Death of a 2.9 Corrado

[glxtasy@juno.com (ken r weidmann jr.)]

I sent this a couple of weeks ago, but never saw it posted.
--------- Begin forwarded message ----------
From: glxtasy
To: gti-vr6@dev.tivoli.com, Jetta List, Larry
Subject: Death of a 2.9 Corrado
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:27:36 -0800
Message-ID: <19981215.112739.8558.0.glxtasy@juno.com>

For those of you who have followed any of my dyno posts or those that
live in the Northeast, this last Saturday my friend Larry Leff was on his
way home through Hingham.  He was taking a left hand turn at about 40 mph
when his tires just lost traction and he slid.  His passenger side wheels
went off into the dirt and leaves and stuff.  He was able to get the car
back on the road, but the rear end fish tailed out.  He corrected it back
to the right and then agian back to the left, finally losing control and
going off the left side of the road hitting a tree head on at about
40mph.  The car still had a lot of momentum and swung the rear of the car
around into a telephone pole which hit just at the rear wheel and causing
the drivers side rear window to explode.
   A lot of tree limbs and stuff fell on the car, denting the roof,
sunroof, and windshield.  He bent one of his new Borbet 16's, which had
Pirelli tires on them.  He and his passenger  unbuckled their seat belts
and got out quickly.  He went back to the spot that had started the whole
thing, and there was no ice, water, oil or anything showing why he lost
traction.  He drove past the spot in his rental Lumina Monday at about 30
mph with no slide, screech or any strange action.  The impact was so
great that he went to the yard Sunday to retrieve some of his stuff from
the car, including his stereo equipment, and the rear quarter was dented
enough so as not to allow the rear seat to be folded down.  The amp had
been mounted to the seat with the bazooka tube strapped to the wheel
well.  The impact tore the amp off the seat as well as the screw holding
the bazzoka out of the wheel well, so he just unplugged the stuff and
took it out.
    An independent adjuster came by to look at the car at the tow yard
yesterday and called Larry.  Larry asked how bad it was and he said it
was a total loss.  Larry asked how much damage there was and the guy told
him that he got up to 75% of the blue book value and stopped there.  Now
it comes down to how much money an insurance company is willing to come
up with for a 93 SLC with suspsension, a 2.9l with EIP intake, cams and
16 inch Borbets.  The damage to the hood was so much that it buckled the
hood in the middle and it could not be opened, but Larry was able to look
through the side of the hood and it looked like the impact had stopped
short of the engine.  I guess we will wait and see what Commerce does
about the car.  Larry and Aaron are  both fine after this, although Larry
said that the accident did seem to take a long time to happen because of
the several fishtails before the conclusion.  He is familiar with these
roads and it just goes to show that even with a lot of performance
upgrades, you can't account for every variable.
Ken Weidmann Jr
GLXTASY@Juno.com
Checkered Flag Automotive Components
95 Black Jetta GLX M3 wannabe
85 Show Scirocco
--------- End forwarded message ----------

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