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Car dives into elevator shaft

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Old 05-24-12 | 02:15 PM
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Default Car dives into elevator shaft

I realize that there are many fewer manual transmissions these days, but a parking attendant doesn't know that the car will jerk if you pop the clutch??

Car dives into elevator shaft
By Julie Shaw
Daily News STAFF WRITER
An Infiniti got trapped in a car-elevator shaft on the morning of May 24, 2012.

Whoa! Someone got quite a scare this morning at the Convention Center Parking garage on North Broad Street, between Race and Cherry Streets, in Center City.

A black Infiniti, with a driver inside, partially fell down a ground-level car lift before 10 a.m.

Andrew Afandor, an employee with the 1st Choice Response Unit tow-truck company, who was there afterward waiting to tow the car away, said he heard this account from garage employees:

A garage worker had gotten into the Infiniti G375, which was in front of a closed elevator door. He was getting ready to park it. But the worker apparently "popped the clutch" on the stick-shift car, Afandor said, which "makes the car jump, and it moves."

The car then slammed into the bottom half of the elevator door and "hit it so hard, it opened," Afandor said. The car plunged downward, but luckily hit a platform about five feet below. The elevator car was above the Infiniti at the time, he said.

The driver was "so shooken up," but managed to get out, and slid down a pillar to the platform, Afandor said. Afandor assumes there must have been a door at the level below for the driver to then safely walk out.

The worker wasn’t hurt and was sent home, Afandor said.

An earlier account, based on a passerby’s information, suggested a different series of events.

When the Daily News first tried to investigate, a red-shirted garage employee demanded that the reporter leave the garage and spouted that the damaged car was "just decoration."

A manager of the garage later came by and said he could not comment.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/br...tor_shaft.html
Attached Thumbnails Car dives into elevator shaft-g37-fail.jpg  
Old 05-24-12 | 02:43 PM
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A manager of the garage later came by and said he could not comment.
"What you see is what you get. " Nothing more obvious than that

and what's a G375???
Old 05-24-12 | 02:55 PM
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Originally Posted by GS3Tek
"What you see is what you get. " Nothing more obvious than that

and what's a G375???
I was wondering the same thing. Probably a G37S...
Old 05-24-12 | 03:03 PM
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G375, lovely, haha...
Old 05-24-12 | 04:42 PM
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How do you "pop the clutch"? In my experience, if you don't modulate the clutch in a manual the engine dies. The only way a car would lurch forward like this is if the driver was pressing the throttle. He was probably giving it too much gas when he lifted off the clutch. Sounds like a Darwin Award candidate.
Old 05-24-12 | 05:11 PM
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Er... fail joy ride?
Old 05-25-12 | 05:44 AM
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Originally Posted by speedflex
How do you "pop the clutch"? In my experience, if you don't modulate the clutch in a manual the engine dies. The only way a car would lurch forward like this is if the driver was pressing the throttle. He was probably giving it too much gas when he lifted off the clutch. Sounds like a Darwin Award candidate.
In my 3-series with it's little 2.5L, stepping off the clutch suddenly causes the car to lurch forward violently and THEN die. I do this occasionally by accident if I've been sitting for a while before getting out and forgot that I haven't turned the car off.

Give that an engine with 50% larger displacement and 100% more power than mine, and I can totally envision something like this happening.
Old 05-25-12 | 06:23 AM
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Originally Posted by geko29
In my 3-series with it's little 2.5L, stepping off the clutch suddenly causes the car to lurch forward violently and THEN die. I do this occasionally by accident if I've been sitting for a while before getting out and forgot that I haven't turned the car off.

Give that an engine with 50% larger displacement and 100% more power than mine, and I can totally envision something like this happening.
I dunno... not enough to make a car go through elevator doors.
I call BS. They were screwing around and did something they're not telling us.
Old 05-25-12 | 06:37 AM
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Originally Posted by Koma
I dunno... not enough to make a car go through elevator doors.
I call BS. They were screwing around and did something they're not telling us.
........bingo!!
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