Do you believe in curses? I never used to. Up until quite recently, I’ve been the sort of person that believes in science, in a rational universe, one governed by understandable laws and logical causes and effects. That’s how I was until I encountered the $800 New York City Nissan NV200 taxi with 375,000 miles that we bought from Copart, because the only way to truly understand this vehicle is by giving up on everything you thought you understood about how reality works. This taxi is not an active participant in reality, as far as I can tell. In fact, from what I can tell, somehow this van must have committed some manner of monstrous karmic crime, and now is condemned to exist in this permanent state of near-obliteration, but always being denied the peace that full non-existence would provide.
I say this because after 375,000 miles of some of the hardest, most punishing driving possible – the life of a NYC cab – this taxi has been denied the sweet release of death, even though it clearly deserves it. When we took the van to a Nissan dealer to get an idea of the scope of work that would be needed to get this saffron-colored workhorse going again, the bill came to a pants-filling $14,406.62, an absolutely absurd set of numbers that, when preceded by a dollar sign, should have absolutely no association with this steaming pile of taxi.
The thing is already blighted, a doomed mechanical being that has somehow found itself on the bad side of fate. If you think I’m exaggerating or being overly dramatic, let me tell you what happened when the taxi came into my possession.
If you recall, the taxi was first sent to our own Stephen Walter Gossin, who had the thing foisted upon him while trying to celebrate Thanksgiving, and then put in a Herculean effort to get the thing running, but eventually had to admit either defeat or a loss of giving a crap, either of which are valid and understandable reactions. Somehow, though, we didn’t give up on this thing, so it was sent to me, with the plan that our own steaming-pile-wrenching ubermensch David would take a crack at it, and hopefully get it motile once again.
But first, I had to get the thing safely into my driveway, and that’s where the Curse of the Cab reared its fierce head yet again.
The cab, no longer capable of self-propulsion, came to my house on a flatbed tow truck, using a provider selected by Nexus Auto Transport, whom we’ve worked with before. That’s all fine so far. But things soon proved to be remarkably un-fine. A quick inspection of the cab didn’t reveal anything that horrific, at least visually, unless you count this very alarming-looking bubble in one of the tires, which you absolutely should count:
What actually started to alarm me more was how seemingly unprepared the tow truck operators were for, you know, towing a car. I’m not going to give their name or anything here, but I think I should note that their performance was, um, not up to my usual high expectations. Or maybe even low expectations.
First, they weren’t able to get the cab out of park because it required 12V of electricity, which the battery no longer felt compelled to provide. I expected them to have a jump pack or some other source of 12V on their tow truck, but, no, they didn’t have anything that could spare a dozen volts. So, I parked my truck alongside the ramp, and we jumped the taxi with it enough to get power to unlock the shifter.
Later. I found the shove-the-key-in-the-slot emergency release for the shifter, which, again, you’d think the tow truck driver would know about? Anyway, this is all trivial compared to what happened next, which was this:
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…and here’s an animated GIF of the exciting bits:
Yes, that’s right. Somehow, once the car was in neutral, there was a breakdown in communication between the two people operating the tow truck and responsible for getting the taxi safely off the truck, a breakdown in communications that led to one of the operators believing there was someone in the taxi, on the brake, and the other operator believing that the taxi, with nobody in it, was rolling rapidly down the ramp, onto the street, down the hill, and eventually into a ditch.
Only one of these operators was perceiving the situation accurately.
Yes, as I was sitting in my truck, which was connected by jumper cables to the taxi moments before, I saw the damn thing go rolling down the hill, out of control, driver’s door flapping open, and heading down the hill. I was terrified that it might continue down that hill, picking up speed, and could crash into a neighbor’s house or an oncoming car, or, everything forbid, hit one of the many people and dogs that routinely walk around in my neighborhood.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen; instead, the steering wheel was angled enough that it rolled into a ditch off the side of the road, and had its progress stopped by a helpful, if destructive, tree.
Holy crap. What a mess.
This could have gone so, so much worse, of course, and when I saw that miserable, unfortunate taxi lying forelorn in that ditch I mostly just felt relief. Well, relief and relief’s rhyming cousin, disbelief. Disbelief at what a colossal cluster this whole thing was rapidly turning into. Can nothing be easy with this taxi? Why does this thing seem to be the target of some god’s wrath?
The sad hilarity continued after the taxi was winched out of the ditch, only to find a nice, big log had gotten wedged underneath it, and just to put the big, wet cherry on this crap sundae, the tow truck operators somehow didn’t have a jack, which meant I had to run and grab my floor jack so we could get the big chunk of wood out from under the taxi.
Again, what a mess.
The damage wasn’t exactly catastrophic, but it wasn’t nothing, either. The van’s smack into the tree dented the bumper and put a huge crease in the rear door, shattering the rear window, rendering the rear door well and truly screwed.
As if this thing wasn’t in bad enough shape already, right? I’m pretty sure no one was looking at this van and thinking, you know what this thing needs? A good smack into a tree at about 15 mph or so. That should sort everything out!
Oy. This poor taxi. What awful things did this little Nissan do to deserve this?
Well, whatever it did, we’re not giving up on it. David the shitbox hero will be out here, and we’ll see what we can do for this doomed, unloved, unlucky little monster. Stay tuned.
Hoo boy. I don’t know if CoPart is getting quite the story they wanted here.
“Come to CoPart! You can find some of the coolest, rarest, cursedest shitboxes you’ve ever laid eyes on and promptly lose your life savings and not-insignificant portions of your soul to get them running again! Maybe. Hopefully. If you happen to know a guy who loves wrenching on cursed shitboxes…”
Nor are Nexus –
“You want your car moved? We’ll connect you with qualified buffoons!”
I had a similar thought. So far, what I’m learning from this series is that:
1. Copart vehicles aren’t particularly cheap ($800 for a destroyed taxi? Huh????)
2. The vehicle will be worse than expected (the taxi couldn’t be revived by an experienced automotive reanimator like SWG… us mere mortals would have zero chance)
3. You will deal with a bunch of incompetent yahoos in the process of receiving the vehicle (no one is paying a high-end transporter to deliver a Copart shitbox; at best, that will end in hilarity… at worse, it will end in a massive lawsuit and/or pain and suffering)
I’m surprised Copart hasn’t slipped the Autopian a few hundred bucks to bury this story. This might test the adage that any publicity is good publicity.
Thank you for the kind words! Yeah, there’s something cursed about this cab.
Even after spending all of Thanksgiving weekend getting it to where it would start, it still puked oil all over my driveway and the crank pulley would come off even with 1,000+ft/lbs of torque!
I was wicked glad to see it go. Just wait until you hear about the next chapter – the curse continues…kind of.
There should be a check in the mail from the tow company’s insurance carrier just about now. With any luck it will be enough to pay for the cost of the taxi, the tow fee and replacement rear doors and bumper from a wrecking yard.
And there should be an opening for a transport truck driver’s assistant awaiting a candidate.
I see it’s ready for racing with its rear camber.
I was wondering about that. Is that normal? It sure doesn’t look normal.
This think clearly is choosing death. Kind of an automative final destination/death wish.
I’m now wondering if Copart wants to get out the sponsorship deal now???
The rust gods were like “David is working on this car? It looks far too carlike. It hasn’t been sitting in a field for 30 years of anything. How can we rapidly make this more work than the Mouse FC?”
I used to work for a sketchy towing shop. Most people who worked there did so because the company didn’t drug test. And things like this happened.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the biggest expense to run a tow company was insurance rather than the trucks or the labor. I guess if you are going to pay out the ass for insurance either way, may as well find cheap labor…
Do they have any insurance? Maybe a 100 dollar claim sends them right into bankruptcy.
So how much would the claim settlement be? The half-eaten burrito under the claim adjuster’s seat?
Bottom picture, drivers side rear wheel is jacked!
Behold, an adorable little NY Taxi, after 340,000 miles of New York abuse including being bumped by cars, thwacked by angry umbrella-toting stock brokers with tophats and arrow collars, and spending its nights socked in a lot with a bunch of other abused cabs listening to horror stories from one of the three remaining grizzly old Crown Vics, finally gets out of New York to experience a little suburban serenity. And… oh look! It’s a tree! It’s first tree! Let’s go say hi to my first tree! (WHACK)
You called for a tow truck but they sent a wrecker.
“Let me get my cellular out, call you a wrecker. Oh shoot. I got no phone. ‘Cause I’m a pothole, so….k, bye!”
COTD
Congrats on the COTD you’re going to win later, because I can’t stop laughing!
You rock, Mr. Wilson.
At this point, maybe just light the goddamn thing on fire and invite the whole town over for an epic s’mores party.
Feel free to burn the effigies of those stupid-ass truck drivers whilst you’re at it.
Eh, why settle for effigies?
If it was the same towing company that delivered my BRAT, I’m guessing the screw-ups were followed up with a request for a payment $100 more than what you agreed upon plus a tip.
The car shipping industry somehow got sketchier than the insurance industry while no one was looking.
If it was a real brat it would be stuck in 4th on the top deck.
The van was actually still in park, the pull of it returning to nature is just that strong.
Judge Judy says it’s your fault for not cutting the tree down first.
Especially considering your experience with chainsaws.
“Let’s get a word with the plaintiff here. So do you expect to recover from this loss, or will this be the end of an ill fated shit box, again?”
Torch: “I miss Wapner.”
The incompetence from “unnamed delivery company” is absolutely inexcusable. Imagine if this had actually been a nice car, or if the runaway cab had damaged someone else’s property, or worse yet, injured or killed someone. I’d absolutely be raising hell, naming and shaming this shoddy outfit and demanding compensation. It doesn’t matter that the car is virtually worthless, they caused damage that wasn’t there before and need to make it right.
Edit: I still blame Nexus for this, even thought it was technically their “contractor.” Doesn’t seem like they’re too great at vetting companies they hire out.
To look at it in a glass-half-full kinda way, both rear doors were already in rough shape, so now you can just find a nicer pair and clean up the rear of the old cab visually.
Is the tree all right??
“Unfortunately, Foreigner were unable to recapture the magic of their previous hit.”
I announced basketball for my high school men’s team and often played Jukebox Hero during halftime, but for our team I think that would have been more apt.
Damn, that’s some nice camber.
The irony of the bumper sticker saying ”your choices behind the wheel matter,” lol.
Counterpoint, Mr. Law-Talkin’ Guy: there was no one behind the wheel. 😀
At some point the tow guys were in the general plane behind the vehicle. I’d say that counts.
As Canada’s greatest export said, “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
was there mad camber on the rear wheel before or after this incident? you can just stance it 🙂
You can’t hit every F’ing branch of the bad decisions tree without first climbing it.
No, it hit the trunk of the bad decisions tree. With its own trunk, in fact. Or at least the closest a van has to one
Are we just not talking about the clearly bent/broken rear suspension at this point?
Yeah came here to point out that the driver side rear wheel is clearly consisting at least partially, of bluetooth components.
Maybe not again though, eh?
Another glowing mark on the contractorification of everything. Nexus has no responsibility cause they’re just brokers. So they can link you with One eyed Jim’s auto schlepping with no recourse when his lack of depth perception plows your ride into the neighbors dog
Yeah, seems you have been burned twice now by bad deliveries. Maybe select one yourself instead of using a broker. The only partway-bad experience I had was when I used a broker instead of directly contracting with a transport company. Using the lowest bidder isn’t always great.
I’m just curious as to whether Nexus is still an Autopian partner. And, if so, whether they will continue to be.
I’m not going to give their name or anything here
Nah, I think this is a case where a name for the company should be posted.
Those guys had no idea what they were doing, were completely reliant on the customer having items they need to do their jobs, and caused an accident.
Easily could’ve been a car driving down that road not expecting a taxi attack
That’s the problem with using a sponsor to do a job for you. You can’t openly complain when they don’t do it right.
Maybe Nexus was just helping produce content by giving david more repairs to do. He even says he enjoys suspension work in the slate article this morning. What a great partner!
Yeah- what if this car was somebody’s only daily? It’s funny here since this van is a total wreck, but not so much for any car valued over 3 grand.
I think Torch was right to leave the name out. While these transporters seem like a bunch of jamokes, this may be a case of an honest mistake by a company that otherwise operates safely (although, I don’t think that is likely since they seem completely unprepared). I don’t like the attitude that we must try to destroy any person or company that makes a mistake. Obviously, this situation could have ended very badly, but it is still one mistake.
Also, I imagine The Autopian’s lawyers might object to Torch skewering a named company. I presume Torch might have exaggerated some things for entertainment value. Naming a company in a factual review is very different from naming a company in an entertainment piece. The Autopian’s lawyers have a hard enough job already; there is no sense giving them even more indigestion.
I don’t know man.
These guys are unqualified. And caused an accident that was lucky not to be worse.
There’s a video of a car rolling down a street unmanned.
They didn’t have a jack, or a jump pack.
Nexus says the drivers they hire are all vetted and qualified. This incident says otherwise. And I’d prefer to know the company who actually did this instead of the broker to avoid them directly
If a friend tells you a restaurant gave them food poisoning, you’re probably not gonna want to risk going there yourself
Taxi Attack is what they’ll spray paint on both sides of it when they get it just running well enough to enter into a nearby demolition derby.
That is why I make my kids train every day for this precise scenario. “There are no runaway taxis in the Carolinas,” they say. Well who is laughing now!
This has a very “and that’s why you always leave a note” vibe.
I ought to be shocked that the tow truck operators didn’t have proper equipment, but recently I learned that many companies are hiring “drivers” to move around vehicles and the people they hire can be just about anyone off the street. I know this only because the guy who delivered my company’s new work truck was bragging about his job and how I should do it as a side hustle. He knew ZERO about vehicles.
So… did he leave you a number to call?
Yeah, he gave me the info but I had little interest.
I would assume the towtruck would have insurance, but they look a wee bit sketchy
To be fair, the taxi has a fair market value of around $8.73, so I think they could handle a damage claim without insurance.
There’s a few hundred in scrap metal there, same as before the incident.
I would say that the catalytic converter is worth scrap value, too, but we learned in the previous episode that the cat is missing!