[Self] Carpoot! (Pun Intended)

I know a certain friend will be laughing about this one, but here it goes!

Place: Putrajaya > Puchong > Section 3 > Home

Time: About 1 month ago, when I was still in Msia

Took the Hyundai Coupe out from the service centre on Tues, drove it to work on Wed. Had a late conf call, and sped back home around 2300hrs.

Now, somewhere around Putrajaya-Puchong, I detected a faint burning rubber smell. Checked the handbrake, it was down so no probo; then (I admit) I smirked a bit as I saw a car pumping out clouds of thick black exhaust fumes. "Poor fella", I thought as I whisked past the car, thinking he was the one emitting the burnt rubber smell.

I wound down my window to get rid of the smell, but thought it weird as I spiraled down a connecting loop that the burnt smell didn't seem to dissapate depsite the sheer amount of wind volume that was ventilating through the car.

"Whatever lah", said I as I hit hard on the pedal as the road straightened and hit 120km/h.... And I zipped past the Puchong toll and started to go towards the LDP stretch featuring the old Motorola building.

And then a van behind started to horn me. "Bloody bugger, what's your problem?" I cursed. Then, seconds later the car started to stall and slowed down to a sheer 60km/h. Weird, I floored the pedal - watched the RPM meter sprint up but the speedometer stayed the same. The van horned me a second time and I cursed him again "Gimme a break man, my engine's got a problem!".

And then, the burnt smell returned in stronger whiffs, and the van continued to horn me with greater urgency. I was at the peak of the Motorola flyover then.

Then came the "Oh shit, I'm the burning rubber smell" Revelation.

And the van, having felt he had done his job to warn me, went past me as the speedometer stalled at a pathetic 40km/h. A dude on a motorbike came to my side and started yelling "Lei ge cher, chow foh zhor!" (your car is on fire).

Well, panicking, I managed to steer the car into a road at the abandoned Panasonic factory. The rear left wheel was glowing with a glaring orange hue illuminating the dark road as it was as bright as a Jack O'Lantern.

Fearing the worst and not able to find water, Motorbike Dude (who stopped by) and me started to throw sand at the wheel to stop any flames from errupting. In reality it didn't really help, and in retrospect it was like 2 dudes in some cheap horror story where they sprinkle doses of holy water at the looming dark figure, but it simply does not stop the demon from coming to connect them to their doom.

Anyway, the car didn't explode, and it didn't burn either. And then the rear tire scarred by the heat, charred but not entirely burnt up (in fact it was still intact), finally gave way. A sickening, moaning wheeze lasted for a good 2 mins as the air oozed out reluctantly.

After all the drama, I dialed the Kurnia Insurance service that provided an towing excellent service (1st tow truck came in 20 mins but didn't cut it, and a 2nd one of the carrier type came from downtown in about 30 mins later).

After that, came several long and painful days of getting the coupe back to the damn workshop and I had to sink into the tasks of spareparts searching, badgering some useless bums from the Hyundai workshop to provide me an official explanation (still waiting for it), and getting very exhausted and pissed off during the entire process.

But yeah, weird and interesting experience.