On the 4th of July, I headed up from the LA area to go visit relatives in Northern Nevada. Elko, Nevada, to be specific. It is an approximately 650-mile drive. I spent the first night in Vegas and then finished my drive the following morning. Hanging with my family was very cool despite the obscenely hot weather over the course of this past week.
Yesterday, I started heading home. Because I was feeling more energetic and I was familiar with the drive, I was fairly determined to make the drive all the way home in one stretch. I left about 5:30 in the morning, and by 11:30, I was about 20 miles outside of Las Vegas. I was feeling great and excited to be able to get home in a single day. Silly me; my car had other ideas.
Shortly after I got to the 15, I heard a popping sound. And although I was able to maintain speed, I could no longer increase my acceleration going uphill, even when I was flooring the pedal. Mind you, this car is only four years old, a diesel Volkswagen Golf, and it normally laughs at hills. Very odd, but I kept hoping I was imagining it.
I continued to limp into Vegas, and by the time I hit the Strip, it was pretty clear that the situation was not my imagination at all. I rolled down the windows and tried to floor it again, but the car would hardly respond, and it was clear that the normal turbo “whine” I’m so used to hearing wasn’t present. I pulled over into a gas station, looked around and under the car for anything obvious (which, of course, I didn’t find), and then proceeded to call AAA. I stood outside in the 110-degree heat for about an hour with a soda and burger I’d acquired from the next-door Sonic to keep me company. Fortunately, there was a Volkswagen dealership in town, and it was actually within my towing distance limit. Once there with the car, I had to plead my out-of-town case to the service folks to get them to take a look at my car because they were already overloaded with vehicles in the shop. Ultimately, they took me in, but it was about two and a half hours of me sitting there before they were able to give me any kind of diagnosis. I was foolishly hoping that it might have been something minor that they could fix in time for me to still drive home that night.
Apparently, there’s a plastic hose that either leads to or away from the turbo that normally holds a great deal of air at high pressure. This hose popped off (the sound I heard on the freeway) which wouldn’t ordinarily be a big deal. But the plastic smashed against a belt which tore into the plastic and cracked it open. The hose now needed to be replaced because there was no way to seal the crack and guarantee that I’d make it back home.
So the dealership researches getting the part, which they don’t carry. Of course, neither does the one other dealership in the greater Vegas area. It has to be ordered from the warehouse, and they won’t receive it until Wednesday. No, there’s no way to rush it. They looked into possibly pulling the hose from one of their other customer’s car, but the turbo hose in their car is a different size than the hose for my diesel, of course. So after consulting with my wife, who is in London at the time, I decided to leave the car there rather than spending two days in Vegas twiddling my thumbs in a hotel room waiting for the car to be done (no, I didn’t have spare money to go gambling or catch a bunch of shows). This was at 4pm. The dealership was kind enough to drive me to the airport. I bought a plane ticket and flew home (after the 6pm, hour-long flight was delayed 90 minutes). I got home about 9:30. I will fly back to get it either tomorrow afternoon or first thing Thursday morning, depending on when the repair is complete.
So really, a couple of different feelings. It was obviously a long and extraordinarily frustrating day for me. I hate the fact that I had to leave my car in Vegas, and even more, I hate that I have to go back and then do the three-hour road trip to get it back home. The repairs are costing me $350, and the plane tickets are another $250. Certainly not the kind of unexpected expenses you want to incur AFTER blowing money on a vacation.
However, on the positive side, I was able to get some things done in and around the house that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I’d just sat around Vegas. And most importantly, I had driven 400+ miles through emptiness that entire morning before I got to Vegas. Had I broken down in Elko, or even worse, somewhere between Elko and Vegas, it’s unimaginable just how bad things would have been for me. The towing expense alone…I shudder to think about it.
So yes, I’m annoyed about how this went down. But at the same time, I have to tell myself how incredibly fortunate I was to have this happen where I was at the time.
May all of your cars and travels be free of trouble.
And clearly there are no substitutes for his hose.
