So I'm not sure if anyone will find this interesting but I thought I'd relay the epic tail of machine vs. nature (kinda)The city I live in had recently been doing some resurfacing work on the street that leads to my neighborhood. They had a detour in place for the longest time but towards the end of the project they made a makeshift dirt ramp on the shoulder of the road for residents to go over. Now I'd seen a woman in a Corolla or something get stuck on the apex of the mound so when I saw this I went up (what turned out to be) the very shallow grade at about 15mph so I wouldn't get stuck, not knowing that the other side of the ramp was at about a 65 degree angle. Needless to say at that speed I landed hard on the nose; well actually I landed directly on the gravel guard just behind and underneath the front bumper. As we hit, my brother, who was in the passenger seat, said "Oh..(ow)...that's not good." The rest of the drive home (about half a mile) was agonizing, listening to my poor car vibrate and rattle. I pulled into the garage and immediately inspected the damage. I feared the worst (smashed in bumper, etc) but to my amazement, there was no visible external damage. Looking underneath, I saw the gravel guard had a hole in it and was looking pretty worse for wear.
I called my insurance company and told them what had happened and luckily they said they would cover it. Bear in mind that this was about two days before I was due to go on vacation. So once the insurance company said they were going to cover it I told them I was going on vacation and wasn't going to deal with it til I got back.
So when we got back three weeks later my brother took it to the local body shop and explained to them what happened. After lots of "Dukes of Hazzard" jokes, they gave him a ride home. The Dukes of Hazzard jokes were started by my lovely and sympathetic wife on her blog :P
I get a call a few days later saying I had crushed one of the engine snub mounts, shattered a cooling support assembly and pinched one of the tubes that goes into the cooling assembly. There was a pause and the guy asked me "What the hell did you do to this thing?!" So I told him the story and he replied with the ubiquitous "Dukes of Hazzard" comment. So they gave me the estimate and said it should take about three or four days to fix. Oh, that's not too bad I thought. THREE WEEKS LATER I got my car back. Apparently, or at least this is what the body shop told me, the snub mount (pictured below) had to be shipped from New Jersey because none of the VW dealers in the area had it. Now I'm not one for pointing fingers but New Jersey? C'mon. I have a sneaking suspicion that they forgot to order the part and as such needed an excuse to account for the delay.
Anyway, I was so excited to get my car back seeing as it had been 6 weeks since I had last driven it (had gone on vacation right after the accident happened and refused to let it ruin my trip.) When I got to the body shop, they had forgotten to replace the gravel guard (claimed they didn't notice it was supposed to be there til last night) and then when it came time to pay my deductible, they told me they don't take credit card, only cash and check; isn't this 2003? Doesn't everywhere take credit cards? So I sign the paper work, get the car back and thank my lucky stars that this chapter was finally over. Oh boy was I wrong. I get in the car and start her up. Hey sounds great! No vibration! Until I put it in gear...wow...did they replace my 1.8T with a Ferrari engine cos it sounds and feels like this thing is trying to jump right out of the car. Turns out that the engine needed some time to settle onto the new snub mount. It seems to run pretty smoothly now.
Moral of the story? A shortcut may not always be a shortcut.
..and as for the best Dukes O' Hazzard comment? I like this one from a poster on clubb5.com
"Now Luke, don't be treatin' the General that way in the future!"
Cooling Assembly
Snub Mount
