Re: alfa-digest V7 #871

[Pottree@domain.elided]

In a message dated 7/9/99 11:25:31 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:

<< Last night, driving home I hit a huge f*****g hole in the road where the
 city had done some
 work. They had thrown some asphalte over the thing, but it was pretty deep.
 
 Anyways, to keep it short, the car slammed the bump so hard, that the oil
 pan smacked the ground >>

Wow, I can really empathize, Frank.  Something similar happened when I had 
the 71 spider -- twice!

Once, I drove the car to a meeting in an office building with a subterranean 
garage.  Coming out of the brilliant CA sun into the pitch-dark garage down a 
steep ramp, what should I encounter by surprise at the bottom but a massive 
speed bump, attractively painted black to match the surrounding pavement.  
Ripped the oil pan right off and left quite an oil slick at the base of the 
ramp coming into the garage.  As I recall, after the meeting I pushed the car 
somehow back to street level, across a main road, and into a service station 
where they kindly let me leave it until a tow truck could arrive to take it 
to my Alfa mechanic for major surgery.

Another time, my BW was driving the spider and went through an intersection a 
little too fast.  Here in Los Angeles some intersections have deep rain 
channels in the road instead of storm drains, and this was one of them. The 
front end made it OK but the back end bounced up then down so hard she heard 
a loud noise when she hit the pavement coming across the channel.  She turned 
around and drive home (about 2 blocks) and we discovered she had -- dented 
the gas tank!  This went beyond the cosmetic, because an impact sufficient to 
dent the tank, we felt, could have cracked it, split a seam, or worse, and we 
Don't Believe In Fooling Around With Gasoline.  So, we had it replaced.

As long as YOU are around to repair the car it's not really so terrible.  
While it's being fixed, are you going to speak to your city about the road 
hazard they left behind and how cripplingly sore your back and neck may 
become as a result?

Just asking.

Charlie
LA, CA, USA

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