Chevy & GMC Vans

Today, someone hit my mirror. They didn't leave a note, but they left something better- their truck. Practically touching my mirror. Fortunately, it just folded with no scuffs that weren't there before. I left a note on the truck telling them to be more careful next time (that's all, believe it or not, and there was no profanity).

Then I had to take my family somewhere. Well, one of them intentionally wiped mud ALL OVER the carpet. While I was busy helping the person we were visiting catch his dog, she was wiping her feet in the mud, then getting in the van and wiping them off, then going back to the mud, ON PURPOSE. I know this, because she was going for the mud at first and I told her not to, but she wouldn't listen and I had to actually stand by and HOLD HER BACK. She's six. Her mom refused to do anything, actually sat in the van with her while she was doing this. There's mud up front, between the seats, in the back, and a little actually got on the seats themselves. I was ticked. The mom got ticked at me for telling the kid to STOP, and threw a full can of soda at my window so hard that it splattered all over the window and possibly chipped the glass. I know it came close to breaking, just from that sound it made. It was like a gun going off. I left right then and there and barely made it to my friend's house before it ran out of gas in his driveway. As soon as I started to step out, his mom came out and told me to leave, he was grounded. I tried to explain to her that I couldn't go home (after all, someone's trying to break a window with my head next to it, imagine if the window was down, which it was just seconds before the can hit), but she wouldn't listen. From there I had to walk, and two people I know drove by and waved, didn't offer a ride or anything, AND I managed to get cut on a piece of garbage that I didn't see.

[/rant]

Anybody else have any "bad day" stories?

Well according to the Orange Juice commercial you must of had a V8 or something else for breakfast instead.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DHT7b0QjW8[/youtube]

I am sorry for you that you left the house and had so much fun.

Yikes!
Mom's like that need a good slap upside the head!

I had a few bad days at the end of 2011, but the good always outweigh the bad, by far.

One bad day I just don't need to talk about.


The other bad day is turning out very, very well, so i can't complain. I was actually going to make thread about the 2nd bad day, but it's too long of a story, so i haven't gotten to it yet. Here's a sneak preveiw:

Remember this? (My new bike- in June)








Well, now it looks like this:












Long story short: I was riding down the highway to the trailhead at 55 mph and the back tire locked up causeing a fish tail skid. I instinctively pulled in the clutch and coasted to a stop. Threw a rod, broke a counterbalencer shaft, etc etc. Bought an '07 motor used for $200 and put it in so I can continue to ride it. Sent pics and documentation to Gas Gas and even though it is out of warranty, they are so upset about one of their motors looking like that after only a short time, they are sending me a brand new motor fully coverred. Should be here in March.

I can live with that.

That must have made quite a racket when it happened. So what caused it? You gotta love customer service like that, but it sounds like a short warranty period.

Yeah, competition enduro bikes really don't get warrantys. mine was better than most with a 3 month, and the engine blew at 5 with 55 hrs on it.

The only thing that is for sure is that it was not from starvation of oil. My friend that i was riding with at the time actually studies stress and failure for Kenworth and Peterbuilt and he wanted to study the broken bits just for fun. There was no smoking gun and a few different possibilites. Let me know if you are that curious and i can email you his observation report; I've never read anything like it before. Gas Gas stepped up in major way.

I would be interested in the report! dharp1971@earthlink.net

emails with file attatched sent to Dean and TimeLess.

This guy had his OJ before working in his garage.

A suburban Chicago man is recovering at a local hospital after accidentally shooting himself with a nail gun - and not noticing the 3 ½ inch nail lodged in his brain for more than 24 hours.

That sucks you must have felt like being sick. But what a great story about gas gas customer service. I hope you put that up on adventure rider.

I like how you handled it very professionally. Has it happened to anyone else?

It's interesting how EVERYTHING broke ( balancer, gear teeth, and rod). It must therefore have been a cascading failure. My theory is something caused the balancer shaft to seize and the torsion sheared it in two. Still seized, the crankshaft chewed all the teeth off. Then the connecting rod impacted a chunk in the crankcase, shattering it. The main bearing probably fractured as a result of the crankshaft being levered out. If the rod went first, it probably would have just stopped there. Questions is what started it.

Thanks for the report Tom. You can tell it was written by an engineer! It is very impressive...the amount of damage! Glad to see Gas Gas is stepping up and making it right. I bet they want the old motor back for analysis.

Sounds like some people need to become pedestrians if they can not value having a vehicle to ride in.