GrolarBear
Member
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2017
- Messages
- 38
- Reaction score
- 13
A shorter version of a long story- I was at a friend's apartment that just instituted permit parking and got towed even though I had a permit in the window (it shouldn't have been towed, the apartment management and the tow company are both blaming each other).
Anyway, it turns out that it got yanked out of the space with the tires still on the ground (I have pics of the marks on the pavement from where it got dragged). When I picked up the car it was just acting funny, not enough for me to process what was going at 4am, but just shifting funny and jerking around a little. Later in the day when I drove through a wet parking lot while turning it ****** around, kind of like a RWD car with a spool or welded axle (any race car guys out there will know this right away, where your inside tire chirps/skipping around...) and started making a tsk... tsk... tsk... sound on decel that was speed dependent (the faster I went the faster it did it). it was somewhat intermittent, it would get worse once it started but it didn't always start when you first got moving. Over the next couple days the tsk... tsk... tsk... got worse till it was pretty much doing it anytime I wasn't accelerating. A passenger noticed that you can feel the noise thumping on a spot on the passenger side floor pan (right near where the driveshaft comes out of the transaxle)
I parked the car and pursued trying to get the tow company to pay for the damage they caused and got as far as needing to get a firm quote for repairs to get anywhere with them. OK, after the car sat for a few days I got in it to take it to a dealer to get a quote...
NO NOISE. Most of the jerking/funny shifting is gone also.
I talked to 2 different techs as well as a service manager (interestingly they had 3 cars in that week that were damaged from improper towing) and they all seem to agree that the PTO/PTU were likely damaged (a $1400/6hr repair) and eventually the tsk... tsk... tsk... sound would get as bad as someone pounding on a trash can lid, but did not have an answer for why it was intermittent and why it went away, as well as most of the weird shifting/jerking... They basically told me that they can't diagnose/write me a quote if it's not doing it and there is no check engine light, so if it starts up again to come in, don't turn it off, and get one of them to drive it.
Well, it hasn't done it for 2 weeks, and there's only so long that I can just sit on this and the longer that I wait for the harder I suspect that it's going to be to get anything out of the tow company. They're already sitting on the $160 tow/impound fee that they're supposed to return because I won't sign their form specifying that I will not hold them liable for damage done by towing.
So how do I get this diagnosed, make the noise start up again, or is it possible that it's gone for good (I know, unlikely but maybe something like the PCM got confused enough by the towing that it was causing the transaxle to make a physical noise that cleared itself up)???
Anyway, it turns out that it got yanked out of the space with the tires still on the ground (I have pics of the marks on the pavement from where it got dragged). When I picked up the car it was just acting funny, not enough for me to process what was going at 4am, but just shifting funny and jerking around a little. Later in the day when I drove through a wet parking lot while turning it ****** around, kind of like a RWD car with a spool or welded axle (any race car guys out there will know this right away, where your inside tire chirps/skipping around...) and started making a tsk... tsk... tsk... sound on decel that was speed dependent (the faster I went the faster it did it). it was somewhat intermittent, it would get worse once it started but it didn't always start when you first got moving. Over the next couple days the tsk... tsk... tsk... got worse till it was pretty much doing it anytime I wasn't accelerating. A passenger noticed that you can feel the noise thumping on a spot on the passenger side floor pan (right near where the driveshaft comes out of the transaxle)
I parked the car and pursued trying to get the tow company to pay for the damage they caused and got as far as needing to get a firm quote for repairs to get anywhere with them. OK, after the car sat for a few days I got in it to take it to a dealer to get a quote...
NO NOISE. Most of the jerking/funny shifting is gone also.
I talked to 2 different techs as well as a service manager (interestingly they had 3 cars in that week that were damaged from improper towing) and they all seem to agree that the PTO/PTU were likely damaged (a $1400/6hr repair) and eventually the tsk... tsk... tsk... sound would get as bad as someone pounding on a trash can lid, but did not have an answer for why it was intermittent and why it went away, as well as most of the weird shifting/jerking... They basically told me that they can't diagnose/write me a quote if it's not doing it and there is no check engine light, so if it starts up again to come in, don't turn it off, and get one of them to drive it.
Well, it hasn't done it for 2 weeks, and there's only so long that I can just sit on this and the longer that I wait for the harder I suspect that it's going to be to get anything out of the tow company. They're already sitting on the $160 tow/impound fee that they're supposed to return because I won't sign their form specifying that I will not hold them liable for damage done by towing.
So how do I get this diagnosed, make the noise start up again, or is it possible that it's gone for good (I know, unlikely but maybe something like the PCM got confused enough by the towing that it was causing the transaxle to make a physical noise that cleared itself up)???
