a couple weeks ago we took our first trip in our new Prius: from Indy to St Louis for the weekend. other than road construction and closings on the way there, a pretty uneventful trip. the return trip was, well...not so much. after just getting onto the interstate, we merged into the middle lane of a 5 lane wide section and immediately hit a HUGE chunk of semi tire tread....HUGE! I caught it with the right front corner of the car and ran over it. and as soon as I had hit it, the car started making a noise. so, here we are, travelling along at 60+mph in the MIDDLE lane of a 5 lane highway in heavy traffic. I finally was able to pull the car off the side of the road to check out the damage. we were thinking 'its Sunday, we're out of towners and have NO clue were the closest Toyota dealer is. GREAT! guess I won't be back at work on Monday. anyway, I got out to check out the damage. I saw what the noise was, as the right fender liner was hanging down, dragging on the ground. I layed on the ground to check it out further and found no other damage. the liner had just been ripped out of its mounting points.....that was it! I needed a way to tie up the broken liner but had no string, rope or even '100 mph duct tape'! LOL so thinking quickly, I removed one of my shoestrings and used it to tie up the plastic liner. once secured, we were back on the road. down time: less than 5 minutes. once home, I was a bit disappointed to find out that the piece of liner I needed was only sold as the entire fender liner, not just the front piece. oh well, needed to fix it, so I bought it, removed only the front section, and replaced the damaged part. again, about a 5 minute repair. what really surprised me was this huge, did I say HUGE, chunk of tire carcass only broke a thin piece of plastic. no suspension damage, no broken bumper, no knocking it out of alignment....NOTHING! this Prius IS one tough cookie. :rockon:
Glad to hear you, the Mrs., and LBII are ok. That was quite a MacGuyver moment you had there. Next time, make sure you carry some bubble gum, a paper clip, and some Binaca in case you need to defuse a bomb.
Binaca: A Refreshing Spray that Blasts Away Bad Breath Well actually, I made those three things up. But you can bet MacGuyver would know what to do with it!!! He'd probably make a miniature rocket propelled grenade out of it. Or he'd just have really fresh breath. Very useful either way.
No damage here, but I had to drive through a foot of standing water with only about 500 miles on the car and was not happy. The only problem I had was getting crud in the brake calipers. Took it to a car wash and all was well. 32K on the car and no problems. "One tough cookie".
I center punched an Elantra in its drivers door and got a little crinkle in the front bumper. The Hyundai driver could barely open his door and his front fender wasn't much prettier. She is indeed one tough cookie.
Nah, MacGuyver could build an entire Chateau in the Swiss Alps using nothing but that Swiss Army Knife. Too easy. Don't get me started on what Chuck Norris would do to you with a Swiss Army Knife. (PS... I'm not as skilled as Mac or Chuck, so I carry a knockoff Leatherman in the hatch tray area, plus some extra supplies for emergencies. I'm never in the sticks but you never know.)
uh, I don't know about that. that 'cheap plastic' cost me about $70, and that was WHOLESALE! but at least it seemed to absorb the impact and so it was worth $70 to replace VS all the possible damage I thought I was going to be looking at. FYI a couple things: first, I had to use a spare pair of shoes for a week until I got around to replacing the fender liner and could put my shoe string back in my shoe. for that week, the shoe string held up very well and was reusable. second, I didn't have any Binaca, but the Mrs DID have some Wrigleys Spearmint Gum......
