RE: GLX woes (long)

["Squier, Craig" <craig_squier@arvin.com>]

Just an odd question....
Do you have a modified intake system? Or are you using the
factory one?
Did you have water damage inside the car itself??
I know the carpeting will probably smell like dead fish for a while...
You should have you ins. co. spring for a professional detailing and
interior/carpeting scrub/wash/shampoo to get it clean and fresh...

Good luck with it, at least they are covering most of it.....
just a wondering....
-Cab

> ----------
> From: 	Benjamin W. Stein[SMTP:bstein@medill.net]
> Reply To: 	jettaglx@igtc.com
> Sent: 	Thursday, July 08, 1999 10:30 PM
> To: 	jettaglx@igtc.com
> Subject: 	GLX woes (long)
> 
> About three weeks ago on my way home from a Cubs game (when they were
> still able to play) I was driving my '97 glx in the midst of a
> torrential downpour.  I had just commented to my brother that the car
> really handles foul weather well.  We turned onto a street with an
> underpass and there was some water in the underpass, but it didn't look
> like all that much so I drove on.  Needless to say it was more water
> than it looked like, probably 18" or two feet.  The car made it about
> two thirds of the way through and then died.  The rain kept falling and
> the water kept rising eventually the water made it to about three inches
> below the door handles, and then stopped rising on the car.  After the
> first as*hole in an SUV drove past we realized it stopped rising because
> the car started floating.  Eventually we got towed out.  The car won't
> start, so we push it to the side of the road.  We then notice that all
> the idiots in the SUVs who came roaring past us hit the submerged curb.
> Four of them were by the side of the road changing their right front
> tires.
> 
> About four hours later we went back and tried starting the car again.
> Eventually it kicks over, sounds like an inboard motor on a boat, and
> spits our literally gallons of water from the exhaust system.  But now
> the car has a ticking sound to it.  I take it to my mechanic, who
> listens to it and basically says, "you're screwed call your insurance
> company."  I do, they go look at it tell my mechanic to do what he needs
> to fix it, they'll cover it (thank god).  He takes the engine apart,
> finds the connecting rod on the number four piston is bent, "like a
> pretzel", there is about a 15 degree bend in the connecting rod.  For
> those of you that have not seen a connecting rod for a vr6, it is about
> four or five inches long, three inches across and an inch thick, one
> hell of a big piece of metal.  Turns out that water went in through the
> air intake and was sucked into the cylinders, water doesn't compress
> like air and presto, trashed engine.  The bent connecting rod drove the
> piston into the cylinder wall digging a trough somewhere between 1/8"
> and 1/4".
> 
> They call the insurance company back who tells them to go ahead and fix
> the engine.  The total bill is $3700.  The bad news now is that three
> weeks after this happened they just got the piston today, evidently it
> came from Stuttgart.
> 
> I just want my car back.
> 
> Ben
>