Need Advice on Potential 97 A6 Avant

[Kelvin]

> I can't think of many "accidents" where
>there would ONLY be mechanical damage like oil pans and stuff like that.
I can. About a dozen years ago I was driving home one rainy night in my 
'85 4000 Quattro when I ran over some very large item on the road which 
was invisible. It blew my left front tire so I had to pull off the road 
in the dark and put on the spare. 

     Curious as to what I had hit, and also interested in protecting 
anyone who might follow in my footsteps I went out on the road to see 
whether I'd hit a pot hole or what. "It" turned out to be about a foot 
long section of a railroad tie, about 8" x 8" in cross section and coal 
black, which on wet black top was all but unseeable. I picke it up and 
tossed it into a convenient Dumpster, presumably sparing other drivers 
the same grief.

     On my drive home,  it was obvious all was not right with the front 
end, so the car went into the shop the next day. There was no body damage 
at all, so no repainting was required, but I had to replace several 
components in the front end. The details are fuzzy now, but the mechanics 
at my shop wondered what in the world I'd hit to incur such extensive 
damage. They are as amazed as I. The repair bill came to something like 
$1000, but, again, required no body work of any kind. So one can do 
serious damage to a car without touching the body, as unlikely as it 
seems.

Kelvin Kean
P.S. Interestingly when I hit the railroad tie, I'd just pulled into the 
passing lane (the road was four lanes) to clear a car stopped partly on 
the shoulder and partly in the right lane. The screwballs in that car has 
also hit the railroad tie, and blown their left front tire too, but were 
too busy looking at their car to consider what the cause of the problem 
was and address it. Their negligence cost me a lot!