We were on our way from the Twin Cities to Grand Marais, passing through Duluth in our 20-year-old Volkswagen Eurovan MV. Suddenly, during of shift of the manual transmission, the stick shift felt like it was connected to NOTHING. We coasted off of I-35 and into a parking lot, where I pushed the VW into a parking space. Oh, no, I thought -- there go five days of camping reservations.
Thanks to AAA and a very nice tow-truck driver (Dave at K/J Auto Servce), our Eurovan was deposited at Volkswagen of Duluth. It was late in the day, but the nice folks gave us a loaner car, and allowed us to sleep in our Eurovan in their parking lot over night. We and the Eurovan were equipped for sleeping -- we had just planned to do it near the shore of Lake Superior instead of in Volkswagen of Duluth's parking lot. I have to say, the lights were VERY bright overnight.
To make a long story short, they fixed the problem with our gear-shift linkage, noticed and fixed an issue with our starter, and got us on our way to Grand Marais only one day late! The manual transmission has never shifted so nicely as when they were done adjusting it. The cost was very reasonable, too. Personal thanks to Jon Campbell, Axel Reyes, and Nigel Little.
We were very lucky in several ways. First, our breakdown happened in a city. That city had a VW dealer in it. That VW dealer had a part for a rare manual transmission in a 20-year-old vehicle. Most of all, we were lucky to encounter the nice people and good mechanics at Volkswagen of Duluth. We highly recommend them!
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