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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Should have driven a T3. Nothing to break in the front. :)</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Tony</div><div><br></div>
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On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 09:58:38 AM CDT, jadney@vwtype3.org <jadney@vwtype3.org> wrote:
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<div><div dir="ltr">Well, as many of you already know, Melissa and I drive to Tucson, AZ each fall, to visit our <br></div><div dir="ltr">daughter. We pick this time of year because the Tucson heat should start to be tolerable, and <br></div><div dir="ltr">we will still have time to drive home before the roads home get iced over. This year, we made <br></div><div dir="ltr">it to Liberal, KS [far SW corner of Kansas, almost certainly not actually liberal, so I kept my <br></div><div dir="ltr">political leanings under wraps] without difficulty, but our luck ran out there.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Following a perfectly nice dinner in downtown Liberal, our GPS got confused, and I stupidly <br></div><div dir="ltr">followed it into an alley, where I ran across what I can only describe as a "dry wash". A "dry <br></div><div dir="ltr">wash is a concrete paved dip in the road that is meant to carry water across on those rare <br></div><div dir="ltr">occasions when it rains: sort of an official gulley. This one would have been perfectly safe at <br></div><div dir="ltr">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></div><div dir="ltr">on the far side of the gulley.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Shortly thereafter I got a red dash warming light. The car continued to drive normally, so I <br></div><div dir="ltr">drove back to our motel parking lot, where Melissa found a slowly spreading puddle coming <br></div><div dir="ltr">out from under the front of our car. It was red and seemed oily, So I guessed it was ATF, but <br></div><div dir="ltr">our Golf Sportwagon does not have an AT; it has a DSG (Dual Shift Gearbox.) I don't know <br></div><div dir="ltr">what color the DSG fluid is. There's no body damage that I can see, and the plastic <br></div><div dir="ltr">underbody sheathing is intact, and I can see some areas where it's been in contact with <br></div><div dir="ltr">something, but I can't tell what's new from what's old.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Nevertheless, I'm thinking this is SERIOUS meaning $$$. And there's no VW dealership <br></div><div dir="ltr">nearby and almost no one that works on imports. This is Chevy/Ford country, with a few <br></div><div dir="ltr">Toyotas. <br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">It took over an hour to find the place in the owner's manual that mentions that warning light. It <br></div><div dir="ltr">doesn't come up under warning lights in the index. What I finally found was that this was a <br></div><div dir="ltr">general warning and that I'm also supposed to read the text that appears on the display. <br></div><div dir="ltr">Seems reasonable, but when I went back to look for the text, I found that the warning light <br></div><div dir="ltr">stays on, but the text disappears after about 2-3 seconds. <br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Finally, I got the text to reappear: "Check Cooling System." Okay, that sounds bad, but a little <br></div><div dir="ltr">less bad than before. I can see puddles on the bracket under the radiator. I find that I can <br></div><div dir="ltr">snake one arm down thru the tangle of hoses just far enough to get a finger on the lower <br></div><div dir="ltr">radiator hose nipple. It wiggles rather freely. We're gonna need a radiator.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">I start to look for VW dealers. Nothing close. I called the VW Roadside Assistance number <br></div><div dir="ltr">that's in our owner's manual stuff. They can get us a tow to the nearest dealer, which is in <br></div><div dir="ltr">Amarillo, TX, 182 miles away. The catch is that I'll still be paying for it, all $1300+ of it.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">I look around Liberal for towing services. There's one across the street from us. It's night, but <br></div><div dir="ltr">I walk over there to look it over and they have nice flatbeds. I also walk to a nearby auto <br></div><div dir="ltr">workshop. It appears to be surrounded by cars in bad shape that haven't moved in awhile.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">The towing place opens the next morning at 8; I'm there at 7:45 but the owner is there before <br></div><div dir="ltr">me. Nice old guy, family business: him, his wife, two sons. One son can haul us to Amarillo, <br></div><div dir="ltr">182 miles for just over $1000. He's giving me a bit of a break; otherwise it would be closer to <br></div><div dir="ltr">the VW Roadside Assistance price. My innate cheapness is bugging me, but I fear that I <br></div><div dir="ltr">could spend a few days and nights in Liberal and STILL have to be hauled to Amarillo. I give <br></div><div dir="ltr">in. We get to the Amarillo VW dealership at 1 that afternoon. I called them earlier in the hope <br></div><div dir="ltr">that they could be ready for us and have parts waiting.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Well, they were ready, but no parts. They finally admitted that they don't keep radiators in <br></div><div dir="ltr">stock. Nowit's the next morning and we're holed up in a local motel waiting for some/any <br></div><div dir="ltr">reassuring news. I just called this morning, and they finally have our car up on the rack where <br></div><div dir="ltr">someone can start looking at it, and figuring out what the repair is going to take. <br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">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></div><div dir="ltr">so. At some point we might wish we had rented a car to finish the trip and come back here in <br></div><div dir="ltr">a week or so. I called the friends we had planned to spend the next two nights with and <br></div><div dir="ltr">realized that if we had been in one of our Squarebacks, I'd have us back on the road the next <br></div><div dir="ltr">day at the latest. Old cars DO have their advantages!<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Sorry for the long post.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Wish us luck!<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">-- <br></div><div dir="ltr">*******************************<br></div><div dir="ltr">Jim Adney, <a href="mailto:jadney@vwtype3.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">jadney@vwtype3.org</a><br></div><div dir="ltr">Madison, Wisconsin, USA<br></div><div dir="ltr">*******************************<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">_______________________________________________<br></div><div dir="ltr">VWType3.Org mailing list - <a href="mailto:type3@vwtype3.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">type3@vwtype3.org</a><br></div><div dir="ltr">To unsubscribe or change subscription options, visit:<br></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org</a><br></div><div dir="ltr">If you need more help, contact: <a href="mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gregm@vwtype3.org</a><br></div></div>
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