Minor Ur-quattro Mishap

[Philip Ross <rossp@blythswood.org.uk>]

At 23:15 on New Year's Day I was traveling to my home in the North of 
Scotland.  I came to a sharp left hand bend on a bridge which can only be 
taken at 20mph even in the dry and unfortunately went straight on.  The 
result was that I ended up on my side in a deep ditch with my wife 
suspended above me in her safety belt.  Eventually I managed to climb out 
by standing on the steering wheel and helped her out afterwards.

A quick phone call to home and my father and brother came out in our two 
200 quattros.  A shove got the ur-quattro over from 90 to 60 degrees. 
 There was a great deal of snow so we towed with both 200s - one sideways 
and one backwards to avoid ending up with the ur-q in the river.  A great 
deal of spinning and revving later the ur-q was back on the road.  One 
thing we noticed was that the 200s with the torsen diff and only the rear 
diff lock spin far more easily in such conditions than the old non-torsen 
models with the two locks did.

Once the ur-q was back on the road the good news was that it had very 
little damage - only a small dent to the front wing and door.  The bad news 
came the next day when the car began to loose power and wouldn't rev above 
2,000-3,000 rpm.  I had to get the car taken to my regular quattro mechanic 
who has told me today that the oil had leaked out through the air intake 
system (when the car was at 90 degrees), dissolved the air filter to mush, 
the mush was then sucked in and jammed the turbo more or less solid.  He's 
pretty confident that a good clean out is going to solve the problem.  I've 
decided to avoid cheap and nasty paper air filters in future.

All in all, a bad advert for my driving and a good advert for the towing 
power of a team of 200 quattros.

Philip Ross.
Lochcarron
Scotland.