I got good news, and I got bad news……
The good news is that I am coming back to Tahoe! God, I can’t wait to see my friends and shred in Tahoe!
The bad news is that I blew up my transmission and have to go swap in a new one back home.
As any good story starts, I was in the middle of nowhere, stuck on the side of a mountain road just outside of Boise Idaho.
Lucky for me I had cell service and a tow truck was able to get out to me within a few hours.
Two red-neck drivers showed up and took me to the nearest Mercedes-Benz dealership (only shop with the experience to help in this extreme situation). On the drive to the shop, they told me about all their crazy hunting stories and how they drank an insane amount of homemade moonshine at their rugby team parties.
It was honestly hilarious to hear them talk about their life experiences hahaha. They were the kind of 30-40-year-old rednecks who never left their hometown.
Once they dropped me off at the shop, the shop started diagnosing my problem. But they couldn’t come up with a real answer for me.
Why couldn’t the shop give me a definitive answer about the state of my transmission?! I went to them because they were supposed to be the only shop around that could help me.
I mean they are literally the dealership with all of the necessary experience and tools to accomplish the task at hand.
After talking to the lead mechanic and explaining the symptoms in detail, we came to the conclusion that my transmission was having intermittent issues. Therefore my transmission was not completely destroyed. This was decent news because I am now able to limp it back home and fix it there.
Thank god for that, because otherwise I would have had to pay $7.3k for the shop to fix it. Or I would have had to pay about $3k to tow it back home where I could fix it myself.
Neither good options.
All in all, I will learn EVEN MORE about diesel vans and transmissions during this process of replacing my current one.
The best part about this entire experience is how I reacted. I wasn’t angry, upset nor any other negative emotion that would have held me back.
I have kept a quote on my wall for years now, it says “I treat triumph and disaster the same”
This experience demonstrated to me that I definitely live up to the ability to follow this quote and stay positive during the worst of times.