I had always expected to find something rather derelict that I would need to trailer home. In any case, lacking documentation that would indicate to the contrary, I had planned immediately before driving to do the de rigueur timing-belt-and-related-components replacement … as a failure there can be fatal.
But things didn’t go as planned. To begin with, no trailer was at hand (see Prologue for the embarrasing truth). Despite a first encounter that revealed a car with some paint and body rash issues , and the fact that I had already begun a process of lowered expectations in the run-up, I was encouraged by the initial start-up and that the previous documentation clearly revealed a complete-appearing belts/water pump/seals/etc. job only about 3K miles ago.
So I threw caution to the wind and headed for home. First, I had to top up all fluids (gas only was needed), check the tires, and deposit Ivi at her college dorm. In the meantime, Jim had become impatient and had struck out on his own in the Westie, assuring me that he would be only a cell phone call away and that his head start would be short-lived, anyway, given the performance parameters of the early VW diesel bus.
On the short Ivi leg of the trip, Michelle’s warnings (which she had thoughtfully provided in a “Quirks” document a few days earlier) about the always-on heater issue became apparent. I could detect an unspoken sense of dread and alarm in Ivi as we pushed down the freeway, but she did not suggest that we abandon ship.
It was nearly an hour later before I hit the Interstate, and rain had begun falling in earnest. In fact, most of the ride home was experienced with pretty much constant rain. My intention to return before dark was in jeopardy (another of the Michelle “Quirks” was that the headlights needed to be re-aimed; a cursory pre-launch inspection showed that they were operative but wildly out of alignment, perhaps for a deeper reason).
Now fitted with crutches …
My biggest concern was with the injury sustained earlier in the day. Although I could barely walk, once ensconced in the welcoming interior of the 944, the required driving angle of my leg fortuitously resulted in a relatively low level of pain.
A little crazy I know, but after a number of miles in which all (basic) systems seemed to work splendidly — clutch, trans and engine were strong and smooth, no evidence of overheating, all gauges seemed to behave properly, the steering and handling and braking felt utterly right — I slipped into the fast lane and tracked with the traffic. Which is to say an indicated 75 – 80 mph for most of the nearly 300 miles. With some mental math, watching signposts and posted distances, I worked out that an indicated 80 mph was probably closer to 75 in reality, also taking into account the lower-than-stock tire profile of the Yokohamas (more on that subject later).
Probably the next most inconvenient “Quirk” was the damaged sunroof rear latches/hinges, which meant that a rear corner of the sunroof would tend to softly flutter at speed. That was not discovered immediately as I had all windows down as a heat abatement measure, but had to contend with hard driving rain at times, so I had to play the errant heater off against the rainfall in alternate fashion. I did find — perhaps as a testament to the slippery coke-bottle 944 shape — that the rain (and insects) just blew past me much of the time. Hey, the wipers, front and rear, worked great, though!
Eventually I caught up with Jim at a diesel stop, after a phone call suggested that I had somehow overtaken him earlier when he went for a pit stop, so I first made a quick pit stop of my own. The only anomaly spotted at the time was a fast idle, for which Jim offered a diagnosis of vacuum leak, particularly in view of the heater condition.
Most of the trip to that point had involved level or mildly rolling terrain. Now I had no choice but to engage the headlights and to start up the mountain passes for the remainder of the journey. Again, Jim started several minutes in advance, but by the time I caught him up the steep doglegs and sweepers of the climb into the mountains, he was probably in third or lower gear, trailing a loaded semi, so I swept past him in a blur, trying to mercifully spare him from the full-on blast of the worst-aligned headlight.
Arriving home after nearly 300 miles, I parked outside the garage behind my wife’s Nissan truck, and made a quick check for anything that might be amiss. No problems noted, at least not in the dark.
The next morning, my injured leg had radically worsened, so I waited until I could nail down an appointment with my doctor and locate crutches (from a previous mishap) before attempting to experience the machine in the cold morning light. After checking fluids and air, finding that I could wedge the crutches (but barely myself) into the cabin, I fueled up and was astonished to see that the relatively small amount required did roughly correspond with the fuel gauge reading of which I had become a bit suspicious during the trip home. So I refined my tire ratio calculations, verified the tank capacity, and armed with a new speedometer factor, computed my first tank gas mileage. Astonishingly, it came to just a fraction over 31 mpg.
Taking another drive on one of my favorite mountain foothill roads, I pushed a little harder, not too much, nothing really crazy, and felt the thing bite into the road. Beautiful steering feel at speed. Going into a corner a little hot? Just accelerate a bit more and it pushes right through. As Denise would say, “… ‘Celerate!”
After expecting for some time that I would be getting little more than a parts car, I’m now thinking …. driver.
Next stop: Jason.