Problems with cars you have owned.

[BTB 500]

I remember the night when the idler pulley disintegrated on our LWB Sprinter rendering, amongst other things, the power steering pump useless.
Turning the steering wheel was a gargantuan task on the 8 mile journey home. Oh what fun I had at mini-roundabouts.

I had a head gasket fail suddenly on the Granada, which seized the engine approaching a roundabout at 70. No PAS and no assistance on the brakes, I had both feet on the pedal and only *just* made it round before running up onto the kerb.

I had the bar that linked the twin carbs on my Triumph Dolomite come undone, allowing one carb to spring fully open. They were on a common inlet manifold so that was enough for the car to accelerate away quite briskly with my foot off the accelerator. Luckily on a straight bit of road so I just turned the ignition off and coasted to a halt.

 

[Jonesy161]

Ah Good old Talbot Horizon (car of the year 1979)- bag of sh1te with a simca engine, that's bad enough, but when the near side front wheel overtook us due to both top and bottom ball joints dislocating, it was time for a swap.

 

[Beetnik]

My first car - a 1966 HA Viva had been a write off. The windscreen had shattered and most of it had fallen into the heater vents. Cue random chunks of glass flying out and hitting you in the face when you went too fast with the blower on!

Cavalier where the dashboard fell off (less than a year old).

 

[190]

1976 brand new Vauxhall Chevette. Out for the night with my girlfriend - now wife when the engine just died. I knew enough to remove the distributor cap and check the points were opening. What I found was the points cam wasn't even rotating. The distributor drive shaft had sheared !

 

[ringway]

I lost reverse gear on my Fiat 126 - that wasn't too serious as you could open the door and push it backwards with your foot (while still strapped in).

To enable a bump start, I towed a 126 that belonged to an old lady friend of Mrs Ringway's grandmother.
I was around 18 and Mrs Ringway's brother was in the drivers seat of the 126.
We were always practical joking and I was determined to give him a terror express ride in the tiny Fiat.
I revved the Marina and sharply let out the clutch! I couldn't feel and attempts to bump start the car and after 100 yards or so decided to slow down and stop.
When I got out of the my van, there wasn't anyone in the Fiat. It was only when I looked into the car that I realised what had happened.
The original take-off jolt had sheared the back of the seat off leaving Mrs Ringway's brother, lying down whilst being dragged along at a rate of knots, and trying to grasp the steering wheel and find the brake pedal which he must have eventually done.


He got his revenge when towing me in my Escort van that I had crashed (too fast in the wet Laddie!).
The engine wasn't running on my Escort and he pulled out in front of a speeding car which went clean through the tow rope.
It was my right foot versus the power of the tow car and I was very lucky to be able to hold on.
The speeding driver stopped and was most apologetic, although it wasn't really his fault.

 

[mat8n]

My HSR chevette used to force spark plugs out!

Had to many old aircooled vw's....list is to long

Triumph Spitfire, steering wheel used to come off and spin freely if you pulled it to hard!

My old Porsche 944 had all sorts of problems! as did my MK1 golf gti.

could be here all night actually!

 

[gaz_l]

Pah!

What about the time the hydraulic clutch disitegrated on my SAAB 99 Turbo. I was standing at the lights when she lurched forward and stalled.

What fun I had making my way some six miles through Edinburgh becoming an expert in clutchless gearchanges. Forced to stop at lights, I had to stall the car then wind it back into life on the starter motor.

Hideous experience for anyone with a scintilla of mechanical sympathy!

I had the same thing happen on my Nissan Bluebird - managed to drive 50 miles home on a mix of A roads, without changing out of 4th gear! Fortunately it was on a Sunday and the roads were pretty clear, but roundabouts were approached with a certain amount of trepidation!

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[TheFoX]

The autochoke on my Sierra died. Had to gently rev it for five minutes or so before engaging first gear, otherwise it would stall as soon as the clutch plates kissed each other.

The hydrolastic suspension went on one of our Austin 1100's.

The starter motor on an A40 kept failing, so we had to crank the engine by hand to start it.

 

[herby thr cls]

In the late seventy's I bought a 1966 'D' reg 250S from a hippy looking type of guy that was living in Portsmouth, looked great in white and drove pretty well too apart from what sounded like a tappet or two needing adjusting, done the deal and drove it back to Essex no problem, next morning going to work a horrible clattering noise and loads of smoke out the back, got it home and started stripping down to take the head off and noticed my hippy mate had wrapped a bicycle inner tube around some badly worn valve guides and glued them together, the clattering noise was the valve guide breaking up and dropping down into the bore, luckily a new set of guides and valves ran as sweet as a nut

 

[tanuie]

Yes but on the overrun they went completely mad!

I thought they would fly off at any moment!

 

[j.schmeltzer]

1974 Toyota Corona (new) Bought at the start of the first gas shortage to save money and limited petrol: developed an intermittent misfire at 6K miles. Dealer could not sort out, even did a valve job (on a new car)! Auto electric diagnostic specialist could not sort. Wound up p/x, after a year of misery , on a new Chevrolet Camaro. Great financial loss and extreme frustration.

 

[Dave Barlow]

Lotus Cortina engine oil leaks.
These cars are going for 10s of thousands now, and if you see one it will still leak oil.
I guess Elans (same engine) are the same.

 

[BTB 500]

My first car - a 1966 HA Viva had been a write off. The windscreen had shattered and most of it had fallen into the heater vents. Cue random chunks of glass flying out and hitting you in the face when you went too fast with the blower on!

Yup one of my old cars had chunks of glass in the ventilation system. If you drove flat out with the fan on they rose up from the windscreen vents and if you were quick you could grab them. As soon as you slowed down they dropped back out of sight

 

[ringway]

My Sprinter van was on the whole, a reliable vehicle with the exception of the Sprintshift auto/manual gearbox.
Every now and then (even though I had paid around £2,700 for a gearbox repair and new clutch a few years earlier) it would go into misbehaviour mode which resulted in being unable to select any gear. The display in the instrument cluster showed F 1 and the van was stranded.

Cue my trip to a large evening installation in an office block around a quarter of a mile from Man United's ground.
United were playing a Champions League match at home and at around 7.00pm the traffic was as thick as treacle.

And then... it happened. In the middle lane of the main Chester Road, the van wouldn't move off from a standing start leaving us stranded and blocking a third of the football traffic.
Cars ands coachloads of fans all held up and letting us know what they though of us. Oh the shame of it.
We called the RAC who towed us to the installation site.
When we had finished work at around midnight, the van started and drove home perfectly.

I later learned that the official Mercedes-Benz term for the Sprintshift gearbox is Manutronic.

 

[Bonecho]

A Chrysler Neon that gave no indication that the batteries in the key fob needed changing. The first I knew, and this happened twice to me, was when the car would not unlock. OK I could get in with the key but without the keyfob working the immobilizer would not disarm resulting in a dead car for the sake of a £2 watch battery.

 

[219]

I once had an Austin Allegro , main problem was : it existed .

 

[BIRMA]

I have owned and run various Lotus cars since 1972. They are wonderful handling cars but you really have to love them, I have always said that a Lotus is a nano hair above a kit car and indeed in the early days you could buy them as a kit to avoid purchase tax or something along those lines.
Anyway one of my conclusions was always that because you could buy them for next to nothing secondhand they were subject to neglect/skimping by the previous owner which on the whole is true.
It's only when you loose faith with so called Lotus specialist and find a proper mechanic with a bit of an engineering background you have pointed out to you the various manufacturing oversights, like mixing metal unions on the air-con etc which means that rather than breaking down and dismantling you have to replace everything at quite a cost. To keep my last 2001 V8 Esprit in tip top condition required very deep pockets and in the end I was quite happy to sell it on.
I have a list of failures from my early Europa which looking back with a bit more of an understanding of how things are made make me wonder how they ever got away with it.

I run my own vans for my business and have had some real lemons like the Fiat Fiorino van I bought in 1985 that completely rusted away in less than 24 months. The 1995 Citroen Relay van that eat it's gearbox just out of warranty or my new Transit van that failed its first MOT.

 

[baxlin]

I once had an Austin Allegro , main problem was : it existed .

Love it!

I don't know whether you were joking, but I did have a 1974 1300 Allegro, complete with square steering wheel. Actually, it was pretty good, for instance in those pre (rear) seat belt/safety conscious days, it took 4adults and 3 small children on holiday, towing a camping trailer. The trailer held most of the luggage, plus an outboard, and a small dinghy......Yes, stupid I know.

The car rusted away eventually, of course.

 

[219]

Love it!

I don't know whether you were joking, but I did have a 1974 1300 Allegro, complete with square steering wheel. Actually, it was pretty good, for instance in those pre (rear) seat belt/safety conscious days, it took 4adults and 3 small children on holiday, towing a camping trailer. The trailer held most of the luggage, plus an outboard, and a small dinghy......Yes, stupid I know.

The car rusted away eventually, of course.

No , I wasn't .

WLS422R was the first new car I had .

On getting it home with around 20 miles on the odometer , I noticed that one of the sidelights wasn't working : on closer inspection , the light unit was half full of water and corroded already ! Within another day , one of the fog lamps fell off .

The car went on to have a catalogue of faults - busted hydragas units , engine oil filler cap disintegrated , spewing oil over the bay , back seat collapsed , numerous electrical problems , wiper motor failed , I now struggle to remember much more , but I do recall almost weekly trips back to the dealer and getting to know other customers in the service reception where we would compare experiences and found that we were all having the same faults .

I put up with it for six months then traded it for a one year old Audi 100GL , RLS767P , which ran faultlessly for many years and was a great car .

The Austin truly lived up to its nickname of All-Aggro ; the only comparably unreliable car I have owned was my S203 , but it was 10 years old and had covered over 100K when I bought it .

Having the Allegro taught me that buying new is no guarantee of reliability , hence I never bought new since ; then after walking out of a very bad crash in my dad's W115 , I stuck with Mercedes thereafter .

 

[Mike Walker]

My first car was a Singer Chamois Sport bought from my Brother -In - Law for £150. We were on our way to the New Forest from Beckenham in Kent, with our son in a carry cot, when we reached Morden on the way to the A3.

Pulled away from traffic lights and bang! No drive and going nowhere which is when I found out about drive shafts, doughnuts, steel bolts and what AA Relay really meant. Got to the holiday destination via Hook about 8 hours later.
Subsequently found out about rusty cills , heater pipes within them and welding and painting too.
Nice engine from a Coventry Climax though and saw a mint example at the Goodwood Revival on Friday.