So after a $1200.00 repair bill, I decided that the trip down to Charlotte, NC for my bachelor party would be the perfect lithmus test to see if the repair took. After shelling out a cool G to have the rear axle rebuilt by a place called Ring & Pinion in Mt. Clemens, MI, I took the truck for a test drive and found that the original problem I took it in for (a strange clunk coming from the rear of the vehicle) was still there. I returned to the shop, they gave me the run around, but we settled on having the transfer case rebuilt for an additonal $200.00. I'm not sure about Ring & Pinion, but I don't think I'll be taking another one of my vehicles there. After they rebuilt the transfer case, I pulled it out of the lot and everything appeared OK. No mysteriouos clunk to be heard ... which brings us to the 13-hour Charlotte road trip. Fours hours into the trip, my AC quit ... it was 90-degrees. Midway through the trip the clunk began to return. I was pretty damned furious.
I drove that stupid thing around Charlotte for a week in the blistering heat with no air and the back end clunking around like the rear axle would break off at any minute. It was miserable, but I made up my mind that this would unfortunately be the last road trip for the Questmobile. IF it would make it back to Detroit, it would be unceremoniously replaced as soon as I could find something else. I feel like I wasted a lot of money trying to keep my beloved companion road worthy for the last leg of our journey, but once the air quit, that was the last straw. The Questmobile actually did make it all the way back to Michigan, so I had one last road trip with an old friend, but now I seek a successor.
So after a $1200.00 repair bill, I decided that the trip down to Charlotte, NC for my bachelor party would be the perfect lithmus test to see if the repair took. After shelling out a cool G to have the rear axle rebuilt by a place called Ring & Pinion in Mt. Clemens, MI, I took the truck for a test drive and found that the original problem I took it in for (a strange clunk coming from the rear of the vehicle) was still there. I returned to the shop, they gave me the run around, but we settled on having the transfer case rebuilt for an additonal $200.00. I'm not sure about Ring & Pinion, but I don't think I'll be taking another one of my vehicles there. After they rebuilt the transfer case, I pulled it out of the lot and everything appeared OK. No mysteriouos clunk to be heard ... which brings us to the 13-hour Charlotte road trip. Fours hours into the trip, my AC quit ... it was 90-degrees. Midway through the trip the clunk began to return. I was pretty damned furious.
I drove that stupid thing around Charlotte for a week in the blistering heat with no air and the back end clunking around like the rear axle would break off at any minute. It was miserable, but I made up my mind that this would unfortunately be the last road trip for the Questmobile. IF it would make it back to Detroit, it would be unceremoniously replaced as soon as I could find something else. I feel like I wasted a lot of money trying to keep my beloved companion road worthy for the last leg of our journey, but once the air quit, that was the last straw. The Questmobile actually did make it all the way back to Michigan, so I had one last road trip with an old friend, but now I seek a successor.
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