BUFFALOKIE Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Driving through Illinois. Second place: driving through Louisiana. Two terrible car problems! Of course, Tom would rightfully say that those were operator errors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 1 minute ago, BUFFALOKIE said: Driving through Illinois. Second place: driving through Louisiana. Two terrible car problems! Of course, Tom would rightfully say that those were operator errors. Oklahoma ain't no dog and pony show either. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Jackson Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 I had a 2006 Cadillac CTS and it was the worst car ever!!! There was some sort of electrical failure and it would NEVER work and pretty much no one could fix it. Total POS and will never, ever, ever consider another Cadillac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 50 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said: I had a 2006 Cadillac CTS and it was the worst car ever!!! There was some sort of electrical failure and it would NEVER work and pretty much no one could fix it. Total POS and will never, ever, ever consider another Cadillac. Was it new? Used? In a flood? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Jackson Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 8 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said: Was it new? Used? In a flood? New Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 3 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said: New GM usually don't have electrical issues... That's Chyrsler. My sister's 1995 Chevy pick-up had strange electrical issues.. Wiring around the transmission issues. Took forever to find. It was brand new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
That's No Moon Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 89 Grand Am. If you were driving the car at speed and then come to a stop light it would stall. First time it did it was in the middle of a busy intersection in Pittsburgh. Getting it out of the road would have meant pushing it uphill so I was stuck. Put the parkong brake on, called a tow truck, etc. Cop pulls up and tells me to try it, It starts and pulls right away and I look like an ass. It does it a couple more times over the next month or so but not consistently so it was very hard to show a mechanic. 2 different shops punted, by buddy had another 89 grand am with the same problem and sold it in frustration. Read through a Hughes guide and find out there is a solenoid in the transmission that locks the car into high gear at high speed. Turns out the solenoid was sticking so when you'd slow down the car wouldn't downshift and it wouldn't idle in top gear so it would die unless you caught it in time and two footed the pedals to keep the rpms up. Relatively cheap fix once I figured out what it was but it was really annoying for awhile and it's very unnerving to drive a car you think might die at every stop light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thenorthremembers Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 Had a car door break just before I made my way home to Delaware Ave, held real tight as I hit the curve at 33 and 198. Had a belt break as I was moving into a turning lane on Transit Oil leak led to me being stranded on the 290 Blown tire on the 90. Good Samaritan drove me to the next rest stop More recently I had a tire come off it's rim after the mechanic who installed the new valve stem broke the seal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punching Bag Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 My car was in for work at garage (national chain). I heard a "boom" and looked in garage and my car fell off lift. Mechanic told me he had heard of it happening one a decade. Next time I was in area noticed that garage was closed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transient Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 Had to change a tire on High Street in Buffalo and almost got run over by a Metro bus when I was crouched by the wheel with the tire iron in hand. Had the heater core in a car blow out in the dead of winter on my way back from Clifton Hill at 1 am. Filled the passenger seat floor with antifreeze, left a green film on the windshield, and we froze our asses off. Had an 80s series Olds Cutlass with T-tops that were designed so poorly that they shunted water into the windshield posts for drainage. They rotted so bad that when I took it to a garage to have the brakes done the mechanics left it on the lift overnight to finish the job in the morning, the frame flexed due to the lack of roof support with the T-tops and it blew out the windshield. I was visiting a friend in NYC in ~’95. Had a mid-80s high mileage, WNY winter beaten 4 cylinder 5-speed manual transmission econocar. When dropping into the driver’s seat right as we were heading home the front seat posts tore out of the floor and the seat tipped back and nearly deposited me in the back seat. I had to drive it from NYC to Buffalo with the seat lifting up every time I shifted, pushed down on the brake, or when the car accelerated. Was driving home from Buffalo to Ann Arbor one Christmas night when the computer in my car burned out and stranded me just south of Port Huron. I managed to get a flatbed to tow me and my car to Ann Arbor for almost as much as what it ultimately cost to fix the car, and I got home at about 3 am and had to be to work at 6 am. I could go on... and on... and on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 1 hour ago, transient said: Had to change a tire on High Street in Buffalo and almost got run over by a Metro bus when I was crouched by the wheel with the tire iron in hand. Had the heater core in a car blow out in the dead of winter on my way back from Clifton Hill at 1 am. Filled the passenger seat floor with antifreeze, left a green film on the windshield, and we froze our asses off. Had an 80s series Olds Cutlass with T-tops that were designed so poorly that they shunted water into the windshield posts for drainage. They rotted so bad that when I took it to a garage to have the brakes done the mechanics left it on the lift overnight to finish the job in the morning, the frame flexed due to the lack of roof support with the T-tops and it blew out the windshield. I was visiting a friend in NYC in ~’95. Had a mid-80s high mileage, WNY winter beaten 4 cylinder 5-speed manual transmission econocar. When dropping into the driver’s seat right as we were heading home the front seat posts tore out of the floor and the seat tipped back and nearly deposited me in the back seat. I had to drive it from NYC to Buffalo with the seat lifting up every time I shifted, pushed down on the brake, or when the car accelerated. Was driving home from Buffalo to Ann Arbor one Christmas night when the computer in my car burned out and stranded me just south of Port Huron. I managed to get a flatbed to tow me and my car to Ann Arbor for almost as much as what it ultimately cost to fix the car, and I got home at about 3 am and had to be to work at 6 am. I could go on... and on... and on. AAA Plus RV membership will tow over 200 miles free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unbillievable Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 (edited) Four out of five bolts sheered off my front wheel. I was on the highway when it starting acting weird. Like driving on uneven asphalt. Pulled over and noticed that only one bolt was left. (this was the bolt, not the nut. There was nothing there.) I thought it might be a flat at first. Looked something like this: Actually missed it at first, and was headed back inside the car, when I noticed it as I glanced down at the wheel one last time. Edited June 12, 2018 by unbillievable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockpile Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 I had a mid 70's Ford van that I bought for $75. It had many minor minor problems as you would expect, but after a year, the steering box (I think) locked up. You could only turn the steering wheel a little to the right, and it was like tightening a bolt! There were no problems making left hand turns. We parked it and decided there were more problems than the van was worth. I lived about a mile from the drive in, so our farewell trip in the van was carefully laid out only making left hand turns on straight roads. After we got home, I had it picked up by a junk yard flatbed and they gave me $40 for scrap, so the car cost $35 to drive for a year. LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Jack Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 Which vehicle? First car, bought in 1991, a 1980 Buick Century - rear frame rails rusted through, so the bumper was barely hanging on. I had only had the car about two months. My Dad offered to pay half the cost of getting them fixed since he was the one that looked it over before I bought it. 1986 Toyota MR2 Had an issue where sometimes after filling it up, it would not idle steady, it would rev up and down, even when holding my foot steady on the gas. Usually a bottle of engine cleaner in the tank would help. But the one time it did not I was in the middle of nowhere Ohio, on July 4th weekend. Called AAA, and of course it took them over an hour to get me on the side of the highway. They towed me to the nearest decent size town with a hotel and repair shop nearby. I saw a Toyota dealer there but decided to not spend dealer pricing and went with the independent shop instead. Mistake. The shop decided it was the fuel pump, but of course they don't have it, needs to be ordered, and that will take a few days. I end up taking a Greyhound home. I find a fuel pump locally to me for half the price they quoted me ($125 vs $250) and have it shipped overnight. A week later I take Greyhound back to pick up my car. Get not even half an hour away and it starts acting up again. Take it back to them, they look it over and decide it needs new plugs and rotor/cap. Pick it up next day and make it home. Fast forward about a month. I'm leaving work, and the cute girl wants a ride to her home. We don't even get out of the parking lot when the car starts acting up again. She gets someone else to take her home and I drive to my local Toyota dealer, because I'm fed up with independent shops. They look at it and determine all it needs is the throttle body to be clean. Another time I had gone to Sears I think to have the brakes done. Driving home and I don't remember what got my attention, but ended up pulling over in a rest area on the highway because something wasn't right. Look in the engine compartment and see metal shavings but nothing obvious. Call AAA, get towed to our family friend that is a mechanic to have him look at it. He comes by later that night and shows me what he found, the idler pully had disintegrated. It also ground down the shaft, so a engine replacement had to be done. Work vans Brake line blew out while exiting the highway in NJ. Taking a 20mph curve in a multi ton full size cargo van doing 50mph is scary. Multiple fuel pumps fail, one time was in a heavy rain storm during rush hour outside of Boston. I can't see if there's a vehicle next to me, so I turn on my blinker to pull over and just pray people get out of my way. I know there are others, I just can't remember them right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philly McButterpants Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 On 6/4/2018 at 6:20 PM, DC Tom said: When I moved down do DC, I got a VA driver's license. Then I traded in the car I had to buy a new one. Then a few months later, I get a letter from New York State: "Your insurance has lapsed on your old car." Told them I didn't have it any more, they told me "Fine, just send us the bill of sale." I send them the trade-in agreement. "No, that's not sufficient, we need the bill of sale." But I didn't sell it, I traded it in. "But you no longer have the car? How did you dispose of it without a bill of sale?" I traded it in. "Okay, then we need the bill of sale." I don't have that, I have a trade-in agreement. "That's not sufficient, we need the bill of sale." After two months of that nonsense, I get a letter: "Because your car is uninsured, and you are delinquent on the fines for lack of insurance, we are suspending your NYS driver's license." I haven't had a NY driver's license for about six months. I forget exactly how I got that resolved; I do remember it required a letter to the Lt. Governor and a rather lengthy phone call to a county judge. Next year, I get an envelope in the mail from NYS Department of Taxation: "We notice you had a suspended driver's license for last year. This qualifies you as a resident of NY, therefore you owe us a full year's worth of income tax..." So that's my worst car problem: owing income tax in a state I didn't live, for having suspended a license I didn't have, for not having insurance on a car I didn't own. I had to pay $50 for each car under my name ( 3 of 'em) so that i could renew my PA driver's license. F*** New York State . . .oh, and I am still fighting NY over state Income Tax for 2014 - I neither lived in, nor worked a day in NYS in 2014, but because i still owned a house in NY, they want a chunk of my income. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soda Popinski Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 was on my way to an outback to pick up some crap on labor day weekend that my POS supervisor sent me for on my day off, should have told him to go eff himself but I was young and dumb. I am getting off the interstate and the timing belt snaps, it was a 95 for Contour and that was the first of many problems to come, biggest POS I ever owned I hated that car and I'll hate it forever. Anyway I coast off to the side of the road, steering locks up so i can't coast all the way over, so now i'm halfway in the turning lane, i go to get out and pop the hood, and as i shut the door the lock clicks on me, locking my keys in the car. it's starting to rain. this is 2001 I had my wifes cell phone with me and i called her at her parents house at a BBQ I was supposed to be at, she fires up the trans am to come get me but it takes 2 hours to get there it's raining, i'm fuming pissed. Tow truck happens by, helps me get the door open, offers to tow me. Cool, to the Ford dealership right? No I've got a buddy mechanic who can get you fixed up in a jiffy. uhhhh, ok. Long story short, he can't fix it, i lose two days staying at my brothers house with no car, it ends up at Pep Boys (without my knowing until it's there) I don't pay shadetree idiot a dime, then pep boys says it's fixed, i go to leave and get almost home, it starts chitting the bed again so I take it finally to the ford dealer who has the special tool you need to fix this hunk of hell. 700 bucks later it's fixed, I get my $300 back from pep boys because they didn't fix it. 1 year later we go to trade it in, it's overheating so bad i pull the thermostat but it pegs redline anyway. We literally coast into a Saturn dealership to look at a SUV the wife likes, and i tell her before getting out of the car "if you don't like this SUV find something you do like, cause this thing isn't making it home". Turns out the car she liked was already sold. frickin frickity frick. But hey, what's that jeep liberty up on the thing there? That's a 2002 (1 year old) with 10k miles on it. Oh yeah? How much? 12k. Take her down we're goin for a test drive. She loved that liberty, we took it home for something like 180 a month and everybody happy happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaoulDuke79 Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 Self inflicted problem. I bought a brand new Subaru WRX when they first came out in 2002. I had the car for 9 days and had just under 400 miles on it. I was driving back to the house from a bar after having 1 too many. I want hammered drunk, but I had enough to give me the false sense of invincibility. I drove this road hundreds of times in the past, so I was getting on it pretty hard. I took a turn marked 35 mph at about 60. There is a slight bump in the turn, so I ended up wheel hopping and spinning out and smashing 3 of the 4 corners of the car into an embankment and ended up stalled in the middle of the road. I tried to start it.......nothing. I tried to push it off to the side.....No dice. I got back in and sat there ready to cry and turned the key and it fired up. I ended up driving back to my place on one 1 tire and 3 rims. Did 13K worth of damage, which was just under the amount that would have "toatled" it. To this day I don't know how the airbag didn't deploy. I thank God every day there wasn't someone coming the other way. God looks out for children and fools. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soda Popinski Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 11 minutes ago, RaoulDuke79 said: Self inflicted problem. I bought a brand new Subaru WRX when they first came out in 2002. I had the car for 9 days and had just under 400 miles on it. I was driving back to the house from a bar after having 1 too many. I want hammered drunk, but I had enough to give me the false sense of invincibility. I drove this road hundreds of times in the past, so I was getting on it pretty hard. I took a turn marked 35 mph at about 60. There is a slight bump in the turn, so I ended up wheel hopping and spinning out and smashing 3 of the 4 corners of the car into an embankment and ended up stalled in the middle of the road. I tried to start it.......nothing. I tried to push it off to the side.....No dice. I got back in and sat there ready to cry and turned the key and it fired up. I ended up driving back to my place on one 1 tire and 3 rims. Did 13K worth of damage, which was just under the amount that would have "toatled" it. To this day I don't know how the airbag didn't deploy. I thank God every day there wasn't someone coming the other way. God looks out for children and fools. Glad you weren't killed, that could have ended much worse than 13k. The WRX was a cool car back in the day. I always loved the Baja too. Looked like someone put an avalanche in the dryer for too long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaoulDuke79 Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 4 minutes ago, Soda Popinski said: Glad you weren't killed, that could have ended much worse than 13k. The WRX was a cool car back in the day. I always loved the Baja too. Looked like someone put an avalanche in the dryer for too long. There are so many terrible things that could have happened. I think back on it with dread of how my life could have been completely altered if I hurt or killed someone or even got a DUI. Probably the single dumbest thing I've ever done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soda Popinski Posted July 26, 2018 Share Posted July 26, 2018 17 minutes ago, RaoulDuke79 said: There are so many terrible things that could have happened. I think back on it with dread of how my life could have been completely altered if I hurt or killed someone or even got a DUI. Probably the single dumbest thing I've ever done. I had an 84 olds delta 88 that i got from a family member. Was drunk, was speeding, spun it around at least 3 times at 1am on a back road, and didn't hit anything. I could not believe it, i still can't. You are 100% right. God looks after the stupid ones...most of the time. But we live and we learn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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