New Gallardo - The First Two Weeks

Hello!

It's been quite a two weeks since I took delivery of the '04 Gallardo from Domani Motors

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135348841&postcount=40

This is a bit long winded so only proceed if you have a lot of time on your hands.

After the purchase went though the count down for delivery began. After a few days I get a call the driver was 6 hours away… that 6 hours turns into 14 hours. This was only the first in a series of ongoing issues. The night the driver (Exotic Transport) drove the car off the truck at 4:00 a.m., the engine started surging and my heart sank. I planned for the worse but it turned out that the car was delivered completely out of gas! I mean so empty that I think if I had left the car running for another 60 seconds it would have drained the system (which I later heard was very bad for the catalytic converter). I went to a 24 hour gas station and filled a 5 gallon can. Within minutes I was off in the early morning light for the first test drive.

After a short nap I drove the car to work and spent the day admiring her from my corner office. But at the end of the day when I went to leave, I turned the key and nothing happened... no crank, nothing. There was adequately power for lights and systems but the voltage meter was very low (I think 6 Volts?). Figured I left the interior lights on… and it’s dark and frigging cold. I call Amex roadside assistance for a jump after checking in with Lamborghini Boston to make sure a jump is permissible. They cleared that a jump was ok and within an hour I was back on the road.

Next day it was nice weather again so it’s off to work, but at the end of the day it was the same story. Now I’m annoyed and call Lamborghini Roadside to get it on a flat bed and up to Lamborghini Boston for a check out. The next day Todd confirms a bad battery and orders a new one. I ask for a Post Purchase Inspection and also mention that the brakes were squeaking loudly. Also, the car was programmed for the metric system and I’m too stupid to have any idea how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit. Todd is great and gets the car right in and has it ready just a few days later. But I found out later they forget to check the squeaky brakes. But I buy a lovely new car cover and forget about the brakes for the time being.

A few days later my mum has an emergency surgery and on the way out of town I grab the car for the 6 hour drive from Boston to Burlington VT. Another gorgeous day and I cannot wait for the drive which is freeway the entire 6 hours though New Hampshire and Vermont mountains. I get to Burlington and her surgery went fine and I decide to stay a week. This may be a good time to also mention the extreme amount of attention this car receives especially when passing though upper New England. I am embarrassed at times and if you lead a very busy and quick moving life (which I normally do) this may not be the car for you. Every time I leave or enter the car I usually need to spend a least 10 minutes answering questions and giving a tour! I am not complaining at all and I love the look on kids faces when I let them get in the car and have their pictures taken… priceless. A lot more attention than my 360 Spider.

So ok… I am in Burlington for five days and I am bored sh*tless and mums doing a lot better… in fact I am driving her nuts and vice versa. So I get the bright idea to go to Montreal for a few days. Now I am not sure if anyone has been following the weather here since Tuesday because I sure was not. We say our goodbyes and I leave around 4 p.m. in a light rain. But within an hour everything turned to utter chaos. I get up to Saint Albans and the rain has now turned to light snow. I’m thinking that everything will be fine as the car temperature display was reading 0 Celsius which I had in my head was 40-50 Fahrenheit. Dead wrong… that’s the freezing point.

Within 10 minutes I am at the 45 degree mark of the equator and around me is stopped traffic and 5 inches of new snow. I start thinking of Roytoy and feel better knowing that he drives his car in the snow and the Gallardo is AWD. Snow tires escaped my thinking though. It’s slow going and other that a few slips from a dead start all is well. But then it hits… another 15 minutes and a full blown Nor’easter slams Vermont. I am talking blizzard conditions where it’s a white out and visibility is 10 feet. Just seeing the brake lights of the car in front of you is next to impossible. The traffic also starts to thin out and I am thinking “where the hell is everyone going”? This is Northern Vermont where exits are 40 miles apart. There is no option other than to push on…. And it keeps getting worse. About 20 miles before the Canadian border the flakes get bigger and snow looks to be around 10-12” deep. The road looks like it was not plowed for a few hours and I am scared out of my parts. Hands glued to the wheel, I was praying out loud… when I see the sign for a rest area a mile up the road.

Pulling into the rest stop was a challenge as it was uphill and there was a 20 foot drop off on either side of the entrance but it looked like it had been plowed recently. I slowly build up speed to around 25 and start to have flash backs of childhood memories. But I get to the top ok and after a minute to regain consciousness I roll out of the car for a cigarette and a break. Of course the rest area is packed and within minutes it seems every person is around the car in disbelief. But the snow does seem to be coming down lighter for the time being. It's now I find out it’s been snowing up here most of the day and all of New England knew this but me.

After a break I start to become concerned with the options that lie ahead…. Sleep in a rest stop that’s about to close, leave the car and hitch a ride with an onlooker (whom already are questioning my mental state), or push on. I mistakenly choose to push on. The exit of the rest stop is the opposite of the entrance and I start a slow decent, but the car starts sliding off to the left side which also has a 15-20 drop off into a snow filled ditch. Like an IDIOT I hit the brakes, which of course accelerates the sliding and only when I am a few feet from the edge I remember to take my foot off the brakes… viola! The car corrects itself and I make it to the bottom of the hill and back onto the freeway. There are NO cars in sight and the snow just keeps coming… and I am still 100 miles from Montreal at this point in the story.

Part Two tomorrow with pictures for those still with me. It gets better.

Billy