RX8 - 1 , Step Ladder - 0
 

Ok, I'm drivng home from helping a buddy tear down a 3rd gen motor for his FD, coming home on the fwy at 70mph, in the fast lane, lying on the road, is a step ladder like you'd find in your garage. I had another car next to me, so veering right was not an option and it came up so fast due to the darkness I didn't see it til the last moment. I was able with quick reaction time, to drive over it length wise rather than run it over side ways. I know I caught part of it cuz I heard the crunch, it was aluminum and plastic.....amazingly, the car is fine, as am I.

I pulled over, checked under the car for leaks & damage, checked the tires, checked the body work, even the 02 sensor that hangs so low was ok. And I have the MS suspension, so I'm .75 lower than everyone else.

Man, I'm praying everyhting else is ok, the car drives fine, although I'll be getting an alignment check this weekend.

Thank you God.

Something like that happened to me except I ran over a pointy branch. No damage to the 8 tho.

Similar thing happened to me-- three days after I purchased it. Coming home from the dealership, Dark, curb on one side and car on the other... Hit a no-kidding torque converter that was laying in the middle of my lane. Ripped off the steel crossmember that runs underneath and rear of the transmission. Nothing else. No bodywork or anything else was dmamged. L.U.C.K.Y. Glad to hear your damage was minimal, if at all.

MadDashRX8

On the trip home from purchasing my 8 last summer, in the driving rain on an Interstate, I ran over a huge hunk of tire rubber that I couldn't avoid. Made a terrible racket as it banged up against the underside of the car. Another 10 miles down the road the low-oil-level light came on and, of course, I freaked. Pulled over and checked the oil to find it at the top mark. So I continued on home and after looking under the car and calling the dealer's service people a couple of times I discovered that the connector/wire to the low-oil-level sensor on the side of the oil pan had become detached. Plugged it back in and all was well. Whewww!

Still not sure if it was the tire rubber that knocked it off or whether it was not securely fastened at the factory. My guess is the latter, but who knows?

Glad you're ok, I remember a few years back here in Toronto, a family went over some debris in their minivan, part of some rusty cars exhaust or something and it bounced up and punctured the fuel tank, which caused an explosion and fire... they were sadly all killed.

Almost hit a "Gator"
 

The trip home from buying my 8 was a 70 mile interstate run. The car was used with 6000 miles on it so I didn't need to baby it, if ya know what I mean. ;) I came up on an 18 wheeler that was maybe 100 feet ahead of me. BOOM! He blows a retread and sends huge chunks of tire (what we call "Gators") flying everywhere. :eek: Needless to say, I found out how good the brakes are in a hurry and weaved my way through without incident.

Also saw an article recently where a man was changing his tire on the side of this same interstate and was killed by flying debris from a truck. Be careful out there.

Aw now why'd you have to go and tell us that. It's so depressing :(

I know someone who has an 8 that ran over a leaf spring (I think) and it shot up through the floor board right under his foot. Amazingly it didn't hurt him

[QUOTE=brillo]Ok, I'm drivng home from helping a buddy tear down a 3rd gen motor for his FD, coming home on the fwy at 70mph, in the fast lane, lying on the road, is a step ladder like you'd find in your garage. I had another car next to me, so veering right was not an option and it came up so fast due to the darkness I didn't see it til the last moment. I was able with quick reaction time, to drive over it length wise rather than run it over side ways. I know I caught part of it cuz I heard the crunch, it was aluminum and plastic.....amazingly, the car is fine, as am I.

-Snip-QUOTE]

:confused:

Before I looked to see where you were from, I swear you must have been on I-70 a few nights ago. I had the exact same situation (except it was light out) but I was able to dive left onto the shoulder to avoid it.

I've just gotta ask... was the plastic on the ladder yellow?

The day after pieces of the shredded ladder were all over the shoulder.

Bunsin

I hit a truck tire tread going down to Irvine for Sevenstock7 last year. The RX7 in front of me missed it, I hit it. Slapped the underbelly pretty hard, but lucky me - no damage. Pretty freaky at best at those speeds. It was pitch black out late at night, and I had nowhere to go to avoid it.

Similar but different here in Chicago a few years back - a rusty part off a truck that was "politicked" through inspection (bribery) fell off, a minivan rolled over it, hit the gas tank and 5 out of 7 died. What's really sad - the parents, riding in the front lived. All five of their kids died.

This cause the "license for bribes" scandal here in IL which cost Gov. George Ryan his job and cause his indictment. He goes to trial this summer.

1982
Driving my 1980 RX-7 in rush hour traffic at about 55-60mph
In the left lane, no shoulder to my left, cars to my right, in front and behind

The car ahead of me runs over what looked like a 2-3 foot length of steel rod, like what they use to reinforce concrete.

It pops up in the air and starts tumbling end-over-end, straight toward me! I had no where to go and thought I was done for. The rod looked like it was going to jump straight over the hood, through the windshield and skewer me like a pig on a stick.

Instead it went underneath and ripped out the inside wall of the RF tire.

I must say that RX-7 handled surprisingly well despite an instantaneous tire blowout. I had no trouble retaining control while I engaged the flashers, watched out for other cars and got her from 60-0 and off the road.

I did have trouble controlling my heart rate for about a week! :eek:

I was watching rally last year (don't remember which WRC event it was) and a piece of metal went through the bottom of the car, through the co-driver's seat (Peter Solberg's co-driver) and stabbed the co-driver in the butt. He wasn't seriously hurt so the whole thing was pretty funny. :D

~ Matt

Simlar story here in houston. It's been over a year and I was driving to work and it had been drizzling. There was an aluminum ladder in the center of the left lane and I didn't see it until it was too late. Unfortunately, my integra at that time couldn't handle my evasive maneuver. So, I lost control and wrecked it. The only good news out of it was that I got my 8 a cpl weeks later (and I wasn't injured).

Now, everytime on the freeway, I try not to drive behind trucks with aluminum ladders on it. Why can't people secure their loads??!?!? :confused:

I'm glad your 8 wasn't harmed. :)

This has nothing to do about ladders, but I wanna share too. It was night time and I was going home and suddenly out of no where this gi-normous 18 wheeler tire appeared laying in the middle of the road and I was going about 40. No way i couldn't react fast enough to avoid it due to sleepiness and it was pitch black. I swear, it felt like i ran over a pretty big sized dog. Got out and check if it did any damage and once i saw that everything was a-okay, I moved the piece of crap out of the road so other drivers wouldn't have to deal with it. And when i say gi-normous i mean the tire was MASSIVE

Uh-uh... I once walked under a ladder and BAM! My A/C in my rx7 went out and my friend got herpes.

j/k :)
FS

I once ran over the piping of a truck exhaust at night, though not with the 8. The thing was completely invisible in the dark, fortunately no damage to passengers or car.

Since then I dropped the idea that night time is a good time to drive fast. Interesting to see how many of the shared stories happened at night under more or less similar conditions. You just can't identify dark things on a dark road in the dark before they get in your light beam, which usually is to late to evade.