More big fun

Referring back to this post, I need to report the flat tire turned out to not be the only problem created by driving over that box.

I realized something appeared to be dripping from the area of the engine, what with pulling out of parking spaces and seeing some sort of dark fluid being left behind. So, I finally got myself to the dealer's service department I go to first thing last Thursday morning. Turned out the transmission pad and an axle shield were ruined. Ouch, to the tune of several hundred dollars.

Well, at least now I can be confident everything that resulted from that little run-in is now fixed.

So much fun, I could hardly contain myself

The scene: Yesterday, on the way home from work. Took my usual freeway off-ramp, and as I was just starting to brake, saw an object in the road ahead of me that appeared to be some sort of box. Had to make a pretty much instantaneous decision: swerve around it or drive over it. Drove over it. Big mistake.

WHAM! BANG! Felt and heard what seemed to be strong two impacts on the undercarriage.

Pulled into a parking lot as quickly as possible and did an eyeball examination. Nothing appeared damaged; not seeing any leaks. Phew. Continued on and for several seconds of driving all seemed fine, but then I could feel something obviously wrong with the right rear tire. Pull over, walk around to it. Yep, that's what we call a flat.

I recalled there was a Discount Tire store nearby, so after putting on the spare, drove directly to it and purchased the remedy.

I almost started to type that the result of this is a lesson that in future unless something I come upon sitting in the road is obviously harmless I will drive around it. But that's clearly stupid; there's too many variables to say that flatly. One has to take into consideration how much space would be available for going around something in the road, other traffic, weather considerations, and so on and so forth.

At any rate, the car had no problems at all today, so I'll just conclude by saying I was fortunate the only trouble that resulted was one flat tire.

Mind boggling driving

On Google Video - An astonishing 1980's commercial for an Isuzu vehicle. As noted on that site and others that are running this video, the commercial was made before computer generated imaging, so all this highly complex driving was done live.

Watch it and be amazed.