Funny Little Story
 

Just a quick one, figured I'd share it just because I now find it funny.

Where I work, we have numerous buildings that I occasionally have to drive between in the course of my daily work. Its not in the best area (Cleveland's east side) so the roads are passable, but not perfect. That's not normally a problem, as I outfitted my car with winter rubber and I don't drive stupid.

So, having a car with a low ground clearance, I try to stay clear of large potholes or tall chunks of snow and ice in the road. Problem came up as I approached the parking lot of one of our buildings--the city plows had been by and created a nice, approximately 6-7" "snow curb" that appeared to block my access to the lot. "No problem," I thought, "I've handled worse snow before, it looks loose" turned, and made my attempt.

My first assumption was that it was loose. If I had to guess by the sound, the plows had been by the previous night and the "curb" had some time to solidify a bit. So it was decidedly not loose. Thankfully not enough to do any damage to my bumper, but i could hear it scraping under almost every inch of my car. I had committed at this point, so I powered through and parked.

Proud of myself, I got out of my car and started to make my way to the building. Then it caught my eye--trailing from the back of my car, following my path from the street to the parking space, were drops of liquid. Reddish-brown drops of liquid, staining the snow in a perfect line.

Oh. Shit. :confused0068:

I immediately looked under my car, couldn't see any dripping, but as I had work to do, made my way into the building. That task done, one of the guys from that building followed me out (I had told him what happened), and we looked under the car. No pool of liquid, nothing running on the ground (the stray cats sunning themselves nearby looked amused). At this point, the guy noted that the exhaust (I still have the OEM) was really rusty/gunky, and I just said it was part of driving in Cleveland winter--the underside of your car ends up looking like sh*t.

I then moved the car (just pushed it, didn't start it yet, just in case), and we see more drops, albeit not many, under where approximately the differential would be. I'm now worried that something in that snowbank snagged or hit the diff and its going to leak all over the place once I get moving again.

I decided at this point I was headed to the dealership, hopefully not with the assist of a tow truck. I started the car, put it into gear....nothing. No sounds of death, so I glided forward in gear, and the guy with me said he didnt see anything. Found a less snowy way out of the lot, and still nothing. Ok, maybe it'll hold together until I get to the dealership. I head out.

I make it to the dealership without incident, driving so conservatively that I started to annoy myself. The service rep is very nice and gets the car up on a rack almost immediately, even says he's going to look into getting me some new taillights, as there is obvious condensation in them. The next 20 minutes are spent looking at one of the 2014 FR-S models (that Raven looks amazing in person) and sitting down for a couple rounds of Candy Crush. I look up just in time to see my car making its way back into the service "hallway."

What did they find? Nothing. No damage, no sign of leaks, all fluid levels checked out as full/normal. That, and I may be able to get the tail lights replaced tomorrow. So far its a win in my book. I'm glad, but what created the drops of reddish-brown liquid? Remembering what was said earlier, I get down and look at the rear underside of the car. I laugh as I see an area of the exhaust piping and muffler that has been scraped semi-clean--The drops must have been some snow that scraped onto the exhaust piping, melted, and dripped onto the ground!

I went from scared sh*tless that I had just ruined my car to elated that nothing was truly wrong (other than my overconfidence) in the space of a hour.

That, and I made a new friend in the service department! Its a good day! Thanks for reading! :cheers:

Definitely dodged a bullet with that one. I once drove a friend's volvo in college. He was afraid to drive it fast, so naturally, I told him I'd drive it fast for him to see the car really run. I think it was an s60, some kind of turbo.

anyways, I was going pretty quick on this street, and suddenly found my self flying over a huge dip in the road.

Loud impact noise. Drove it for another mile.

Dash lights up... pull over.. look back and oil drip marks follow me into the parking lot.

He took responsibility (luckily) claiming he'd would have done the same thing. Needless to say, he had to get a completely new motor.

I don't think I ever saw him again after that.

I'm glad you weren't leaking oil in your case, and good thing you were aware of possible repercussions of driving with a major leak :)