Welp... we'll see if i can make that meet next month after all. Last night i was in a 3 car wreck on the Golden Gate Bridge, and my car got the brunt of the damage. Wanna know the funny thing.... the first thing i did was look down at the empeg after making sure i was alive, and saw that the status led was off, i pulled it out and pushed it back in, and nothing! You don't know my relief when i got home and plugged it in and it booted up....PHEW.... My car on the other hand.... (see attached)


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

Wow... bummer Loren. Looks like it may be fixable... depends what your insurance company says...

Hey, if you need a ride to our meet, let me know! ...if you can handle my driving that is... ;-)

- Jon

John, you're high. That's a totaled car you're looking at in that photo. There's no way that's fixable. Loren, I hope your insurance sees it the same way and compensates you well enough to get you a proper new car.

Loren, as someone who's lived through that sort of thing before, I offer my deepest sympathies to you.

Look on the bright side, though: You can re-do that whole fancy installation even better in your next car. I just wish we could have seen it in its current state at the meet next month.

___________
Tony Fabris

Argh, i dunno, i have no way of telling whether they are gonna total it or not. It's at an auto body shop right now that is gonna check it out Monday. The more i think about it the more i'm thinking i should declare it a loss. Even if they repair it it'll never be the same... something's always gonna be wrong with it...and the resale value is shot. Why oh why didn't i just go with the first plan of action and have it towed to a salvage yard. The engine doesn't look damaged at all, just the radiator...but i don't know enough about frames and such to know if it is gone. Hmph...the worst is that i have to wait til monday to find out what's going on.

Jon, thanks a million for the offer, i might just have to take you up on it.

Tony, thanks for the sympathy... Here's to hoping i have something to reinstall into VERY soon. Taking the bus to work is gonna SUCK, it isn't a short trip. My insurance company seems to be really good about all this, so we'll see. Right now my subs and amps and wires are sitting next to me on the floor...a depressing sight to say the least. =]


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

Yes, I may indeed be high ;-) but I've seen worse looking accidents get fixed. I had a tree crush my car like a grape that I had fixed and was surprisingly done so well that I couldn't tell it was done!

Don't worry Loren, these things work out one way or another. You sure that your insurance company won't get you a rental while this stuff is working out?

- Jon

In reply to:

---

Look on the bright side, though: You can re-do that whole fancy installation even better in your next car.

---

Hmmmm.

I'd say "Look on the bright side, though: You walked away from it."

The most important thing is that Loren's OK. The Empeg (as nice as it is) comes waaaaaaay down the list.

Nick.


--
18Gb blue (now AR red) - s/n 080000299 (original queue position 8724)

Even if they repair it it'll never be the same...

That is not necessarily the case.

I couldn't tell a whole lot from your picture. If the damage is pretty much confined to the right front corner of the car, there is every chance that the car can be repaired to your complete satisfaction. Modern body shops have alignment racks that can make certain your wheels are located exactly where they are supposed to be. Once that happens, everything else is cosmetic, assuming there is no structural damage to the unibody (your car doesn't have a "frame" as such).

My "new" car (new to me, I bought it used) was in a relatively serious accident some time before I bought it, which I was unaware of. I only found out when the detailer pointed out to me that the air bag covers had sun-faded to a slightly different shade of gray than the rest of the trim (I had never noticed that myself) indicating that the air bags had deployed. With that as a clue, I then found in the engine compartment the slightest hint of paint overspray and a tiny wrinkle in the sheet metal of the radiator support bracket.

So, am I distressed that my precious "new" station wagon was wrecked sometime in its past? Not in the least. It looks, handles, and drives perfectly. The repairs were obviously done by a competent body shop with an incentive to do the job right. The difficulty, of course, is finding such a shop to do the work on your car.

I know it's easy for me to be glib and say this, but a year from now you'll look back on this incident and realize that it wasn't all that big a deal. You crunched some sheet metal on an automobile -- the important thing is (as debauch said) you weren't hurt.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Nah, we don't care about Loren, only the hardware.

(Just kidding, yes, we're all glad you're OK.)

___________
Tony Fabris

Well, now that we know Loren's all right (the only really important thing, of course), may I suggest you, in case your car gets totaled, as you like hatchbacs, get a VW Golf?
Please pardon me if I get a little fanatic, but after having being born in a 72' Beetle, and after a lifetime aboard many (and I mean many) differently branded cars, I still get some strange feelings with my VWs, like if they were perfect... but maybe it's just me. Anyway, the Golf IV is a very fine car, "the most refined hatchback made to date" , as Car and Driver once stated. Make sure you get the new 1.8 Turbo in-line four, if you like rev-crazed engines, too.

In reply to:

---

get a VW Golf?

---

I'll second that. My car here (Switzerland) is an eighteen month old Golf 2.0 cabriolet and our car in England is a four month old Golf 1.9 GT TDi. Both of them are brilliant cars - Absolutely no regrets buying them at all. Just a shame the cabriolet isn't available with the new body/interior.

Nick.


--
18Gb blue (now AR red) - s/n 080000299 (original queue position 8724)

Hmmmm.
I'd say "Look on the bright side, though: You walked away from it."
The most important thing is that Loren's OK. The Empeg (as nice as it is) comes waaaaaaay down the list.

My thoughts exactly. Are you completely OK, Loren? No sore neck from whiplash, strained tendons, bruised knees...? They certainly seem to know how to make impact absorbing zones nowadays, luckily!

Good luck with insurance, next car et al!

Cheers!



Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Sod TDi's and GTis, if your going to get a golf, get a VR6. 2.8 engine, in golf body, with everything you can think of. Vroom! Very very fast. My 1.4 golf is nice enough, but the VR6 is just the dogs bollocks.

"Even if they repair it it'll never be the same... "

Loren,
If they don't total the car be certain that the body shop uses OEM parts. You may have to fight a bit to get them (the body shop may make less off your insurance company this way) but they are the best by a mile. My wife's car was damaged pretty badly (95 EX Civic), but since it had high book & low miles they repaired it. The right front quarter panel sounds like a cheap piece of tin when you knock on it, much different than the original left hand side. The light on the right cannot be aimed properly either & I noticed too late to do anything about it. Consumer reports did an article on this subject a while back, it may be on the 'net somewhere. Be sure to ask your insurance company for OEM parts. Good luck.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Good advice. I had a similar experience with my wife's Honda Accord a few years back. The body shop used an aftermarket bumper that didn't line up properly.

We noticed it at delivery time, and refused delivery until the problem was corrected. They took it back and did it right the second time.

As I understand it, you have every legal right to make the insurance company pay for original parts, although they may instruct the body shop to use aftermarket parts.

___________
Tony Fabris

You sure that your insurance company won't get you a rental while this stuff is working out?

Yeah, of course, i waived that extra 5 dollar a month fee or something, so no rental car for me.

Are you completely OK, Loren? No sore neck from whiplash, strained tendons, bruised knees...?

Thanks for all the "glad you're okays"... i appreciate it. After it sunk in and i was staring at the wreck, i realized how mild it felt. I didn't even think about the danger i had been exposed to because the hit was less than backing into a curb...they really design those crumple zones well. That, and that my car went under the car in front of me (a four door Civic) helped lessen the impact. I don't even remember feeling the seat belt lock.

may I suggest you, in case your car gets totaled, as you like hatchbacs, get a VW Golf?

Yup... If it is the case that they total it.... I'm gonna have some tough choices to make. If i get a NEW car, that is exactly what i was gonna get. A VR6. 2.8 engine Golf....mmmm. I drove a old style bug all through high school, and i know that VW feeling that Reggie's talking about. A friend of mine took me for a spin in his and damn...those things have some pickup. If i ended up not being able to afford a new car, i'm fairly positive i'd buy another Civic Si. I loved that car...it's one of my favorite body shapes ever... i have no idea why.

If they don't total the car be certain that the body shop uses OEM parts.

Thanks for the tip!!!!! I hadn't even thought about it, i assumed that they just would. I'll definitely get on them about that tomorrow when i find out what's gonna happen.

Ugh, it all hinges on tomorrow... Either i sit back and wait for my car to get fixed ... or i have to go car shoppin'. Waiting is hell.

Pics of the entire incident are up here. Notice the shots of the stopped traffic, both ways for 5 minutes while the tow truck came, and me on the cell phone talking to my insurance company. There are shots of the car in front of me as well, only minor scratches, no dents. Amazin' eh? She slammed on her brakes to stop WAY short of the car in front of her, and i hit the brakes, which quickly locked up (ABS my ass) and slid into her. Nothing i coulda done, but i'm sure it'll be called my fault. Ah well...higher insurance here i come.

Thanks again guys. =]


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

Yep! VW's are nice cars. (Golf and Bora's (or Jetta - how they are called in the USA) are even quite sportive).
My girlfriend has a Golf, too and is quite pleased with it.
The only thing I don't really like too much about it is that they are more expensive than others.
e.g. I compared the prices between the VW Passat TDI and the Peogeot 406 HDI with the same interior (automatic air-condition, ...)
and ended up with the Peogeot with a price 18% better than the VW...

I'd like to have an A6 2.5 TDI or the new released A4, too (but the A4 is a bit small...)

However - good luck in finding a new car!

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

Yes, VWs are sometimes too expensive for what they offer. But it's only in the long term when you really begin to appreciate the efforts made by these folks to make even economic cars feel like up-scale. That's why I recommend people to ask VW owners about the cars, not those salesmen at the dealers.

My only comment about the Golf/GTi line is this:

They are great fun little cars. But they last exactly ten years and then they start to fall apart, one piece at a time.

The things that started to go wrong with mine at the ten-year mark were all related to individual parts that have about a ten-year lifespan. Generally, little plastic bits that (if longevity had been a design goal) should have been made of metal. For example, a plastic section of the shift linkage that tolerated about ten years of weather before failing, but would still be going strong if it had been made of metal. Or the plastic power-steering fluid reservior that cracked and leaked after ten years.

Those are all just nickel-and-dime things, though. The thing that's always held true for old VW's is that they will nickel-and-dime you to death. I knew this in 1988 when I got my GTi new, but I bought it anyway because it was a fantastically fun car. And I'm glad I did-- I enjoyed that car very much in the 12-or-so years that I owned it.

___________
Tony Fabris

They are great fun little cars. But they last exactly ten years and then they start to fall apart, one piece at a time.

I remember reading somewhere about the design philosophy of the first Fords (this is from memory so it may not be entirely accurate): everything in the car should break at approximately the same time. If the life of two parts is vastly different, then either one of them is not good enough OR the other is too good and therefore too expensive. So they would often redesign some parts to be cheaper but still last at least as long as the rest of the car. Sounds logical but somewhat disturbing...

These days cars are supposed to last forever but you should still buy the newest model every two or three years. Bah.

Borislav

They are great fun little cars. But they last exactly ten years and then they start to fall apart, one piece at a time.

Isn't that the same thing with every brand?

The 1st car I had was a '81 VW Polo. after 10 years age it was over and over full with rust, the engine just didn't want to work any more sometimes...
The 2nd car was a Mitsubishi Colt '87. after 10 years age the gear-shift started to break and had to be repaired and the starter engine was not too well, too. Till there was a wall in a dead-man's curve..
The 3rd car was a '89 Toyota Carina MkII (like the empeg ). I had it just for 1 1/2 year so there was not too much time for something to break...till I was back ended on the highway with a speed of 150 km/h (95 mph)...
The 4th car was a '92 Daihatsu Charade (don't know if this car is known in the USA.) It's something like an elevator with 4 tires. Really VERY small. I had it till last year. 3 of 4 suspensions broke... then my girlfriend got my Daihatsu and parked it in front of a train... (luckily she was not sitting in it any more!)

So no good luck for all of my cars... hopefully my new one will last longer.

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

They are great fun little cars. But they last exactly ten years and then they start to fall apart, one piece at a time.

Isn't that the same thing with every brand?

Shut up. I have a 1990 Volvo 740. I've had it for 6 months, one problem so far (the starter motor died one day). Too early to say anything but at least by reputation these things are supposed to last forever if you take good care of them. The previous (first) owner did, I'm doing so too. We'll see.

Borislav

I remember reading somewhere about the design philosophy of the first Fords (this is from memory so it may not be entirely accurate): everything in the car should break at approximately the same time. If the life of two parts is vastly different, then either one of them is not good enough OR the other is too good and therefore too expensive.

The other thing I heard about this, is that if one part is vastly better engineered than its neighbour, say it's more rigid, then the neighbouring part will wear out faster than if everything was cheap and flexible -- 'cos the flexible part takes all the wear.

The story I heard involved Ford engineers picking through dead Fords in scrapyards, seeing which components hadn't ever failed, and then deliberately making those parts cheaper and more crap in the next production run.

Peter

OK - maybe swedish cars (Vovlo, Saab) are different

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

ARRRGH... Insurance companies move slower than molasses in a freezer. I got an estimate from the body shop yesterday... $5100, and they said they were going to tear it down some more for a "more detailed" estimate, which sounds bad. Yeesh. So now i won't know 'til Thursday what the situation is. Just spoke with the Ins. company and they are saying it's probably a total loss, but it's borderline. Honestly, at this point, i'd be glad for them to fix it and i can go along my merry way without another headache of new car shopping. But, I'm already looking around online for used Civic SI's.. and people are asking way high prices. Not to mention the SI hatchbacks are damn near impossible to find.

Do I want a car note.... that's the question... I'm fairly sure the answer's NuhUh. Waiting is so painful...it reminds me of waiting for my empeg from customs! Only, in this case i don't know if it's going to arrive in tiny pieces or not.


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

they are great fun little cars. But they last exactly ten years and then they start to fall apart, one piece at a time.

The newest car I own is eight years old now. The oldest car is going on 32 years. (That one is a 1969 Toyota Land Cruiser that has spent its whole life as a plow truck.) My daily driver is 15 years old.

Every one of my cars costs me more in maintenance than a brand new car under warranty would cost, but my total cost of operation is only a tiny fraction of that of a new car. When I am not paying $250 a month for car payments, and maybe $60 a month for collision insurance (I carry liability and comprehensive insurance only) and am not losing another $200 a month in depreciation and am not paying interest on a car loan... y'know, I can afford to do a hell of a lot of maintenance. I recently paid nearly $1000 for head gasket repair (ironically on my newest car!) and smiled when I wrote the check.

I figure it costs me less than $2000 a year to own and drive my newest car. That's for car payments and interest ($0.00), repairs (being generous with a $100 per month average), insurance, gasoline, oil (synthetic oil and filter every 5,000 miles, filter only every 2500 miles), and tires, and depreciation. That works out to about 10 cents per mile. Check on the statistics of what it costs to buy and drive a new car (say one in the $30,000 category) and most estimates I have seen come in between $1.10 and $1.50 per mile.

And of course, my 1993 Ford Taurus Station Wagon is far superior to one of those upstart BMWs or Mercedes, right? (Actually, it is a nice car -- comfortable, very quiet, reasonably fast, and soon to be very fast with a complete SHO powertrain transplant!)

So let it fall apart piece by piece -- those pieces are dirt cheap compared to what it costs to run a car that doesn't fall apart. The only things that count in my book are (a) How satisfied am I with the car itself; and (b) how much does it cost to operate.

tanstaafl.


"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Ah! and I thought my car-wrecking resume was impressive
Anyway, my own list:
- An 87' VW Gol GT (yes, Gol, not Golf. It's a Braslian built model) . Too racy fot a guy just learning to drive.
- An 81' Subaru GLF-5 sedan (terrible brakes)
- An 89' Izuzu Gemini. Doesn't take turns when road gets muddy .
- My beloved 89' Chevy Blazer (rear-ended a bus, 100 kg solid steel defense-and-winch saved the day)
- And my dear 97' Huyndai Accent, two small hits.
- My Golf IV is intact , and I intend to keep it that way.

Anyone out there REALLY into engine mods? Check out this '93 Civic Si i'm looking at and tell me what you think.... Guy wants 13k....

http://www.geocities.com/dohcturbosi/civictb/

95 B18B Refereed Engine. Swapped in June 2000. 8K miles on Built Motor
Fully polished Valve Cover
JE Forged Piston 8.5:1 Compression
Crower Billet Connecting Rods
JG Big Bore Throttle Body
AEM Exhaust Cam Sprocket
Clutch Master Stage III Clutch.
Tanabe Racing Medallion Catback Exhaust System
CatCo High Flow Cat
Custom Flex Piped Cat Bypass

Drag Gen II Turbo Kit w/ Polished Intercooler and HKS Super Sequential BOV
Holley 255lph intank fuel pump
APEXi AVC-R Boost Controller
Field SFC-Hyper Fuel Controller
MSD 6AL Ignition and Blaster 3 Coil
Greddy Turbo Timer
Greddy Boost Gauge and Autometer Air/Fuel.
Twin Gauge Full Pillar

Clear Corner lamp w/ Super white Bulb.
Cool Blue Superwhite Headlamp
95 Acura Integra Front Seats
Momo Shift Knobs

H&R Intega Springs w/ Tokico Illumina 5 ways Adjustable
Ingrall Engineering Camber Front Camber Kit
Eibach Sway bars 26mm Front / 22 mm Rear
Zspeed Strut Tower Brace Front Upper and Rear Upper
Powerstop Cross Drill Front Brake Rotors

Clifford Intelliguard 8000 Alarm w/ 2 Stage Motion Sensor
Clarion Pro Audio Tape deck w/ Pro Audio 6 Disk Changer
Clarion Digital Equalizer
Rockford Fosgate Punch 60 Amplifier
Rockford Fosgate 260X Amplifier
KEF 6.5" Component Speaker Set w/ Altec Lansing Tweeters
Infinity Kappa 5.25" Coaxial Speakers
Kicker Competition 10" in seal enclosure

Work RSDelta 16x7 w/ Brand New Yokahama A520 205/45VR16
Zspeed Aluminum lugnuts.

2-Brand New Rota Circuit 8 15x6.5 (11 lbs. each) w/ MT 22x8x15 Slicks.


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

not much for the specs, but just how fast can a 4-banger go?

Smells awefully ricey to me!

Smoker_Man
#080000449 MkII - 36Gb Blue

>>They are great fun little cars. But they last exactly ten years and then they start to fall apart, one piece at a time.

>Isn't that the same thing with every brand?

No way,

My 85 SUBARU Leone 4x4 Station Wagon is what, 6 years older then 10, and with only 310,000Kms on the clock the mechanics are fine, no failing suspension here despite the fact that it has spent the last 6 winters climbing up and down rocky mountain faces on it's way to the ski field.

Living out on the street in the elements is taking it's toll though, it's starting to develop cancer :(

There's a good reason subaru hold allot of world endurance records for production vehicles IMO.

I figure when i get back from my worldly travels i will replace it with a nice 89 Subaru Omega/Leone fulltime 4x4 turbo with diff lock, height adjustable suspension etc. Pity you can't get those without stupid electric windows though.

first of all, "Clarion Pro Audio Tape deck w/ Pro Audio 6 Disk Changer " is a joke as we can all attest to:)

like smoker man said, it is a pretty ricey car, but the stuff in there sounds nice. holly, crower, JE, MSD are all good names in engine parts. the turbo is nice, but again, like smoker man said, how fast can a 4 banger really go? if you like it, it looks like the guy put alot of work into it with some quality parts. i just wouldn't go for something like that. give me a camaro with a v8 any day.

jeremy


12 gig, green...