trip to philly:car keyed, exhaust, burning oil

[abatzis2@hotmail.com (Michael Abatzis)]

ugh. i'm stopped in d.c. now, having driven through a pretty good snowstorm 
in the carolinas and virginia; i can officially say that i miss the old 
scirocco. problems noticed over 1100 miles:
1. i'm burning a quart of oil every 500 miles. i noticed this a bit since i 
put the new head on a couple of months ago, but didn't realize the extent. i 
figure a leak that big should be obvious, so i'm guessing i have bad valve 
guides or something. hoping i didn't bend a valve or 2 when my crank pulley 
slipped, though i think this was going on before that. weird though, i would 
also think i'd see blue smoke or something, but i don't.
2. i redeveloped an exhaust leak just in front of the cat. this is the third 
timje in 8 months it's happened. it's also having erratic idle and stalling, 
which i'm guessing is due to this leak.  i hoped putting on HD tranny mount 
would help, but i guess not. i'm going to try welding a plate on that 
section of pipe to try to limit flex there. anyone done this before?
3. my car get keyed in philly. i'm SO pissed off about this, especially 
since the paint on this car was nearly perfect. this was in valet parking 
overnight.  not just keyed though; there are big chunks of paint missing on 
both sides of car. quarters, doors, fenders, roof. only thing spared was 
roof. so i have to report this to ins--i'm guessing i'll need a whole new 
respray, though i have no idea how much this stuff will cost. i'm figuring 
on the $500 deductible though.

-Michael Abatzis
Hotlanta! GA
1988 Scirocco 2L 16v RIP-->parting, prelim web site, but not taking orders 
yet: www.learnlink.emory.edu/~mabatzi/mikes_page1.html
1987 Scirocco 2L 16v...




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