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Published: August 5th 2008
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Hello all!
We left off in Inuvik! Our stay of almost three weeks in the small community, was a great experience. The most unusual feature of the town (in summer) is that it doesn't get dark... We sat out until 3 in the morning to watch the sun not set. It simply bounces off the horizon and goes back up. It's kind of weird having no sense of what time it is.
On our last night in Inuvik we went for a stroll along the river front and got invited onto a house boat by a bunch of locals, we then spent the evening drinking red wine and playing musical instruments in a singalong.
Next morning we hitched a ride south... To Whitehorse. Kelly drove us the whole way, stopping for a night near Dawson. We got to see a lot of the Dempster Highway views in the sunshine that we missed on the way.
Well, Inuvik will hold a special place in our hearts as it was the last place the van ran. Dave installed the part and presto! It still didn't work. We did lots of back and forth and weighing our options in Inuvik and
finally decided to get a transport truck to take the van to Whitehorse, Yukon (for a bargain price of $700 for 1200 km and down the Dempster hwy), where we could have use of a friend's shop so Dave could see what else there was going on with poor old rusty. Finally, after an entire day of wrestling with the compact motor and transmission, Dave and George found out that the clutch is broken. The same clutch we got replaced in Winnipeg at the VW dealership. HMMMMMM! We said to ourselves. After speaking with the Winnipeg VW people, we found out that our one year/20,000 km warranty had ran out!!! REEEAAALLY! 50 weeks and 22 thousand, Reeeaaalllyy!!!! And we found out that the clutch was a faulty one from the manufacturer! It wasn't heat treated and so it basically spun silently into pieces over the course of a year! Still no assistance from VW, despite this obvious injustice! We are not sure if any other damage has been done due to this faulty part, but the entire bell housing of the gear box was full of iron filings and grease from the something grinding up against the transmission, and there
was visible damage to other parts of the clutch and flywheel, bearings and release arm...? We are actually quite lucky that it broke down 500 yards from the campsite in Inuvik! And a huge thank you to all of our guardian angels. And a special thanks to Brian, George and T-BO.
So we've spent a few days deliberating on what our options were and came to the conclusion that we had to abandon old rusty and have a big yard sale. We are running out of time to get things flown up and such and some of the repairs need "special tools" only found in VW garages (is that right, eh?) The nearest VW garage is in Edmonton (2300km to the south east).
Luckily, Sharon and George live on a busy street so we just put out our things on the lawn on Sunday and sold our goodies! (it's just stuff, right?) We made some good cash! "Better than a kick up the ass with a pair of frozen mukluks" (as one of the local neighbours had said the other day).
We have had company of skittles, a twenty eight-toed cat, 7 claws on each foot and
a handsome boy he is....
So we decided that after the purchase of our new used car, which is white as well, we would tell people that the van was washed and dried---then it shrunk! Check out what happened to the yellow canoe! haha!
We leave Whitehorse today and onwards we go!!! We will not touch on the ugly logistics of buying a used car in the Yukon to get registered in Ontario as we would like you to continue reading our blog!!! Stay tuned for new adventures!
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Sarah Giles
non-member comment
fight the power!
Do NOT let VW get away with it! I suggest lots of angry letters and pointing out the costs incurred as a result...I'm amazed they are so useless!