12-4-2 What follows was pulled together from an e-mail conversation between myself and a friend that took place over the span of several days. I've tried to pull the various threads together to form a more linear conversation. I'm always amazed at how we so often have three or four sub-plots going on at once within a string of e-mails. For the most part I've only included the bits regarding our cars in this post.
Jeff drives a Honda Civic DelSol . Although it's not as cool as my Beetles (in my humble opinion) it's still a neat little car.
Jeff had an ‘incident’ a few weeks ago while out for a ride in his DelSol.
Details are on his web site. I'd put a link here, but I'm running a family oriented web site.
To the mail bag:
Herr B.Gone - {regarding a phone call from the night before} Mostly I was calling to say ‘hi’.
So “Hi, Jeff, “
I keep seeing DelSol’s on the road and when I do I say to the driver (who can’t hear me since we’re in separate cars) ‘I know someone who wants your hood!’ How’s it going finding the parts to fix it?
Jeff - {i know a guy} that has a del sol, and he’s tall so he keeps hitting the hood release. he’s also a honda tweaker dude, so he wants to get a new, side- or back-opening hood. he’s just getting up the money to get the one he wants, then ordering it. when it’s installed, i’m getting his old one - cheap.
if i get impatient i might just get a new (non-aftermarket) one, which is ~$300.
either way, i have someone lined up to paint it for non-body shop prices.
(yay color codes!) :)
H.B.G. - Good news about the car. I hope he doesn’t take too long, though I would like to see it pre-repair. I’m not sure the picture really shows what happened.
Oh, one last thing fer now – I’ve moved up in the rankings at Yahoo! My Punch Buggy page at the Beetlemania location is now (11-22-2) #5 in the list when you search for ‘punch buggy’. :-)
Jeff - i'm sure your mom is proud of you. :)
H.B.G. - She says she is, though I wonder about her tone of voice… ;-)
{I've since percolated back down some. You know how those things go. At this point in another thread I mentioned trying to save up so we can buy a house.}
Jeff - a particular house?
Yesterday we looked at this place:
[snip huge URL]
Turns out it needs more work than we can do right now. It has great potential though for someone who has the time/money to put into it. Right now we need something we can move right into. Cosmetics are not that important. Things like having a stove that works are. The search goes on...
Jeff - i’m not even going to fight with the URL unless you have a signed P&S. :)
{P&S: Purchase and Sale agreement}
H.B.G. - I can’t say I blame you there. Though you won’t get to see the cute pix of the horse poking his head out the side window of the stable…
Jeff - so when (for bul go gi?) {my standard payment fer Jeff's web hosting services}
H.B.G. - Well, this may not be the best week fer it money wise. On Turkey Day I’m taking Mom and {some friends} to diner at The Bull Run. They have an all you can eat Thanksgiving buffet. And they clean up afterwards! ;-)
Also, at some point in the very near future I need to get winter tires for Galileo. It would be nice to get a second set of wheels to mount them on but that will have to wait for another year.
And on top of all of that last night after working fine when we loaded all of the groceries into the way-back the hatch latch wouldn’t release when we got home. I had to fold the back seat down, climb in and hand the stuff out the side door to Mom. That’ll have to be fixed. If I should need the spare the hatch must be opened to get at it. I think the cars money detector went off to trigger that one. What the car doesn’t realize is that what little we have is allocated. We’ve been trying to get at least closing costs put away in the bank so when we do find a house we’ll be able to move on it.
BTW: Do you know anything about New Beetle electric hatch latches?
Jeff - nope, other than it’s more than likely your standard, electrically-triggered hatch latch. therefore, there’s only a few things it could be:
1) is the latch getting power? (do you hear the click?)
2) if so, is the latch triggering?
3) if so, is the hatch frozen for a non-latch-related reason?
1) is the latch getting power? (do you hear the click?)
H.B.G. - Yes
2) if so, is the latch triggering?
H.B.G. - It usually goes “Zzzuuump-thuD”. The “Zzzuuump” being the electrical triggering device (I would presume) and the “thuD” being the hatch opening. It’s going “Zzzuuump- (nothing) ” at the moment.
Jeff - everytime i had that problem with previous cars, it resulted in a cop beating on the latch area with his Mag-lite.
H.B.G. - And the town paying for body work and paint thereafter I should expect!
Jeff - the net value of a 1977 Plymouth Volare station wagon (in the earliest of cases) that’s blue with primer gray polka dots is less than the Mag-lite. i’m lucky they didn’t bill/sue me for any scratches i put in the Mag-lite housing. :)
H.B.G. - ’77 Volare wagon? Why was a cop banging on your bungee chords with his flashlight? :-)
3) if so, is the hatch frozen for a non-latch-related reason?
H.B.G. - I tried pulling and pushing and using heated conversation on it none of which worked. (If the mirrors were ears they would have melted off the car…)
Jeff - you prolly know more about them than i do. i’ll also bet that it’s an intermittent problem, and if you parked it some place warm for awhile, it’d work without issue.
H.B.G. - Could be, though it’s worked on colder days than this in the past and the cabin had been plenty warm.
Jeff - i’ll still go for the “intermittent” thing.
H.B.G. - I’m planning to run the heat* set at “unbearable” on the way home and see if that loosens anything.. I did a visual check last night and didn’t see any evidence of having been ‘tapped’ (ie: backed into) which might have misaligned the latch when it was closed.
* good thing this ain’t Fritz! (Though I can fix almost anything on Fritz myself. (A parenthetical comment in a footnote. Is that allowed?))
Jeff - isn’t there an actual key for this? does that not work? i thought the external VW emblem rotated upward to reveal a pull-handle with a keyhole in it?
H.B.G. - It does. Unfortunately the key is a switch. It activates the electrical unlocking mechanism. I’ve tried the switch on the driver’s door, the remote, the key in the lock, pulling up on the handle with both the remote and/or the key, pushing down with same, pushing up from inside with the remote, swearing…
Nothing worked.
Jeff - so you’ll be using that little plastic tool? the one with the 16 numbers printed on it?
H.B.G. - Looks that way. Hugh. I’ll have to card the door to get in. Hadn’t thought of it that way till just now.
Jeff - the car knows that your warranty has expired. :)
On the way home from work last night I stopped at the garage to get some windshield washer fluid and mentioned the hatch latch to the mechanic there. He listened to my story and to the latch (over the din of a diesel pickup that was idling next to us). He examined the outside of the latch and looked at the hatch. I mentioned the panel inside that you probably have to remove to get at the mechanism. He said I should take the car to Volkswagen. :-(
