Just make sure you have the brakes ready to go before allowing your wife to go "move the car"...
My neighbor recently replaced the rear pads on his 2013 Dodge Charger and, afterwards neglected to pump the brakes back up to get the slack out of the pistons. Later, as they were thinking about going out to a local restaurant, his wife said "I'm going to go start the car"...or, at least, that's what
he heard. What she apparently said was "I'm going to go start the car and move it into the shade". So...a few moments later (
very long moments, according to her), she starts up the Charger, puts it in reverse, moves a bit down their
very steep driveway, applies the brakes, and...OH SH!!. The car is now running wildly down the driveway with the driver's door wide open, heading toward the, up 'till now, very friendly across-the-street neighbor's house! At first, (the first few milliseconds), she was not sure what the hell was happening and she took off a good chunk of bark from the Mountain Laurel next to the driveway with the door, flat ran over another small tree, and left some rather unsightly scratch marks in the side of the next-door neighbor's driveway. Then, realizing that she was heading down with NO WAY to stop, she looked back and determined that running into the neighbor's tree (it's a cedar, so, who cares?), was far better that going either through their house
, or through their side yard and and, then, through God knows what; and stopping in the next street over...if lucky.
Doing some, admittedly, admirable maneuvering, she headed for the tree which, upon impact said (and I quote) "Oow!".
Pretty well tossed between merely frazzled and pissed beyond belief, she exited the car, calmly walked back up the driveway, and "informed" her hubby what had just transpired.
Simultaneously awash with a sense of amazement, admaration, and mortal dread, he walks out to survey the situation. Sure enough, there is the, formerly pristine Fire Red Charger, snuggling up with the neighbor's cedar tree, ass-end in a fond embrace.
A call goes out to the insurance company and they say "no problem, we'll set you up with a rental". Cool, says he, I have to be somewhere in the AM and so does the (recovering nicely) wife. So, he calls Hertz and, after 40 minutes on hold, gets a text message from Hertz stating that the insurance company had contacted them and said he was in need of a rental. Uhm...yeah OK...good; replied to text with requested info about make and model. Five minutes later gets a second text from Hertz asking for more info...at which time neighbor replies "F***ING CALL ME, THAT'S WHAT PHONES ARE FOR!!!!", or, something to that effect. They do, and it's all worked out.
Upon initial inspection, it does not look too bad for the beleaguered Charger...door's a goner for sure...front driver quarter panel, yep...trunk lid definitely, but that seems about it. The bad news...after the tow truck shows up and pulls the Charger away from the tree and the three-footed posture it was in (off side of neighbor's driveway), the full extent of the carnage becomes apparent. Added to the door, driver front quarter panel, and trunk lid, are the drivers rear quarter panel, the rear bumper, the right rear quarter panel and the right rear roof section. Sigh! We all looked appropriately forlorn and said how sorry we were but, "that Charger will charge no more".
The tow truck latched on; my neighbor removed anything he wanted to ever see again from the vehicle; and we all waved goodby to the poor Charger that, through no fault of its own, was forced to face its Waterloo against a stinking cedar tree, 150 feet from its own home, sweet home.
So, in summation, do a quick test drive!
