Hero to zero within seconds

So my dad and I thought it was a good idea to take the Beast for a final drive in 2015. So he took a day off and we went to Furstenau in Germany.
Everything was working perfectly and we started the day with a cup of soup

We were told at the entrance that everything was drivable, especially when the car has a winch. Lucky us!

So when we saw a big puddle (about 40 metres in length) we drove in without hesitation..
Everything was going well for the first 25 metres but then the puddle got deeper and deeper and thats how Beast ended up like this…

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, just climb on the front of the car, get the winch cable and winch out…
But as unlucky as we were the right front was sinking and left front there was a bump. And winching forward the car was getting really close to falling over (I was really getting scared in there!).

After waiting for an hour for someone to pass by we finally got help from a big army truck that pulled Beast out backwards.
Thinking that was that, matters got worse, while being pulled out the engine sucked in water and seized…Hydrolock is really the last thing i want while offroading.

Luckily its a 300 tdi and i got the engine running again while my dad was making lunch, another very important job :)

Because the intercooler was so dirty and we didnt have any clean water with us to clean it we decided to drive home without it which also means running without boost.. Beast didn’t like it and wouldnt do more than 80 km/h on flat roads and 60 km/h going uphill so we drove all the way home on byways.. 288 km took us 4:15 hours.. What a day!

Approx damage caused by water: €1000
Worth of smiles that day: priceless