Does not bode well…
Posted on September 13, 2009 by angela10 Comments
We haven’t posted in a few days because we’ve been busy having fun. Until tonight.
Yes, that is Red Beard on the tow truck. We are all fine. Stressed out, but safe.
Our good friend Julie visited us in Portland this weekend. We had so much fun, but we’ll have to wait to tell you all about it. After visiting the Columbia River Gorge we headed back to Portland to take her to the airport. We were about 20 miles away, on I-84 when we all heard a terrible sound. A huge, freight-train rattle sound that made us pull over immediately.
Jason looked and saw nothing. It wasn’t even a tiny bit hot. We turned over the engine, it sounded the same. Major banging from inside the engine case. Not good. We had a friendly Vanagon Westy driver pull over to help (also a pro mechanic – a nice coincidence.) Rod bearing is the early conclusion – after only ~2000 miles. Discount rebuilt engines are apparently not the way to go.
Meanwhile, the 3 of us are in the van on a small shoulder with huge trucks whizzing by. It was a little stressful to say the least. Kudos to Julie for dealing with this, her missed flight and work. She already thought we were nuts, and now she’s got first-hand experience.
Geico Roadside Service? Yeah, apparently that got canceled when we sold our other car. Put that on the to-do list for this week. They were nice enough to connect us with a towing company though. Vinnie was able to pick us up within about half an hour, take us to a motel, and store the van until we can figure out what to do.
We don’t know precisely what went wrong with it yet, but we’re fairly certain we need a new engine. The case is not cracked but… it’s done.
When we finally got into our hotel and turned on our computer we had so many nice emails and comments we were instantly feeling better. Thanks to everyone for their support on our adventure so far.
So, any advice from those around Portland? We’re currently in Gresham scratching our heads. Know anyone who sells reliable VW engines that don’t also cost a fortune? Got space for Jason to work on the van?
Thanks, and hopefully we’ll know more soon.
