A tale of frustration and gratitude [car problems - long]

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.

Wow. Talk about an eventful vacation. Hope it all goes well, but like you also pointed out, it could have been a LOT worse.

Things like this are exactly why I opted for AAA plus. 100 miles of towing! Look into It, it’s only marginally more expensive then regular membership.

Good luck with your car.

We had a brake hose rupture on our minivan in Missoula, Montana. Fortunately, it happened about three blocks from a dealer, who was able to fix it in a couple hours.

Even more fortunately, it ruptured in Missoula, rather than later–the next part of our trip took us over Lolo Pass, and I shudder to think about losing our brakes in the mountains…

Wow, I don’t know much about your specific vehicle, but I think you could have rigged up some exhaust pipe and radiator hose well enough to get you home. Heck, you probably could have just used radiator hose…that stuff stands up to 15psi pretty easily, and I don’t think a turbodiesel typically pushes more than that.

No idea, crazyjoe. The dealership said there was nothing they could do to rig it for me to get home, and knowing very little about cars and even less about turbos specifically, I took their word for it.

At any rate, as an update, I just got home from Vegas. I flew out this afternoon, picked up the car around 4:15, and after an hour-long traffic delay from road construction on the 15, got home at 8:30.

I’m just glad to be home with the car, honestly.

I’m thinking of some long, hot, and dry stretches of highway along the desert floor with nothing on either side of them but anti-tank trap sized gullies & holes that I drove past which were 10 miles (maybe 20?) outside of Vegas 10 years ago. I remember some people telling us to always keep 2 litres of water in the car ‘just in case’. I don’t remember if the celltower coverage was good back then, but I sure hope it is now.

You managed to roll a broken car into a place with food, water, shelter and repair facilities (which were open on holiday weekend). I’m pretty sure that you hit a Vegas jackpot.

As long as you’re breathing, you can always make more money somehow.

Rad hose is not nearly large enough diameter wise to use for this.

Thank you for the kick in the pants. I just went on-line and signed up. My car is getting older and I am starting to get worried about crapping out on the highway somewhere.

Good explanation to your wife on why you needed to raid the bank account to get “your hose taken care of” on the outskirts of Vegas.

Hmm…that’s interesting. Is there something about turbodiesels that make them substantially different from gasoline turbo engines? When I had an Eagle Talon, it was common practice to replace some of the plastic pipe, which flexed a lot and had restrictions in it, with a combination of exhaust pipe and radiator hose.

How big is the hose we are talking about here?

Bwah. :eek: :stuck_out_tongue: And clearly there are no substitutes for his hose.

Well I am not familar with a VW TDI, but going off of Volvo turbo engines, the intake to the turbo is about 3.5-4" in diameter, the outlet about 3" The inside diameter of a rad hose on that car is about 1.5"
Maybe, just maybe if you got the rad hose of a Kenworth, it might fit. I highly doubt that any VW dealership in the world stocks Kenworth radiator hoses.

You know, the “funny” thing is that I renewed my membership about four days before taking the trip, and I took a serious look at adding the plus membership. But I thought, nah, I don’t want to spend the extra forty bucks, and it’s not all that likely I’ll break down in the middle of nowhere. :rolleyes: Of course, now that I’m back in civilization, I probably won’t think about it again until the next road trip. The one nice thing I know about AAA is that if I do decide to add it on later, they’ll prorate the amount based on how much of my membership time is left.

Believe me, I’m extremely appreciative. Just for the record, though, I was coming back through Vegas this past Monday, so there was no holiday weekend factored into it, at least. Although I may add that to the story as the years go by. :slight_smile:

Crimeny, man! You couldn’t have suggested this to me before I left?! :wink: