Rollover, or side swipe?

7:16 am - Sunday - December 4th - GNHS - 50° F, 79% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the west......very cloudy today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2009 we were in , Newport, Oregon in the middle of a 3 week trip.....here we are staying overnight in the shadow of the Yaquina Bay Bridge.......↴

We were not expecting any rental activity Saturday as there were only 9, or 10 occupied RV's in the park, and it seemed they all had dirt bikes and/or UTV's.  Around 11 am we locked the office door and took a walk around the park.  We were about 5 minutes from arriving back at the office when I got a call from Kyle advising we had prospective customers at the office looking to rent two of our 4 seat Polaris RZR's.....cool!  We hurried back, and by 12 noon the customers were heading out for a 4 hour tour.  Once we rent out UTV's for a half, or full day rental we are on the clock for the duration as we must be available to provide assistance in case of a breakdown, or the customers are directionally challenged.  All of my routine maintenance on the other UTV's was up to date, so I really did not have much to do, so I moved the jack stands on the VW sand rail to the driver side to raise that side, and inject some ATF fluid into those cylinders.  I am still not able to bar the engine over, but am hoping after a few days of soaking the cylinders on the driver side that it will budge.  Is it likely?  Probably not, but I am still hopeful.

Around 3:30 pm the customers returned to report they had damaged the #2 RZR (same one that had the left front wheel broken off a couple of weeks ago).  The entire right side had cosmetic damage to the right front quarter panel, the right front mud guard, both passenger side door skins, the right side of the roof, severely scratched paint on the roll cage, and the right rear mud guard.  They 'claimed' they hit a canyon wall when trying to pass someone on the right, but the damage pattern indicates they rolled it on its side, plus there are NO canyon walls anywhere along the route they were taking.  It doesn't really matter how it happened, but that the damage occurred, and must be repaired, but both Kyle and I are about 90% sure it was rolled onto its side, and slid for 10-15 feet.  Kyle and I took the RZR out for a 2 mile drive to be sure nothing else mechanically was damaged, and it passed that test, so we just have to repair the cosmetic damage.  The door skins, the roof, the right front quarter panel/mud guard, and the right rear mud guard will cost over $2,000 to repair.....(that stuff is expensive)...plus another 2-3 days of loss of use at $500/day....  

......so a rental that brought in about $1,100 (for both UTV's) will, additionally, cost the customer another $3,000....I hope they had fun.....that was an expensive 3.5 hours!  One would think that customers who know they are essentially self insuring any damage they cause out of their own pocket would be more careful, but one would be wrong....so far.

By the time we finished assessing the damage, and putting everything away for the night it was 5 pm, and it was dark.  We played 6 games of Yahtzee on the 'lido deck', and then enjoyed an evening fire until well after 8 pm before heading in for the night.  

Thanks for stopping by!