Ever been let down

[obi_waynne]

How many times have you ever been let down by a car?

What happened? How frequently does your car break down and what is the most unreliable car you've owned?

My most unreliable was probably my poor little 220 Gti Rover. It spend 1 week off the road for every week on the road that I used it!

 

[lutonmatt]

I had the gearbox go on me in my old lexus ls400 had to tow it back
but thats it other then puntures in my landrover but thats just when off roading

 

[Yugguy]

Hardly ever tbh, I seem to have a good eye for cars.

Had a head gasket go on an old company pool Vectra, the poor thing had probably been thrashed for every single one of its 98000 miles.

 

[HDi fun]

I can honestly say that I've not yet been stranded at the roadside apart from 2009's serious collision.

 

[pgarner]

prelude after i serviced it. lead from the coil to the dizzy wasnt properly connected. rubber seal was correctly seated but the actual metal plug was slack. took me around an hour to figure it out, same time as my dad turned up with his car and towrope

 

[old-git]

Had quite a few breakdowns back in 70s. Drove back from Eastbourne to Sidcup without a clutch pedal on my Anglia 105E and again through London in an Austin Ambassador with no clutch fluid.

Driven home a few times with no exhaust due to various misshaps.

Driven back from Santa Pod to SE London twice in the late 70s - early 80s, once with a stripped spark plug thread (plug held in with thread tape) and another time with the front wishbones held together with welding wire (top ball joint fell apart).

Used AA/RAC on quite a few occasions. Blew engine in Elan at the Street Car Championships at New York Raceway (as it was called then) in 83. Had car towed into York then called the AA

Alternator died on the Range Rover on the way down to Southampton to see my carbon fibre man a couple of years ago. RAC came out and charged my battery enough for me to get to Nick's and he then arranged a tow truck for an hour and a half later - good man.

Same Range Rover - Fuel pump packed up had to call out RAC to get me home.

I could go on

 

[stamford]

Not had that many breakdowns over the last 28 years, worse one being a blown engine! Worst car was a Renault 5, headgasket failures so many times, the final straw saw me drive it into my local scrapyard and tossed them the keys! Otherwise stupid things like faulty fuel pump relays, broken distributer and more recently loss of all brakes on the Discovery about 7 miles on leaving the MOT station with a pass!

 

[HDi fun]

An Ambassador with a fully working clutch was never a bundle of joy to drive anyway.

 

[picassoonwheels]

Hey don't knock Ambassadors please.

Had a '62 model, and she was a faithful as a dog. whatever was wrong, and where-ever I was, she would limp home and finally give out within 100 mtrs of home, if at that.

It would only be later, after looking under the bonnet that we would realise what exactly and to what extent was the damage.

I luved that buggy and was sorry to see it go, when there was a shortage of parking at home, especially since i was brought home 2 days after my birth in it.

The car that really made my life a living hell, was an '86 Ford Escort, the one with the box type hatches?......... yeah that was the one.

Had it for about 3 months and drove it for about 1500 miles. Lemme tell you I spent a quid for every klick on the odometer. In fact it almost convinced me to buy a Corvette, 'coz when the Corvette went, it would go. to say the least, and then it would be more reliable, taking the economy of ride into consideration.

Most reliable old car i drove was a '78 (I think) Mazda 626. Went like a rocket in those days, ride was comfortable, and never broke down even once.

Drove it to the ground, clocking 76k miles in 6&1/2 months, then sadly had to put it to sleep. Even when it was being towed away to the scrap yard, the ice was working ok, the cruise control, the de-misters. the wipers, in fact the only thing wrong was that the car was tired, I guess.

Put it out of its misery.

Other then that , I guess I have been lucky so far, without even a flat in the last 3 years,on any one of my cars.

 

[turbonutter69]

Loads of times.
Most recent was prob my Primera when it ate two driveshafts within about two months.

 

[T9 man]

Have been let down twice in 8 years! after the first 4 years of ownership the battery die's on me and three years on from that the radiator decides it's time too share it's protective contents with the rest of the engine by ignoring any and all pipework as a safe route for it's hot water! On the whole, not too bad really

 

[picassoonwheels]

Have been let down twice in 8 years! after the first 4 years of ownership the battery die's on me and three years on from that the radiator decides it's time too share it's protective contents with the rest of the engine by ignoring any and all pipework as a safe route for it's hot water! On the whole, not too bad really

Amazing how these radiators suddenly get a mind of their own, and decide its time for a bath for the engine.......

 

[HDi fun]

Loads of times.
Most recent was prob my Primera when it ate two driveshafts within about two months.

This, for those of you who don't already know, is TN69's claim to fame. It must have taken some serious determination and effort to stuff the power train on a Primera.

 

[turbonutter69]

 

[old-git]

An Ambassador with a fully working clutch was never a bundle of joy to drive anyway.

True, but it was cheap.

 

[HDi fun]

True, but it was cheap.

My Dad had one from about 1983 to 1985. 2.0 HLS with the infamous O-series lump.

Pair of SU's which needed balancing about every 200 yards.

4 gears with a porridge bucket change and PAS that hissed and squelched if you turned the wheel sligthy too quickly. One thing I do seem to recall is that it had phenomenal brakes.

 

[herb]

my only unreliable car was my first nova! and tbh it wasnt that bad once the problems where diagnosed correctly. the first thing was when the car started stalling when stopping then the brakes just suddenly failed with no warning:amazed: i was told it was the master cylinder so i changed it and yay i had brakes again.
then a month or so down the line the same thing stalling then no brakes this 1 was a little more scary cause i was approaching a busy junction:sad2: so i changed the cylinder again and then the same again a month down the line so i went to a different car spares place and he happily sold me another master cylinder.
but when i explained what had happened. he asked whether i had tested the check valve and i said no and he gave me 1 for 50p and told me how to test it and it turned out the check valve was the cause of the master cylinders diaphram splitting

the 2nd problem was 1 day the nova just stopped running so had a mate look at it and he said it was the alternator. so i got a new 1 and charged the battery and yay the car was alive again then the next day the same:sad2:
so i charged the battery just to start the car to see if the alternator was giving of the correct voltage.
and it wasnt so went back and exchanged it for another 1 this 1 was exactly the same. so the bloke actually tested then took the 1 of his own nova. i fitted it and still the same:sad2: so then i knew it was an electrical fault somewhere. so out came the tester and about 4hrs later i found the problem. a broken track on the instrument cluster i bridged the gap in the track by adding a switch hidden under the dash (home made imobiliser)

 

[old-git]

My Dad had one from about 1983 to 1985. 2.0 HLS with the infamous O-series lump.

Pair of SU's which needed balancing about every 200 yards.

4 gears with a porridge bucket change and PAS that hissed and squelched if you turned the wheel sligthy too quickly. One thing I do seem to recall is that it had phenomenal brakes.

Opps! Just remembered - It was a Princess! The Ambassadore we had came a lot later (and the wife HATED it!) - but it was free

Even so, the Princess' brakes were pretty good, they were used to upgrade many a boy racer's wheels back then and still even now.

 

[Gocar]

Triumph TR7 massive let down, slow front heavy, engine rebuild twice to heavy and handles like a boat.....OH and poor brakes

 

[MasterAuron]

Never broken down (touch wood) or had any major mechanical problem, just little niggles. I maintain my cars as well as I possibly can with the time I have and it shows in reliability and how they run imo.

 

[misenthrop]

Cars i've had no trouble with but it's the men who are always letting me down

 

[MasterAuron]

Cars i've had no trouble with but it's the men who are always letting me down

Well you know what they say....service them thoroughly and often, keep them topped up at all times and don't drive them hard until they are warmed up.

The car of course :amazed:

 

[geraint13]

Well you know what they say....service them thoroughly and often, keep them topped up at all times and don't drive them hard until they are warmed up.

The car of course :amazed:

 

[misenthrop]

I wondered where you were going with that!

With men you treat em mean and keep em keen!

 

[turbonutter69]

 

[HDi fun]

I wondered where you were going with that!

With men you treat em mean and keep em keen!

Men, as they say, just like old-time cars. Crank it up by hand and jump onboard quick whilst it's still running.

 

[T9 man]

Hardly ever tbh, I seem to have a good eye for cars.

Had a head gasket go on an old company pool Vectra, the poor thing had probably been thrashed for every single one of its 98000 miles.

A 98k mile thrashing in a Vectra :amazed: May the poor thing now R.I.P

 

[old-git]

UPDATE! UPDATE!

Wife went for an X-ray this morning. Rang to say she had picked up the vet insurance form instead of the hospital form!

Rushed out of the house and took daughter's car (VW Corrado) as the Chevy was running on fumes. Got half way there (3 miles) when the throttle cable snapped.

No tools and no phone (in rush left it on breakfast bar). Bugger, what to do?

Searching through the rubbish in the car I found a plastic fork. I managed to wedge this between the throttle cable outer casing and the suppport bracket on the engine. This gave me around 1500rph in neutral. This was enough to get up to 15mph on the flat and down to just under 10 on any sort of slope (which there seemed to be a lot). Managed to get home without fork falling out!

I suppose it was lucky that I took her car so that it broke on me rather than her.

In the old days with carbs it would have been a simple matter of winding down the idle adjustment screw.

 

[RobBentley]

I've been bizzarly lucky in never getting stuck at the road-side... *touch wood*. I've had 2x punctures, both in the middle of town limping distance from a tyre shop. I've had 3 coil packs fail on the W8, all within limping distance from home, the W8 ate its torque converter as I was pulling into my road, my first cars head-gasket blew before I got out of the end of my road... and everything else hasn't been a breakdown! I've had turbo hoses leaking, a fuel leak, DSG gearbox jerkiness, power steering leak, rear-diff oil leak among all sorts of things - but *touches wood again* i've never been stranded.

When the W8 ate its last coil pack (cyl 7 iirc) it was 2 minutes from home after driving all the way home from Koln in Germany! It could so easily have stranded me abroad but it didnt.

 

[T9 man]

Men, as they say, just like old-time cars. Crank it up by hand and jump onboard quick whilst it's still running.

You are so bad! funny though