Lateral-g Forums - Has this ever happened to you?

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congrats on the MBA - got mine from UCLA-Anderson in 2005 and what a LOT of work...

I NEVER let my car out of my sight - I wouldn't even drop it off at a shop frankly - and my car is a race car. I would personally trailer it to alignment shops before I bought/made all the stuff to do it myself and would stand there until it was done.

On a pseudo-similar note, I sold my 1970 Mustang fastback I had for years to pay for college to get my BSME in the late 90s to a guy in FL. SEVENTEEN days later it showed up to his house and he called me all fired up - it wasn't running right and the rear tires were bald! I am not kidding, 17 days later and beat to Hell. The timing had been retarded and the carb was way out of adjustment apparently after he checked everything out. I had pics of the car on the truck the day they picked it up to at least confirm the tires were not remotely bald when it left.

That is the the second time I ever let the car out of my sight and that was the clincher. The other time prior I had a shop do some front end work before I learned how to do it myself, and they didn't install a key on the tie rod end of one side... etc etc it comes apart and the front turns both ways on the 22 fwy to 57 ramp in Orange and shut that down interchange for awhile...

That has happened to me 3 different times. I stopped putting front spoilers on the car after a while because everytime it would need a tow it cost me $110 in addition to the cost of the tow to replace the front spoiler that they would always break. I got tired of it.

Now I have learned to request a flat bed with 2 long pieces of wood to help get the angle down to a minimum when it goes on. I also fabricated and installed a front tow hook (which I had to use during the Good Guys show in Del Mar.

Here she is stuck on the 5 freeway outside of San Diego after a broken throttle cable left me stranded:

http://i44.tinypic.com/2zdzitj.jpg

Here she goes onto the flat bed:

http://i40.tinypic.com/2mfgarn.jpg

Sucks to hear about the oil pan though. I'm damn sure the tow company has insurance to cover that sort of thing. Fix it yourself and bill them for it. I wouldn't trust them to do the repair properly or in a clean enough environment to not cause more damage to the car. In fact after they did it that should have been the last time they ever touch your car. Now they owe you for time, materials and parts to correct their mistake.

Tyler

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mkelcy (Post 208517)

I feel bad for you, but I don't understand how a flatbed ever tears out the oil pan, unless it hangs way below the front cross member. If it does, you may want to change the type of oil pan while you're at it. This may have been a relatively harmless warning.

Yeah, that's the part I can't get---it's a stock pan---I could understand if the sump was below the crossmember, and frankly would have warned the guy. After talking to my friend who owns the shop it was towed to for the alignment, he said the guy had hooked the tow cables really far back on the car---he suspects that when he tightened the cables, the slack part of the cable had no where to go but through the pan---it's wierd since it appears to have basically ripped off the rear part of the sump off. It's just par for the course. The way things typically go, this will get fixed, then the trans will drop out on my way to graduation--LOL. A bit of luck, they are going to pay for everything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vegas69 (Post 208514)

I've had my car on the flat bed a couple times. You must remove the front spoiler first and watch the drivers every move. That includes riding with them to the destination. They are used to hooking up big piles of crap and you have to instruct them to use towels around the wheels and not use a chain on your freshly painted frame or control arms.:willy: Could be worse, you could have flunked out of college too. The car is a fairly easy fix .It's supposed to be fun rememberr.:rofl:

It was actually fun, up till this point. The one time I deviated from using my own trailer----

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFRESH (Post 208623)

Yeah, that's the part I can't get---it's a stock pan---I could understand if the sump was below the crossmember, and frankly would have warned the guy. After talking to my friend who owns the shop it was towed to for the alignment, he said the guy had hooked the tow cables really far back on the car---he suspects that when he tightened the cables, the slack part of the cable had no where to go but through the pan---it's wierd since it appears to have basically ripped off the rear part of the sump off. It's just par for the course. The way things typically go, this will get fixed, then the trans will drop out on my way to graduation--LOL. A bit of luck, they are going to pay for everything.

It almost has to be somthing like this. I'd still make sure the pan is tucked well behind the crossmember. Some of the big brand name pans aren't good for this.

When you call a towing/flatbed company ask them if they're used to towing Corvettes. Apparently it's some sort of an industry thing where they know you have a low car and certain flatbed models just aren't designed to handle a vehicle that's low to the ground.

Congrats on the MBA!