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Cuz I'm officially elligible for membership if it exists... =( Anyway, I'm ok, Z's ok, but its gonna need some work. I'll post pictures tomorrow after my father-in-law downloads them from his digital camera and e-mails them to me. Mostly cosmetic, so its nothing too horrible, but... I pretty much slide down the shoulder in a span just wide enough for my Z to miss every major object/obstacle that could have caused major damage. Probably going to go take pictures of where I slid off the road to make it easier to explain. Kinda hard to imagine it in after reading it in words if you've never been to the spot I slid off at. Anyway, I'll try and give a low down on what happened. First off, I'm almost 100% positive that my tires were 80% of the problem and the remaining 20% was just shear idiosy on my part. Tires were 245/50/16 Futura's with a treadwear rating of 460!! I'm CURSING myself for not having bought those Kumho Ecsta's when I had the cash... grrr. So anyway... I was driving down Route 100 East in Maryland towards Glen Bernie, took the exit to I95 South towards Washington to head home to my in-laws place around 4am Sunday Morning. We had just finished doing the 60k on WagZ's Z over at Bruce_Zee's place in Ellicott City, MD on Saturday night. Now it was "mysting" at the time, i.e. it was spitting, but NOT raining, so the roads were rather slick, and the exit from Route 100 East to I95 South first curves, then straightens out for about a 1/4 mile, and then curves again to join the highway. As I came to the exit, I slowed for the first curve, accelerated slightly down the straight, then slowed for the second curve and as it started to straighten out I slightly depressed the throttle to get up to speed with traffic. As I did, the ass end started to come around... I corrected but the car started to slide too quickly to do anything, and the ass end completely came around and she spun about 195 degrees and proceeded to slide off the side of the road and down the shoulder on the right side of the highway. I then proceeded to slide approximately 50-60 feet BACKWARDS and down the shoulder. Luckily, there really wasn't anything too large in my way; there were a few small bushes and sapplings, but nothing else really. I came to rest in some rather gooey mud which thankfully took the brunt of my momentum and stopped me before I hit anything. The area where I slid through was more or less a natural gutter that looks to have been made from runoff off the highway. Most of the vegetation there was small and either dead or dying, and there were only a few large branches or other vegetaion right next to where I slid. I pretty much slid along the gutter just missing most of the bushes/tree branches or pushing them out of the way. When I came to rest, I had missed a HUGE light poll that lights the highway by about 10 feet, an exit sign and a nasty guard rail would have been my prime targets had I slid off the road 10 feet later than I did, and I missed a large bush by a few inches on my trip down the enbankment. I walked away uninjured and only a slightly shook up. Car is a "slightly" different story. Tow truck had to pull me out by the rear tow hooks from the highway (about 20-25 feet up the slightly banked shoulder, about maybe 20 degrees) and slowly got my wheels out of the muck. Unfortunately she didn't start and I had to be towed back to Bruce_Zee's place. Once I got back, I found out the clip part of the plug for the starter that holds the two pieces together had broken off and the plugs had come lose, which was why she didn't start (more details a little later). After hooking that up, she started fine. No problems with the engine! Yeah! Thank god! Now on to her exterior . Hopefully, everything is just cosmetic, but I won't be able to really tell until an estimate is done and she's put on a lift. The damage externally viewable is: Passenger Side:
Slightly torn corner of the stock wing
Minor dent in the rear hatch just in front of the wing
Bad dent just behind the rear wheel in the quarter panel and rear bumper
A few minor dents in the door
A few dents in the rocker panel
A few bad dents in the lip of the fender and the fender itself
A few dents to the front fascia and the inner fender trimming Drivers Side:
Minor dent to the door
Dent to the rocker panel just forward of the rear wheel
Bad scratch in the rear quarter The rest of the car has some bad scraps and scratches here and there, and the ONLY part that came off the car was the drivers side fog light which I have NO idea where it went or how or why it came off. But the light itself broke away from the rear plastic of the housing used to mount it to the car. My PE exhaust was also a little dinged up. Passenger side muffler had the tip slightly bent in, and the muffler itself was pushed/dented/crushed in towards the front of the muffler itself. No holes or leaks, but its going to have to be replaced for sure... The interior of the car was fine for the most part, and none of the windows, wheels or any part of the suspension or drivetrain seem to have been at all damaged. Only pieces damaged in the car were in the trunk and damage was from my tool box with all my tools sliding around in the back. This thing took up about 3/4th of my trunk and weighs so much it takes two people to get it in there. It slid into the drivers side rear of the trunk completely cracking the trim piece at that corner and scratching up a few other pieces as well. It also crushed my halogen lamp I had sitting next to it. Lamp itself was fairly ok, and looks like it might still work, but the front wired guard was pretty crushed. After checking things out, I decided to see if I could get her to start. First I tried just disconnecting the battery thinking maybe something had caused the ECU to just not want to start the motor, thinking that resetting it might help. That didn't work. Then I started looking around at fuses and such (all fines) and then looked under the car and discovered the starter plug had come loose. After reconnecting the starter, I started her up and drove her down the road to test things out. She drives straight for the most part, but feels like the alignment got knocked out of phase slightly. Only real problem driving was the 1" think layer of SLUDGE that was stuck to the inside of my rear wheels and all over my rotors and calipers after having slid into that mud which stopped me. At first it caused a SEVERE imbalance in the right rear wheel that was noticable immediately after I started moving. I brought her back, removed the wheel and hosed it down to get all the muck out and cleaned the rotor and caliper as good as I could. Took her out for a second time and it was a LOT better, almost no imbalance, but over 55mph she still has a bad vibration or shimmy. Possibly the passenger side wheel having a "little" mud still stuck to it. After getting back to Bruce_Zee's and cleaning up a little I decided to drive her back to my in-laws in Alexandria about 50 miles away. Upon arrival I quickly proceeded to pass out for about 10 hours of needed rest. Once I got up, I took some pictures of her for later amusement and fabled tales (as well as record to show to the insurance adjuster), and tried to clean her off a little more to get all the mud off. Didn't get a chance to drive her down the street again after that. Left her at my in-laws and borrowed one of their cars for the hour and a half drive to get home this evening. Probably going to go back tomorrow and see if I can get an adjuster to come out since USAA's local branch is about 15-20 minutes from their home. Lets hope my premium doesn't go up too much and that they actually cut me a large enough check to fix her. Anyway, sorry for the novel, just wanted to post details and let everyone
ICQ - 22589000 / IM - KaZsMiR / E-mail - casimijg@jmu.edu 
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00:22:39 04/09/01
