A Heads up - your A/C and the blind spot
My wife has a Mercedes C240 which if you look at it has an uncanny resemblance to the guts of our cars. Lift the hood and it pretty much looks like the Crossfire, the dash has many of the same components in the same places.
We start out to the beach last Sunday, 96 degrees so we had the AC blasting. We got about a mile from home and the A/C - Fan blower speed dropped from high to nothing, made a noise and then black, plastic/rubber burning smoke poured out of the fuse box which is on the drivers side of the dash just like our cars. I pulled over and noticed it wasn't just smoke it was on fire. While my wife called 911 I shook up a soda ( a Sprite in case you were wondering) and doused the flames. We were able to get the car back home but the drivers side of the dash and the fuse box that looks just like ours was a melted hunk of plastic. The reason I mention this is that some of you are having blower problems. I strongly suggest you carry a fire extinguisher in your cars. At the very least a bottle of soda water in the rear compartment. I was told I could have been looking at a total loss vs a 2000$ repair which my warranty company will now have to eat, had I not put the flames out. By the way I can't say enough about extended warranties.......... Have something in your car to put out a fire just in case.
So Tuesday after we get back from the beach and I have managed to keep the Crossfire free on dings and dents in the hotel parking lot, we have her car towed to the dealer. We follow in the Crossfire so she can get a loaner car. When we get there the service lane is crowded and no parking places. The tow truck guy drops her car off the flatbed next to me and a guy from Enterprise rent a car asks me to move my car into the space which is now open, across and behind where I was parked. I pull up and start to back up, he is in the parking spaces to my right, in the blind spot. Appaprently he decided not to wait for me to back up and BANG we backed into each other.
BEWARE OF THAT BLIND SPOT, I have known since day 1 that would get me one day and it finally did.
My car has a few small scratches and a larger one just at the edge of the tail light. No dents and its hard to notice if you don't know what you are looking at, a minor repair. The moral to all of this is carry something to put out fire in your car, glad we had a cooler full of sodas and beware of that blind spot, the one over your right shoulder as you back up, its a b!tch!
Last edited by patpur; Aug 15, 2009 at 09:48 AM.