pretty easy. It only took 
me about a month. One the other side was even easier since I now knew
 what I was doing. However, some of the water left in the cylinder must 
have escaped into the oil tank, mixed with the oil, and produced something
 that completely lacked the properties of modern lubricants, namely to 
actually be a lubricant. Not more than 10 miles of driving and the piston 
arm
                            came through the engine wall like a bat out 
of hell.

                                    To be continued....

That's all there was, but I thought it was a decent start.
--
Gerry
Gerald Skerbitz <gsker@med.umn.edu> U of MN Med School Admin 6-5379
Home St. Paul,Ramsey County,Minnesota, USA