Triumph … and Tragedy

When I drove to Birmingham to look at the car, I had reserved at U-Haul an auto-transport through the national reservation center, after verifying that my truck was capable of pulling it. I looked at the car and made the deal with the seller (a nice guy who is into Studebakers), then went to pick up my trailer.

However, the people at the U-Haul center refused to rent me the auto-transport, claiming that my truck wasn't capable of pulling it with a car on it. While I was arguing with the one rep about this, another one rented the only remaining one on the lot to someone else! So, after making it VERY clear that I was doing it under protest (and taking out their Safe-Tow insurance), I rented a dolly and went back to pick up the car.

While loading the TR on the dolly, I noticed that the 'spinner' was missing off the right rear wheel, but thought it of no consequence since I (and the seller) were under the impression that these were bolt-on wheels. In all fairness, I do not recall seeing any part of the spindle showing on that rim to clue any of us to the fact that it was a knock off wheel.

I'm quite sure that all of you know what happened now. I made it from Birmingham, AL to about 50 miles from my home in Arkansas before that wheel came off. As it came off, it tore the fiberglass rear fender off. Fortunately, that was the extent of the damage to the TR, but now I am stuck with the car on the side of the freeway in the middle of the night! The only thing we could do was drop the tow dolly and car and leave it for the night. I can not describe how low I felt as we drove away, leaving it behind after going through so much to get it.

The next day my brother-in-law came with my wife and myself to pick up a true transport from the local U-Haul dealer (another real jerk) and went back to pick it up. I admit a part of me was scared that we wouldn't find it when we got there, but it was sitting exactly where I had left it. All of us looked around the area where the car was sitting to see if we could find the missing wheel, but nothing turned up. I noticed a very large mud puddle over by a fence but saw nothing in it. So we hooked the dolly back up to my truck and used it to push the wounded vehicle onto the transport, tied it down tight and headed for home.

UPDATE: Two weeks later, my family and I made a trip back to the location and walked along the side of the highway looking for any sign of the missing wheel. We started where the wheel initially came off and worked towards where I had pulled off the highway. As we walked along we found numerous pieces of the fender scattered about - looked like after it came off several semis had shredded it further. We picked those up to dispose of them and kept searching. Finally we got back to the location where I had dropped the car that night and my son looked over towards where the mud puddle had been and said 'Dad, is that it?' Sure enough, right in the middle of the dried mud - almost exactly parallel to where I had stopped the car - sat the missing wheel in plain sight! Unless it had sunk to the bottom of the pool, I have no idea how we missed it when we picked up the car!

FINAL UPDATE: I contacted U-Haul's insurance company to file a claim against their Safe-Tow insurance. Although U-Haul was an unpleasant experience every step of the way, their insurance co. was very polite and professional and quickly processed my claim. I took the precaution of going to the local LBC guru so he could give an estimate of the damage, and the adjuster agreed with what he came up with. Two weeks after throwing the tire, I had a check in hand that was for more than I had paid for the car to begin with!