<div dir="auto">In all of my years of owning 9+ cars, we never had an incident like you are experiencing.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">However, we did hit an "unmarked blacktop road repair"in Kansas with our 38' Holiday Rambler Endeavor at 65mph.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">You know the kind where they remove the top 6" or so of the road & don't install a small transition ramp to the original road surface.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I think the 28,000# motor home went airborne. But it was straight stretch of road and the front-end suspension and Michelin 275/R80 X 22.5" tires took the blow and we kept on driving.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I was thankful that we didn't have a "blow-out" or misalignment frontend issue.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Scared the B-Jesus out of us.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Wishing you & Melissa have an uneventful rest of your trip. 😀</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Oct 11, 2023, 9:58 AM <<a href="mailto:jadney@vwtype3.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">jadney@vwtype3.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Well, as many of you already know, Melissa and I drive to Tucson, AZ each fall, to visit our <br>
daughter. We pick this time of year because the Tucson heat should start to be tolerable, and <br>
we will still have time to drive home before the roads home get iced over. This year, we made <br>
it to Liberal, KS [far SW corner of Kansas, almost certainly not actually liberal, so I kept my <br>
political leanings under wraps] without difficulty, but our luck ran out there.<br>
<br>
Following a perfectly nice dinner in downtown Liberal, our GPS got confused, and I stupidly <br>
followed it into an alley, where I ran across what I can only describe as a "dry wash". A "dry <br>
wash is a concrete paved dip in the road that is meant to carry water across on those rare <br>
occasions when it rains: sort of an official gulley. This one would have been perfectly safe at <br>
5 mi/hr, but it was dark, I didn't see it, and I hit it at maybe 20 mi/hr. The car hit its chin HARD <br>
on the far side of the gulley.<br>
<br>
Shortly thereafter I got a red dash warming light. The car continued to drive normally, so I <br>
drove back to our motel parking lot, where Melissa found a slowly spreading puddle coming <br>
out from under the front of our car. It was red and seemed oily, So I guessed it was ATF, but <br>
our Golf Sportwagon does not have an AT; it has a DSG (Dual Shift Gearbox.) I don't know <br>
what color the DSG fluid is. There's no body damage that I can see, and the plastic <br>
underbody sheathing is intact, and I can see some areas where it's been in contact with <br>
something, but I can't tell what's new from what's old.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, I'm thinking this is SERIOUS meaning $$$. And there's no VW dealership <br>
nearby and almost no one that works on imports. This is Chevy/Ford country, with a few <br>
Toyotas. <br>
<br>
It took over an hour to find the place in the owner's manual that mentions that warning light. It <br>
doesn't come up under warning lights in the index. What I finally found was that this was a <br>
general warning and that I'm also supposed to read the text that appears on the display. <br>
Seems reasonable, but when I went back to look for the text, I found that the warning light <br>
stays on, but the text disappears after about 2-3 seconds. <br>
<br>
Finally, I got the text to reappear: "Check Cooling System." Okay, that sounds bad, but a little <br>
less bad than before. I can see puddles on the bracket under the radiator. I find that I can <br>
snake one arm down thru the tangle of hoses just far enough to get a finger on the lower <br>
radiator hose nipple. It wiggles rather freely. We're gonna need a radiator.<br>
<br>
I start to look for VW dealers. Nothing close. I called the VW Roadside Assistance number <br>
that's in our owner's manual stuff. They can get us a tow to the nearest dealer, which is in <br>
Amarillo, TX, 182 miles away. The catch is that I'll still be paying for it, all $1300+ of it.<br>
<br>
I look around Liberal for towing services. There's one across the street from us. It's night, but <br>
I walk over there to look it over and they have nice flatbeds. I also walk to a nearby auto <br>
workshop. It appears to be surrounded by cars in bad shape that haven't moved in awhile.<br>
<br>
The towing place opens the next morning at 8; I'm there at 7:45 but the owner is there before <br>
me. Nice old guy, family business: him, his wife, two sons. One son can haul us to Amarillo, <br>
182 miles for just over $1000. He's giving me a bit of a break; otherwise it would be closer to <br>
the VW Roadside Assistance price. My innate cheapness is bugging me, but I fear that I <br>
could spend a few days and nights in Liberal and STILL have to be hauled to Amarillo. I give <br>
in. We get to the Amarillo VW dealership at 1 that afternoon. I called them earlier in the hope <br>
that they could be ready for us and have parts waiting.<br>
<br>
Well, they were ready, but no parts. They finally admitted that they don't keep radiators in <br>
stock. Nowit's the next morning and we're holed up in a local motel waiting for some/any <br>
reassuring news. I just called this morning, and they finally have our car up on the rack where <br>
someone can start looking at it, and figuring out what the repair is going to take. <br>
<br>
My main worry is that we'll stay here 2 nights and then they will tell us that it will be a week or <br>
so. At some point we might wish we had rented a car to finish the trip and come back here in <br>
a week or so. I called the friends we had planned to spend the next two nights with and <br>
realized that if we had been in one of our Squarebacks, I'd have us back on the road the next <br>
day at the latest. Old cars DO have their advantages!<br>
<br>
Sorry for the long post.<br>
<br>
Wish us luck!<br>
<br>
-- <br>
*******************************<br>
Jim Adney, <a href="mailto:jadney@vwtype3.org" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">jadney@vwtype3.org</a><br>
Madison, Wisconsin, USA<br>
*******************************<br>
<br>
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