The story about which I want to share with the inhabitants of the World Wide Web is real, and the conclusions that will be made after its reading by motorists - will definitely be useful, because they will help in an extreme situation not to follow the path of mistakes made by me.
It was the very beginning of a very hot August 2012. My Korean hatchback, KIA Siid, took me and my family from the smog-soaked metropolis towards the Black Sea, the world's blueest city. The road was far away, and one of the roadside camping sites was chosen for the night. Cozy house, comfortable parking right under its windows - gave a positive outcome to our tour.
While the female half of the travelers organized a dinner, the male half went with rods to the nearest water body. For their convenience and as an additional source of light, our companions used the lighting of the interior and trunk of the car. For this purpose, they simply kept the fifth door of the car open. With the engine off, it was a long test of the battery's capabilities that bothered me, and when I got back, I automatically lowered the open door. The next few seconds can be compared to an adventure film. Only the door reached the bottom position where the alarm key fob sounded, and then the sounds of the locked doors of the car... The criticality of the situation made it worse that the locked car was locked with spare keys and almost all the things that were burning and resting. Sometimes such things are said: irreparable things have happened. Meanwhile, the hope of a favorable outcome, as they say, was not in a hurry to die yet.
As it turned out, the door of the trunk or simply - the fifth door of Sid did not slam to the end. The ignition key that stood in the way of the door did not let the car's trunk lighting go out. However, the gap left by him did not allow human fingers to reach the trunk lock. Attempts to remove the key and the keychain with a metal skewer were also unsuccessful. The family council offered a chance to get out of the situation - a call to the Salvation Service. Having politely accepted the call and listened to me, the duty officer explained that the rescuers would have taken up the car professionally, but only if the current situation threatened the health or life of a person. After these words, I realized that it was up to the drowning people themselves to save them in my case. Of the remaining options - the real thing was to sacrifice one of the windows of the car. But then the question arose - what? I loved and love my car very much. My Siid is both a friend and an assistant to me. I owe him a lot in my life. I won't hide it - he was the one who helped me out of difficult and sometimes even dangerous situations more than once.
Now I had to break one of his windows myself. Of course, there was no question about the windshield and the windshield of the fifth door. It was more logical to break the driver's or front passenger's glass, but the idea that there was still a thousand kilometers to go by sunshine and hot asphalt. The prospect to neglect safety, to forget about the climate control and to equalize +40 degrees on Celsius outside and inside the car - have excluded also this idea from the category of priority. It remained to pay attention to the smallest glass - a triangle. It is called a body glass or rear rack glass.
I confess, for the long-term driving experience - similar situations with me did not happen, and the purely human logic - that less - is obliged to cost less - has played with me then an evil joke. Having armed myself with a knife, I began to cut off the rubber braid from the glass. A centimeter per centimeter. At the same time, being afraid to scratch the paintwork of the body, the speed of elimination of the sealer was very, very low.
Nevertheless, after an hour and a half of my vandalism, I was holding a whole glass in my hands and felt like a hero. There were only a few actions left to take - to reach inside the cabin to the door handle, without delaying to tilt the backrest of the back seat and press the button of removing the car from the security guard on the trunk of the Siida trunk.
The rest of the trip my car flaunted instead of glass with a colorful piece of cardboard attached to the body with regular tape. Travellers enjoyed a comfortable temperature inside the cabin and were not embarrassed by the absence of one of the elements of car glazing.
My euphoria about the successful solution of the problem ended only I was in the car service center. Five minutes after the financial announcement of my heroism, I changed my opinion about myself...
Turns out, the glass I took away is extremely rare. That's why you have to order it almost in Korea itself. It is always delivered assembled with seals and fasteners, so the expectation that my expenses to touch only the spoiled rubber seals were not justified. In reality, the cost of Siida's body triangle is almost as low as the price of windshield. It is also interesting that the front windows are half cheaper, and by virtue of their popularity - is always available in almost any online store. It took a month.
My car has changed the cardboard for the original glass. The price of the question of buying glass and paying for its installation on the service station was six thousand three hundred rubles. Probably, I can feel sorry for the fact that I can regret not having to spend money at all. You can reproach me for the illogicality of the act itself. However, I remember the good mood and joy of coolness in the cabin of Sid members of my family during our trip to the sea and back.
I remember and know that my actions were worth it! Since then, I have always tried to carry spare keys separately from the workers!