that’s whacked

an epic day, indeed…. and a renewed faith in customer service

Sunday, Jan 27. 2008  –  Category: Cars, Outdoors

wendy and i headed up to tahoe this weekend for a fun, weekend snowboarding. the snow promised to be fantastic with a storm having dumped fresh powder all thursday & friday.

we left saturday morning, and everything was going great until my engine imploded somewhere going up the donner pass. all of a sudden my power sapped, i heard a whooshing sound, and i was flooring the engine going about 30mph up the pass. initially i thought a vacuum tube had broken and i’d lost my turbo or something - but realised that full-throttle going 30mph in 2nd gear was something bigger than that. i nursed it up to the summit of the pass, gave much thanks when i saw the “steep descent/downhill next 5 miles” and brought the car limping into a gas station/mechanic in Truckee.

the service guy there asked me turn the engine on so he could hear what was wrong and had me immediately turn it off after 1 second. “i’ll save you the $95 diagnostic: your engine’s blown, it’ll need a rebuild. tow it to your favourite dealer or mechanic”.

ouch.

he pulled the oil dipstick and showed me metal flakes in the oil indicating something inside the engine went nuts and blew chunks. sigh.

we called some people, checked out our options, and eventually decided to tow the car to Incline Village, rent a U-Haul + auto trailer, and tow my Audi back to Oakland.

so this is normally where i’d be pissed and annoyed; but instead i was actually pretty happy and satisfied. i was expecting people around every corner trying to rip us off, instead what i got was the following…

i called AAA and asked for a tow to Incline Village, the operator said my basic membership only covered 5 miles, and each additional mile was $7. i got off the phone and asked the service guy how far from Truckee to Incline Village. he said about 20-25 miles so that would have been about a $140 tow! he then suggested upgrading to AAA Plus which would get me 100 miles of free towing.

i called AAA back and asked very clearly “my car is dead. i’m stuck and need a tow. can i upgrade to AAA Plus right now and have it take effect immediately for a further tow?”

3 minutes, and a credit card charge of $16.73 later, and i was AAA Plus member being told to expect a tow truck driver in the next 45 minutes. sweet! we were a little worried though because the U-Haul closed at 1pm (by this time it was 11:49).

5 minutes later, a tow truck showed up. 1 minute after that, i got an automated call from AAA saying to expect my driver in 5-10 minutes. awesome. @ 12:20, we were on our way - and the tow truck driver got us into the U-Haul right on the dot at 1pm…

… where the U-Haul guy was holding up shop waiting for us, having already gotten the truck and the trailer ready leaving enough room in the parking lot for the tow truck to unload my Audi.

we unloaded, got it secured on the trailer, and went upstairs to sign paperwork where he gave us a discount, gave us his card and said give him a call next time and he’d hook us up with Diamond Peak discount tickets. at 1:34 we were leaving the U-Haul on our way back to the Bay Area.

so, all in all - yes, the day sucked. yes the weekend sucked. my car needs a new engine. we didn’t get to snowboard. and i spent 10 hours driving up to Tahoe and back yesterday.

but because every single person whom we encountered: the mechanic, the AAA operator, the tow truck driver, and the U-Haul guy were so amazingly helpful, and sympathetic… i’m left surprisingly happy with a renewed faith in customer service.

… and wendy’s happy because i think this qualifies as a settlement to our running debate as to whose car we should sell to buy the Audi TT we want as our next car. i think we’re going to sell the A4.

grumpy and crappy morning

Friday, Jan 18. 2008  –  Category: Cars

so far this day has gone stellar and it’s only 8:37am. wendy got paged at 4 o’clock in the f-ing morning because her patient had hiccups.

hiccups?!?!?

seriously. wtf.

my carpool ride into work was a Land Rover (nice) with a girl blasting crazy loud evangelical christian music (which is just wonderful when you’re groggy and tired :().

normally i try to be painfully polite on my carpool rides. i know i’m getting a free ride into work. but damnit, she’s getting free toll and a faster drive in too. it works both ways. everybody is supposed to be polite and conscientious of each other. this is why people are generally quiet, and the radio is tuned to NPR

i tried to tune it out by putting on my headphones and browsing facebook/digg on my iPhone… to which the driver told me that i “was being rude, and if i wanted to read - there was a Bible next to me”

seriously. again, wtf.

i couldn’t help it, i was just too grumpy and tired and sleepy.

sorry. i don’t read fiction.

we then sat in strained awkward silence for the rest of the 20 minute drive into work.

to top it all off, once i got into the city, Peets had no soy milk. sigh

brakes? i don’t need no stinkin’ brakes…

Monday, Dec 11. 2006  –  Category: Cars

when it rains it pours. after plunking in a bunch of cash to have a room remodeled, and some new hardwood laid down in our master bedroom, and seeing my bank account depleted…. what else should i expect but something in my car to die.

this one manifested itself by way of intermittently flashing my ABS & parking brake lights about twice a week accompanied by three high piercing beeps.

consulting my usual audi mailing lists resulted in a spot-on diagnosis of my ABS controller failing.

doh. i called up a couple mechanics and audi shops… $2000 for a new ABS controller. yikes!

googling around, and fleeing back to the audi mailing lists gave me a pointer to ModuleMaster, who have a good record of rebuilding ABS controller modules. so Sunday morning, i followed these two very good guides:

• bba-reman

• audiworld’s tech article

and spent a total of about 1.5 hours removing my ABS controller.

the only notes i would add are:

• it’s far far easier to remove the pump hose to the windshield washer tank and drain the tank. when you try to be wily and crafty like i did, you only end up having to move around a much heavier tank, only to watch it fall, unplug itself and start draining windshield washer fluid all over the driveway while you desperately try to shove the bucket under the car before the beagles start drinking it all. do yourself a favour: just drain it

• disconnecting the power coupler is not obvious at first. it’s much easier if you slip a flat screwdriver into the gap and leverage it back against the power coupler to slide the pull out. once you have the pull all the way out, then the coupler just pops off nice and smooth.

anyway, my car is still driveable… i just have no ABS. and boy is it unhappy. when i turn it on, i’m greeted by a cacophony of flashing lights and beeps (windshield washer fluid empty, ABS controller failure, brake failure, etc. etc.) which i suppose is to be expected given that i essentially gave my car’s computer a frontal lobotomy.