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a word of warning to you all, i recently had the mis-fortune to have an altercation with a lamp post! i thought my surf was a little on the tough side reguarding build quality ect until the said incident occured. what happened was all my own fault and the 200 or so people who stood watching will tell you so...........when the've stopped p*ssing them selves! here goes, my eldest son (15) had been to his local youth club and i had collected him at about 9:30 p.m. on the way home he told me of a gathering of local hooligans and their boy racer 'sports' cars, and asked if we could call for a look. not wanting to be a grumpy old git i agreed and when we arrived at the meeting point ( a local town centre car park) i was quite impressed by the standard of cars and also the number of them. number one son insisted theat we enter the car park for a closer look, which again i agreed to but said we could'nt stop because i was busy at home. so down the car park we tootle, maybe 10 m.p.h if that as we are looking at all the birds/cars lined up. as we turn around to exit the car park i notice a telegraph pole to my right so apply full left hand lock to avoid it.......... what i did'nt see was the f*%cking great 60 foot lamp post behind my right hand door pillar!! BANG!......... "watch that post dad!" dont you hate 15 year olds!i'd then got 10 to 2 wheels and a folded wing, got out to have a look at the extent of the damage to a raptuous round of applause from the said 200 strong croud.............. talk about crawl up you're own arse!!
what happened was i had hit the lamp post squarely with the front nearside wheel on full lock, apart from the obvious wing/wheel arch damage it did'nt look to bad. no broken glass, not even side or head lights, bonet still where it should be, even the alloy wheel was fine except the tyre.
then i noticed the wheels,...........one pointing east one west!! doh! so off came the spare under went the jack and all got back to one level to inspect further. chasis looked a 'little' out i thought, but managed to straighten things up so i could drive it in a fashion back home about 10 minuites away.
next morning phoned the insurance who arranged for collection to take it to a local dealers to arrange repair. great i thought a couple of weeks in a courtesy car and we'll be sorted! NOT! insurance engieer telephoned two days later £5875 worth of parts PLUS labour!! (bare in mind this is a 1992 mk 2 motor we are talking about) so that'll be a write off then!!
what had happened was the wheel had taken all of the force of the truck turning when it struck the post and pushed the steering rod into the engine, and also put an 8" kink into the chasis amongst other little bits and bobs. the engineer could'nt beleive i head driven it home!!
so beware if you intend on hitting some thing use the bonet or bull bars coz they're mega dear to repair!
andy crofts
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