Gorramn rock on the road...

[eTiMaGo]

So I'm happily driving this morning, when suddenly from under the truck in front of me appears a friggin huge rock smack dab in the middle of the lane... There's a car on the other lane, and another coming fast on the incoming lane, so I have nowhere to swerve to... moving pretty fast too, so stomping on the brakes was not a good idea.

So, I try my best to go over it without hitting any underside stuff, but BANG, of course... Had the car not been lowered, I may have not hit anything, so let this come as a warning, kids

Anyway I then managed to find a place to stop, could not see much under the car but at least there was no evidence of any leak. Once I took off again, though, the exhaust was starting to make a bad noise, a loud rattling, but only under 1500rpm or so... Might have dented or knocked a hole in the catalyzer

Gonna have to finish some work, then off to a garage to take a better look...

[tk-421]

Oh, man! Sorry to hear that...
Wishing for a happy and quick recovery to your Yaris!

[eTiMaGo]

Well i managed to squat down and take a look under from the front of the car, the cat and resonator look untouched, but after that there is an elbow in the exhaust, and it has a big mark on it, might be dented, and probably causing the whole exhaust to rattle. Of what I could see, nothing else seems to have been damaged, thankfully.

[Pars]

I recall an incident with my old 98 Civic which was lowered an inch (prokit springs, tokico shocks) but that car had an extremely flat underside. There was an innocent looking brown paper bag in middle of my lane, so I decided to go over it and I hear some metal on metal grumbling as my heat shield scrapes over whatever menace is hiding inside the paperbag. The Focus wagon (stock) that was behind me didn't do so well. I hear a loud bang, look up into my rearview and see the same paper bag wedged under the Focus. Since then, I'll weave around the most innocent looking obstacle.

[Kaotic Lazagna]

man, that sucks. i'll even try to avoid large pebbles/small rocks on the road. hopefully all goes well with your exhaust.

[brickhardmeat]

I ran over a plastic cup just now on my way home and it made contact. I have like no paint left on the bottom of my front bumper thanks to driveways. I slowly went over what looked like a very average speep bump the other day and gave something a bit of a wack coming down. Oh the pleasures of being low.

[tiksman]

I hit a driveshaft off a semi truck right after it fell out of the truck. Messed up the engine frame a little bit. It sucks when you hear all the banging under the car.

[eTiMaGo]

Well here's the bulk of the damage, it's the section of the midpipe right before the final bend... Gas tank also has a nice scratch across it, but thankfully it's only cosmetic.

I checked with the insurance, they should be able to cover it. Meanwhile I have a very badass sounding car that feels like it has huge dips in the torque curve

[slvryaris]

Crazyness. At least it was in the middle of the road and not flying in the air ...aaaaahhhhhh

[eTiMaGo]

heh yeah... and how in the world would a huge ass rock end up in the middle of the road? there was no big truck ahead from which it could have fallen off, it's really weird...

[Galavoxx]

I was on my motorcycle once and a huge chunk of ice appeared in the middle of the road!! Needless to say, I was a little too close to the car in front of me and could not avoid hitting this thing. It must have fallen off the top of a car coming down from the mountains. The mini van in front of me drove dright over it without touching the thing. I ended up hitting the chunck and got airborne. Somehow, probably due to my driving straight into the thing and standing up, I just landed and kept riding. I looked back and the ice had busted up a bit and slid into the next lane. I thought I was going to eat it going 75mph. That would have sucked. I've been riding bikes for 15 years and that was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. That little incident taught me never to drive too close to the car in front of you. This goes for driving a car or a bike. Good to hear you didn't destroy your transmission or anything else eTima.

[Pars]

Another time, I was driving my 84 CRX, going over 100mph when a car cut me off and forced me on to the shoulder. At that same instant there was a piece of log on the shoulder (about 1/2 foot square) and one of the front wheel went over it. The log exploded into little tooth-pick size junks. Nothing happed to the CRX, probably because of the torsion beam suspension.

[Galavoxx]

Originally Posted by Pars

Another time, I was driving my 84 CRX, going over 100mph when a car cut me off and forced me on to the shoulder. At that same instant there was a piece of log on the shoulder (about 1/2 foot square) and one of the front wheel went over it. The log exploded into little tooth-pick size junks. Nothing happed to the CRX, probably because of the torsion beam suspension.

Holy Crap!!!

[Pars]

Originally Posted by Galavoxx

Holy Crap!!!

Yep. That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw the log coming at me

Since then, I'll only ditch to the shoulder in the most dire situation when all else fails.

[Imagine]

Ah, the joys of lowered cars. You gotta love them. Sorry to hear about your exhaust, thats a nasty ding. Wait until you get a dead animal stuck on the exhaust and you get to smell the burning corpse. Thats always a pleasant one.