Derek H

The mother of my girlfriend back around 1980 had an Austin Mini. Anyway, one night the mother asked me if I could take a look at the car as it "was driving funny". It didn't take long to find that one of the rear wheel handbrake mechanisms had jammed and she had driven home from work, about 4 miles, with the wheel locked up solid!!! There was the most enormous flat spot on the tyre, (I recall doing some measurements and about half an inch had been burned off the tyre). All that was left was canvas (gone through the steel braiding) but amazingly the tyre was still inflated.

Around the same time, one of my girlfriend's neighbours, who's car I used to service, called to say that the brakes needed looking at. When I collected the car, they told me that the brake pedal had stopped working and the wife had been using the handbrake to stop the car for the last week, during the school runs!!! Diagnosis was a split brake hose, all fluid pumped out (old car, single hydraulic system).


Derek
Linköping, Sweden

Bri Bro

Run out of beeps, good one.

I helped a young lady do a front brake job a couple of months ago, She had gone through the brake pads AND the metal backing that the pad is adhered to. She was stopping using the caliper piston directly on what was left of the rotors.

ArcticCzar

I'm currently trying to unravel a mystery car right now. I found an abandoned '88 944 8v. It sat unchecked for over a year in a parking lot near where I live. If you can imagine the kind of yahoo that would ditch a low mile 944, then you can imagine the abuse this poor thing had while it was being used! It has 924 wheels with bald tires (some have steel-belting showing), no third tail light, no rear wiper despite the switch on the console, no exterior windshield trim, no bulbs in three of the signal lights, no speaker in the driver's door, different seat belt guides, passenger seat held down by only one bolt, no door boot, broken door jamb vent, no driver's mirror (but a brand new piece of glass in the glovebox uninstalled), different cylinder in the rear hatch lock, cut cable on the hatch-release motor, and finally the best...tucked hidden inside the perfectly unassuming quarter-panel...a factory alarm (still plugged in) which was cut from (I guess) the old quarter - it still has about an inch of metal all around. I had to disconnect the alarm brain to shut the sum-bich up when I unplugged it (the fuse and relay had already been removed). The real mystery is all the apparent repair work was top-notch. You'd never know the car wasn't original. The engine and transmission is as strong as new, the filters were all perfectly clean and the oil was clean. So...any theories? I'm accepting bids on the poor thing as well as any hypotheses as to it's sordid past.

marky522

I have a similar story to ELLSSUU, I purchased a 93 Olds achieva SC a while back that needed a motor, when i pulled the drivers wheel off the rotor was only half there, but the pads were in great shape, the guy replaced the pads and i swear there couldnt have been much of the one side left, i mean even the vents were ground off!!!

Mark

nib5

A friend had a short lived Opel Manta, it had succumbed to rust to such an extent that the doors had to be kicked open if there was more than one occupant. He was persuaded to scrap it immediately. The MOT roadworthiness certificate could not be anything other than stolen, - totally insane.

944Fest (aka Dan P)

A buddy came to me, told me his Datsun 210 had froze up on him while driving one day, so I went over to look at it. It turned over and ran fine if the alternator belt was off, (siezed alternator??) but no..it couldn't be, as he had put a new alternator on it recently, and dropped a 3/8th drive socket behind the alternator pulley, and couldn't get it out, and decided to drive with it in there. He ran lucky for a couple of weeks then the socket got it's revenge.

bs

tariq:

a friend of mine who works at gm told me that in detroit they essentially forced all the mid and low level managers to buy (at a big discout) aztecs because they hoped that if people saw them on the streets they might get desensitized enough to buy one.

i just don't understand... even "designed by comitee" can't explain how something that ugly ever made it off the drawing board.

Porsche5050

There are many events in life that shouldn’t take place but do. Tori Spelling was in 90210 because her Father was the producer. Fine, no matter how ugly and horrible of an actor she is I can still comprehend why that had to be. Porsche is making an SUV. OK, I will live and hopefully with its new-found revenues so will Porsche. Optimus Prime died in Transformers the Movie but still later in life I realized that’s what had to be.

Still, this thing that GM produced can never be explained. Never. We will try, but it will never happen. Someone will come up with an explanation with graphs and figures to legitimize it’s creation but in the end it will be just another horrible American vehicle. I think we should be more ashamed of this vehicle than we should of our foreign policy. If I was running for office I’d lobby for recycling these vehicles as soon as possible. I really hate them with a passion. There is no angle on this vehicle that is pleasing. If you think the exterior is bad, take a look at the interior. I’ve always been partial to GM as far as US cars go but I must say FORD would never build this thing. There’s something really wacky going on at GM. The Cavalier is crap. The focus destroys it, as does the Neon. Buick still makes those pushrod things. The Regal “GS”? Who ya foolin’. The F body, the G body, whatever. The sunfire has these HORRIBLE reverse lights on its rear bumpers. I was driving home from Iowa today and I saw a YELLOW Aztek. I really just don’t know what to say anymore. Words can’t describe…

GOBOGIE

[quote]Originally posted by jim968:
<strong>Jim, wondering how someone this dam' dumb manages repetitive breathing without assistance...</strong><hr></blockquote>

Funniest line I've ever heard. I'm using it for now on <img src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" border="0" alt="[hiha]" />

Mark Parker

A twenty-something guy came into the shop with a nice looking late model Toyota pickup (this was mid eighties), complaining of light problems. He had several fuses blown, but they would blow again as soon as they were replaced. I noticed that the radio was an aftermarket unit, and just setting in the opening in the dash, so I pulled it out for a look. By all appearances, the dude had just reached through the radio opening and grabbed a handful of wires, and proceeded to strip and splice until he had a radio. In the process he had stripped and spliced some light wires directly to ground. I fixed up his f%&*#-up, and installed his radio properly for him and called him to come and get it. He was brought to the shop by a co-worker in a company truck, because they had just come from a job. On the side of the truck the graphics proudly proclaimed that they were PROFESSIONAL HOME SECURITY INSTALLATIONS,,,,whew,,,not in MY home podna'.

ribs

<a href="http://ribs.americainteractive.com/audio/AutoRepair.MP3" target="_blank">http://ribs.americainteractive.com/audio/AutoRepair.MP3</a> .

That just about sums it up.

Lillis Long

I’m new to the forum, some of you may have seen me with Tabor at the Rosecup races @ PIR. I just had to create a login after reading this thread.

My father gave my elder brother and I Geo Metros for our respective birthdays two years ago. (I know, but it was free!) Mine has pretty much been hassle free. My brother on the other hand started having difficulties about two months in. My father played the long-distance mechanic for a few months, talking him though minor repairs, until finally my brother called and couldn’t get the car to go. After two months more of trying to get the thing going my father gave up and towed the car back to Pendleton, OR.

Dad took out the transmission to find the torque converter had been shattered. We could never get my brother to tell us how he shattered it but we suspect he was doing neutral drops. Dad replaced the torque converter, put it all back together and took the car for a drive. Everything went fine until he got the car up to ~70 when a huge plume of blue/black smoke appeared behind the car and he lost power. He approached 70 again with similar results. Took the car home, drained the oil only to discover 8-10 quarts of oil in a 1.1 liter engine with a 4 quart oil capacity.

My brother's response when asked was that he kept checking the oil, thinking that might be the problem and added a bit more "just in case".

He shouldn’t be trusted with string, but for some reason my dad gave him the car back.

Lillis

mxsav

I was at work one night at a local fastfood chain and had a woman drive up to the drive thru speaker to place her order. Her car was so loud I told her she would have to turn it off in order for me to take her order. When she got to the window her car sounded like it had thrown all (4-6-8) the rods in her motor. I politely asked her if she needed to add some oil to her car or have it looked at by a mechanic and she replied " Oh I dont need to add any oil. I just added five quarts, I did think it would get quieter though!" I laughed the rest of the night. <img src="graemlins/a_smil17.gif" border="0" alt="[blabla]" />