THE FULL STORY

This story is about the last days of my dad's pampered metallic cranberry 92 Crown Vic that was his pride and joy.  When he died in 1998, my non-driving mother inherited the car, which my wife drove on occasion.  The car was like new in and out with not a mark on it until....

I came home from work one Friday night and noticed a bunch of cars parked in front of our house.  I was puzzled since I didn't remember that we were having a party.  Also, I noticed that my Dad's car was not among those in front of the house.  When I opened the garage door it was not inside either.  More puzzled, I went inside the house.  There was a gathering of neighbors and friends at the kitchen table, with my wife at the center.  Nothing looked too abnormal, although we rarely have guests.  I asked my wife where my dad's car was.  After a few muffled laughs from the group, my wife blurted out, "in the backyard."  Huh?  In a few seconds I got the description of a very strange accident.

Yes, the car was in the backyard, at the edge of slope that leads down to our neighbor's yard and pool.  It was hung up on a very large boulder at the top of the slope, with its front wheels lifted far off the ground. Had the boulder not been there, the car would have continued down into the neighbor's pool.  Also, underneath the car was my tool chest, similar to the one in the upper corner of the photo. My tools were scattered 30 feet in all directions.

What happened?  As my wife described it, she had started to enter the garage and got out, for some reason I can't recall.  The kids were in the back seat.  When she got back in the car to finish pulling it into the garage, and put the car in gear, it suddenly just TOOK OFF full-speed ahead.  As she applied the "brake" harder and harder, it continued to take off, grazing a support post, and brushing the water heater base (seen in the upper right of the photo),  busting through the rear wall of the garage taking my tool chest (same location as newer one in photo) and a three-door wide built-in enclosed cabinet system.  She continued out into the backyard, pushing all of this stuff through the rear wall, and through a portico over the rear access door.

Now, why didn't I see all this damage when I came home and opened the garage?  Everything looked pretty normal.  I wish now that I had some pictures.  Anyway, it appears that as the car broke through the rear wall after barely missing the water heater, the rear wall literally swung out as if on a hinge at the roofline,  Similarly, the portico post swung up as the car plowed through it.  As the car continued into the rear yard, the portico and the entire rear wall swung back down and ended up within 6 inches of its original location.  Yes, the built-in cabinets were gone, scattered around the yard, but otherwise you almost could have nailed the wall back in place.  Eventually the entire rear wall and portico were demolished and rebuilt.

What happened to the car?  Well, it was pretty beaten up by the experience.  It took quite a while for us to arrange to have it extricated from the backyard.  We had to wait until the rear wall was demolished.  When that day arrived, and the car was removed from its rocky perch, it started right up and drove perfectly.  I subsequently drove the car to the claim office.  No unintended acceleration or braking problem at all.  However, the repair estimate was $8,000, just shy of a total loss.  All the body panels, except the driver side rear quarter panel, were scarred.  The insurance company would not declare it a total loss.  I was very apprehensive about having the car fixed, as I thought it would never be the same car with all that body work and paint matching to do.  I went home not sure what to do and parked the car in the driveway.

A few days later, my wife was backing her minivan out of the garage, in a bit of a hurry, when BAM!  You guessed it - she hit my dad's car...smack in the middle of the only body panel that was unscathed from the original accident.  Argh!  Now we had a real mess on our hands, as the original accident was covered by my mom's insurance policy, while the second accident would involve my wife's coverage with a different company.  I couldn't wait for the two companies to sort through this.  The only good thing was that I was fairly sure now that the car would be declared a total loss.

I went back to the claim office for my mom's policy, explained to the agent that I had a new problem and told him about the recent development.  When I finished, he looked at me rather seriously and said quietly, "Pretend that you have never been here before.  We're going to just start over."  He proceeded to start an entirely new claim.  When he finished, he declared the car a total loss and authorized a check for the fair market value.  I accepted the settlement, handed the agent the keys to Dad's now rather sorry looking, but mechanically pristine, Crown Vic, said my goodbyes and went on my way.

So, what started all of this?  Was this the proverbial "sudden unintended acceleration", originally linked to the Audi 5000 in the early 1980s (nearly killing the company), but subsequently tied to many other car models, wherein some abnormality in the transmission and/or fuel delivery system cause the car to go into full throttle acceleration?  Subsequent investigations never clearly documented a mechanical cause and generally concluded that driver error (wrong pedal) was the cause, particularly in cars with very close pedal spacing. This resulted in most cars eventually getting transmission interlocks requiring application of the brake in order to shift out of park (not present on my dad's Crown Vic).   I thought, as well, that my wife simply hit the wrong pedal in an unfamiliar car when she jumped back into the car.  My wife, like most of these people, swears that was not the case.  There is one interesting mention of a defect in the Crown Vic cruise control that can generate a short condition, sending the car into full-throttle acceleration even if the cruise control is off.

Not long after we sent the Crown Vic off to the salvage yard, my dear mom asked me what happened to Dad's car.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the tragi-comic demise of Dad’s pride and simply said we sold it.

Despite my wife's protests, I have refused to clean that dramatic patch mark from the garage floor.  It's just too perfect to destroy. She hates it when visitors notice the patch mark and ask how it happened. I love it.

Bill

89 S4