An interesting drive......

brackie · 31-10-2006, 06:32 AM

Didn't know whether to post this in this forum or in "General Chat".

Last Friday my mrs, myself and our dairy engineer had to do a business trip to Bothwell....in Tassie's Southern Midlands. There was no question that we would do it in the TDI, however the choice of route had to be made. Weather forecasts were for worsening conditions with snow down to 300m and gale force winds so the route decision was this:

Play it safe and use Bass Hwy to Launceston and then the Midlands Hwy to Melton Mowbray turning left and travelling to Bothwell (a circuitous route, about an hour and 100km longer) or head straight over the Central Plateau with elevations of >1000m, past Great Lake with ~35km of dirt roads, hairpin bends and log trucks. The decision was left to me and I took the Great Lake route.

On the ascent to the Plateau the road climbs through thick forest that closes in tight on both sides and there are plenty of hairpin bends. The TDI handled all of this with aplomb and had so much torque that it literally flew up the hills. Then it flew into a wallaby......The little bastard was a Rufous Wallaby about 70cm tall and it bounced out in front of me when I was doing ~100kph. Nowhere to go, (of course) but instincts took over from memory so I braked and decided that I would run over it with the LF wheel. This I did but not after it smashed into the area below the LF headlight with a terrific bang. Only afterwards did I remember I have ABS (this is the first car that I have owned with it). If I had braked harder and steered around the wallaby I could have missed it

. So I got out and prepared myself for major damage. NOTHING

. Not a mark! I reckon that if I had hit this animal at that speed in anything else it would at least have torn off the front plastics. Bloody strong car!

So we completed the trip to Bothwell, did our business and reckoning that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place headed back the same way. As we were climbing back toward the plateau the snow clouds were gathering and it was looking bleak. To cut a long story short, we drove through a blizzard for about 50km and not one flake of snow landed on the car! Believe it or not, but the wipers didn't even turn on! This car has fantastic aerodynamics...we were watching the snow just flowing over the bonnet and past the sides of the car with not one flake settling. It was surreal....just like watching smoke passing over a car in a wind tunnel.
When we got into sticky stuff (gravel road, snow and slush on it) the traction control came in very hand. It felt safe as houses.

Well, that's my story.

**gtimk5** · 31-10-2006, 06:51 AM

Good stuff Brackie! You were very lucky not to mark the TDI. Amazing not to see any marks or cracks from flexing. Looked nice after a wash on saturday, mate!! Cheers

**GoLfMan** · 31-10-2006, 07:22 AM

hmmmm german engineering

good to know nothing was broken!

**Tim** · 31-10-2006, 10:45 AM

they make those bumpers from some seriously tough ****!
On my way back from sydney i hit a roo. it wasnt a huge one but it wasnt tiny either. his head cracked right into my numberplate at about 100km/h hard enuf to bend the front bumper reinforcement substantially. bent my grille a bit too. But yeah. replaced the reinforcment with another one i had kicking about and got a new grille. After a day in the sun the bumper looked as new. I was pretty amazed. Ditto with getting rear ended on the same trip. Im still using the same rear bumper.

**and133** · 30-12-2006, 02:51 PM

I have v5 golf sport with fog lights and some animal decided that it was going to run infront of my car as I was coming up the hume highway from melbourne... it stole the plastic fog light surround and damaged the middle grille the lower part under the number plate. i was real annoyed.. At 130k/h i decided that it was well and trully dead so i didnt take a second look.. I expected to pay a fortune but it only cost me like $70 bucks to buy some plastic that was 'made in germany' I was quite happy about that. The car is really great at speed as well. Good on the open road.