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Subaru damage assessment Tuesday, May 12 2015
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
It had never been terribly hot during our entire trip to the Near South, but today up here in the Hudson Valley of New York, the weather was oppressively hot and humid, with a high near 90 degrees. Couple with the heat is the evident absence of rain. I had to go around spot-watering various seedlings in the garden. They'd probably been worried that they'd somehow been planted in the desert.
I finally got around to examining the Subaru today, and I could see evidence of three separate breaks to structural members of the front end. The right lower control arm (a Y-shaped piece of hollow steel) had developed a weakness due to rust and repeated stress and ripped completely through. Also, an attached sway bar link (shaped like a figure-8 with a long bar connecting the two component circles) had cracked off at one of the circles. I ordered replacements for both these parts (both of which came in pairs, though I only need components for the passenger side), and the total came to about $150.
Meanwhile, Gretchen and I were dismayed to find that the cost of having the Subaru towed from somewhere near Saugerties all the way back to our house had somehow managed to cost $325. Our insurance will cover $100 of that, but we're going to have to eat the other $200. Had Robert arranged to get a tow through our insurer, it would have cost a lot less. But when you just call some random tow company, evidently they can charge whatever they feel like charging. Given that reality, I don't know why they didn't charge $10,000.
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