The bad road

[englishman11]

The freeway ate my car!

My bug fell into a pothole!

Apparently this pothole that I hit has been there for a long time and I've somehow never noticed it for the past 6 years. This of course is according to a couple of people who don't have to worry about bottoming out on anything and drive trucks with a really bumpy ride. They swear there's pot holes everywhere....

I was driving from Baker to Boise this last Sunday to visit a couple of friends. I had just finished some nice cleaning and mechanical work on my car and I was quite happy! It was running like a champ and looked the part too. I was kinda bummed that my paint had gotten chipped quite a bit over the last few years, but hey, it gives me another project . I like projects.

Just 5 miles out of town there's a bridge that the railroad runs under and when I drove over the bridge-highway joint the front of my car bottomed out! Right afterwards I heard a scraping noise and promptly pulled to the shoulder. I was RELIEVED to see nothing mechanical torn up, but the remainder of my skid plate was ripped to shreds being held in place by one torques screw. Ok, so that wasn't too bad.....until I looked at the passenger side wheel well and noticed a huge chunk had been torn out. To top it off, I had taken my torques screw driver out of my glove box some time previously and I had to fidget with it for a good 45 minutes with a pocket knife to get the carnage out of there. I did a quick scan of the underside and nothing looked bad. I started off and went on my way. (note this was right at dawn. I had also taken out my flashlight....talk about unprepared. oh well, lesson learned)

A couple of times before I got to my destination, I thought I heard scraping noises again, but passed it off as paranoia. I arrived at my friend's house and hung out for a few hours. When I was leaving, I thought I saw something laying under the front of my car. Sure enough, my passenger side fog light was there, beat all to hell. It had broken off when the skid plate did and fell out sometime afterwards. So I unplugged it, taped the wire in the hole and cried for a couple minutes .

That was my weekend. I checked under my car again yesterday morning and noticed a small dent in my oil pan. I checked it again this morning and it seems to be fine, nothing leaking, no cracks. I hope it's gonna be ok since I'd rather not have to replace an oil pan being without a garage as I am right now.

All this makes me leery of the winter months quickly approaching. I hope and pray that they are uneventful in terms of problems. It's gonna be a cold one.

And finally, if any of you that read this have an interesting road story involving your beloved vw, share it here!

[bluebeetlebabe]

got pics?

[SMG]

Aluminum skidplates FTW!

[dnyed]

It seems to me that the state is responsible for your damage? Have you reported this?

Potholes suck.

[Evanrude]

Originally Posted by dnyed

It seems to me that the state is responsible for your damage? Have you reported this?

Potholes suck.

What she said

Here in Washington state a few years back, these guys had been performing road maintanence on I-5. They were laying down new pavement, and in some areas had to cut sections out before laying the new stuff down.

So what did these geniuses do? Down by Woodland, WA there is a bridge you go up and over. The tech crew had peeled away the pavement *just* as you got to the bridge, leaving a 2" *step* that your car had to run up to get onto the bridge. So as I was heading down the road at the speed limit, 70 mph, I just hit this sudden 2" lip and my entire car bounce into the air.

I was driving a Dodge Colt ( Mitsubishi Mirage ) at the time. Bent both front wheels. The state had to pay for it because their guys had not finished the job. It was a serious road hazard and I'm sure they had more than one complaint. If someone on a motorcycle had hit it, it would kill them :P

[englishman11]

I'll try to get some pics up tomorrow morning after work. And yes, and aluminum skid plate will be in the near future with a bit of luck.

And I think the state is responsible for it too, there's no signs, nothing. Trying do deal with people in Oregon is a headache, but if it saves me money I'm persistent .

I'm still waiting for a call back from the state, don't think they'll get to me before work (in 20 minutes...) so I get to call them again tomorrow I guess.