An Interesting Day of “Hiking”
- September 12, 2005
- 3 comments
A good friend of mine, Mark, and I decided we were going to go hiking in the mountains yesterday. We normally go a couple times a month, but it’s been so friggin’ hot and dry this summer, we haven’t wanted to go. The weather is starting to cool down a bit now, so we wanted to head back out there and get away from our computers. He works in IT for the Texarkana region and I’m doing my Web development stuff all the time, so hiking is a great way to get some exercise and fresh air.
This time was going to be different though because instead of using Mark’s truck, we were going to drive his dad’s very nice Ford F-250 4x4 with a Triton V8. We were planning on taking it down a smaller, rougher road so we could get to some more distant trails and end up at an excellent swimming hole. Mark’s F-150 can’t make it down this one road, but his dad’s truck would have no problem with it.
The trip up there was uneventful. It was great to get back up to Shady Lake and see the endless forests in the mountains. We passed the Shady Lake campground and started heading up towards Tall Peak. After a couple miles, I noticed the truck’s engine was revving too high for how fast we were going. I thought Mark had it in tow, but when I asked, he said he had it in drive. He tried switching gears, but it only kept getting worse.
About that time, we noticed smoke starting to drift up around the windows, so Mark put it in neutral and we rolled backward down the narrow mountain road until we found a place wide enough to get the truck out of the way. We jumped out and that’s when we saw a long trail of what looked like oil as far back down the road as we could see. We knew by this time that our planned day of hiking was over with. Smoke was still coming out from under the truck, so I bent down to take a look. When I saw the flames, I started getting really nervous. I yelled that the truck was on fire and we were both scrambling around the truck looking everywhere for an extinguisher, but couldn’t find one. Luckily, another truck showed up then and they jumped out to help us put the fire out. Water was tried at first, but that was a bad idea. It only made the flames worse. We ended up putting the fire out with dirt.
They offered to take us back down to Shady Lake, which saved us a lot of time. While we were driving back down we noticed that the trail of transmission fluid went for about two miles! I didn’t know there was that much fluid in there. We weren’t roughing up the truck at all. We never went over 30 mph on the trail, and the trail started on flat ground, not on the uphill.
It’s just about impossible to get a phone signal in that area. Sure enough, when we made it back down there, Mark couldn’t even get a single bar. We went looking for the campground host since they usually have a way to call out. When we found him, he didn’t have any way of calling out, but he did get in touch with a park ranger. The ranger called the Mena police and they called in a tow truck.
We decided we would hike back up the mountain to the truck to wait for the tow truck. We got about a mile up the road when the ranger met us and said it would be better if we waited back down by Shady Lake. He gave us a ride back down and we waited and talked for about 45 minutes before the tow truck showed up. The waiting wasn’t bad though since we were in a shaded, breezy part of the forest. I can think of a lot of worse places to wait for a tow truck.
When he finally showed up, he gave us a ride back up to the truck, with the ranger following behind in his Jeep. We all took a look under the truck and noticed the seal on the torque converter had ruptured. The truck had just come out of the Ford dealership a week before with that very part being replaced. The dealership had kept it an entire month before Mark’s dad got it back! And now, about a week later, that same part breaks and strands us out in the middle of nowhere! The DeQueen Ford dealership is known to be pretty crappy, but this was amazingly lame.
The tow truck took us back to Mena instead of DeQueen because it was cheaper, but it still ended up costing Mark over $150. We ended up at Wal-mart eating lunch and wasting time until Mark’s mother could make it out to get us. And to make a bad day even worse, Mark’s mother got into a wreck on her way up to get us! Some idiot wasn’t paying attention and changed lanes, clipping her front fender and tire. She had to go fill out paperwork at the police station before she could pick us up.
I finally made it back home after 7pm. Instead of eight hours of hiking, we had eight hours of stress and expenses. That said, at least it got us both out from behind the computer and makes an interesting story.
The DeQueen Ford dealership has wiggled their way out of it. They’re claiming it wasn’t the torque converter, but the transmission itself that failed. Isn’t the torque converter part of the transmission? Isn’t it possible they messed something up when they were working on the torque converter? I don’t know. All I know is they’re going to charge Mark’s dad another $400 to repair it. Glen said he’s going to pay it and never do business with them again. And I’m sure he’s going to spread the word about their shoddy business practices.
Russ
That sounds like an amazingly horrible day! Look what happens when you try to get away from your computers.