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Post by Kayo "Sideways" Michiels on Apr 21, 2021 13:18:58 GMT
Everybody has had an experience or interesting story revolving around your car, or somebody else's car....
And they can be funny, sad or heartwarming...
So i'll begin with this one.. that just ended today:
Talk about an episode:
For the last couple of weeks i'm noticing a burnt rubber smell and the distinct sound of a squaking belt...
While checking the oil, noticed the alternator belt was crumbling...
So...
-On Monday at Autovak ordered a replacement belt.
-On Tuesday after a long wait... one of the ordered belts didn't had an addressee, so i went back and got the papers of my car...again... turns out the ordered belt... was the wrong one.. but they had the right one in stock. I was going to replace the belt next week when i had time off from work...
-On Wednesday, i was just off the on-ramp of the highway heading to work when the alternator belt broke and and i had to limp back home.. had to call to work that i'm unable to work.. Since i now have to work on the car, i started working on it... while disassembling the belts.. noticed the power steering belt was also almost gone.. so.. went on my bike to Autovak for another replacement belt.. which they thankfully had in stock... replaced both belts and engine runs fine...
Gee...talk about an episode!..
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Post by Michael Drechsler on Apr 21, 2021 16:19:31 GMT
I've been chasing the reason why my car's engine would stop running when going over a certain temperature, but not always, for over two years. In the beginning, I just found it odd when backing out of a parking space, I stopped to change from reverse to first and suddenly the engine cut. But basically it only happened in underground carparks, so I shrug it away. On a Friday afternoon in December '19, my mother payed me a visit in my town, and we wanted to set off for a few shoppings. Just didn't happen, the engine wouldn't hold idle speed and with just two feet for three pedals stop every few meters. It came as it had to happen: at some point, I successfully drained the battery. So hard not even the hazard lights would work. In the worst of all places, one of the tightest spaces in the city centre, right next to a bus stop, in the middle of christmas shopping and home-going traffic. Of course, in such situations, your cell phone battery is almost empty, too. Two hours later and quite some unfriendly words by bus, cab and regular drivers including the guy who's entrance I've been blocking, the tow truck arrived. Well, the garage I was towed to diagnosed some worn out alternator pickups, so he changed them, charged the battery and my wallet with a relatively reasonable amount of money, and the car, well, it behaved for a while. Then once again, it came back, again, first in underground car parks, later on again in open parking lots. So, asking different guys, I changed
- idle speed control
- ignition harness, spark plugs and distributor
- overvoltage protection relay
But it didn't really help, but getting rid of my money. I was getting prepared for some really nasty, expensive work, dismanteling the fuel injection/distributor and replacing all the sealing rings, the symptoms suggested the buildup of fuel vapor bubbles in the system.
Well, the bi-annual TÜV-safety test came nearer and after a especially horrid ride, where the car would stop twice in the middle of the road, but always coming back after a few minutes of cooling down, I sent the car to a guy whom I was recommended to as "that dude works on Mercedes for over 40 years, he knows every nut and bolt" for inspection. Five days later, I picked up the car again, and everything is fine, since.
Now, what was the problem? A small spring, connecting the throttle cable to the overrun cutoff, came loose. A five second repair with some needle-nose pliers, but you gotta know where it sits. D'uh!
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Post by August Watring on Apr 21, 2021 20:42:07 GMT
Oh boy, car stories. I have quite a number. I'll start with my daily driver and my pride and joy, my 1999 Subaru Legacy Outback.
This starts back in 2018 around February with my dad doing what he does best, wasting time on Craigslist trying to find deals. One day he stumbles on a post in the Parts section for a 1999 Legacy Outback. It was beyond clean for an Indiana car. Turns out it was bought at a local dealership, had spent most of it's life down in Arizona and Texas and was brought back to the same dealership where it was bought from the guy I got it from. A few years go by and the car is solid for them but once it hit 150K miles on the engine the head gaskets decided to head out as they do on EJ25's of that vintage. This guy decided to get the car home and then proceeded to take out the engine and strip it all the way down. He was really good about bagging up bolts and keeping things organized. He then went and got the block and heads decked at a machine shop and ordered all the needed parts to reassemble the engine. At this point, he stepped away from the project a few years until he needed to make room in his garage for a new truck he just got. This is where we found the Craigslist advert. We had called him and talked about the car and what he knew about Subarus, he was a wealth of knowledge. I couldn't rightly make an offer because we didn't have the money to offer. However, we could get it out of his garage because we could get AAA to tow it back to our house. We talked for an hour or so and went our separate ways.
About a month later we get a call from the guy with the car. He had gotten some offers for the parts on it but he didn't want it to get parted out. My dad and I were the only folks who talked to him that actually wanted to put the car back together and get it back on the road. He offered the car to us for free! All because we were kind and wanted to make it go. That however, didn't seem right to me. I wanted to give the guy something for the trouble so I gave him all of what I had in my wallet and my dad threw in a jar of change, it was about $110 total. From there we got the car home with the help of AAA and got it into my garage where it sat for a few months as I got the money to pay for an engine rebuild. I also spent this time fixing the front end since it needed new ball joints and a CV axle put back in.
It was May by the time I got the engine back from the shop. I had it in the car on the 24th of may and on June 1st of 2018 I turned it over for the first time... Only to find a quart of oil on the floor of my garage after about 2 minutes of running. Oil leak aside, I was so glad to have it running. I had to pull the engine back out and slap some sealant on some plugs but that only took me another couple days.
Since then I have pulled the engine another time for oil leaks at the valve covers and an unknown overheating issue that turned out to be a worn out coolant line that goes into the throttle body. I have taken this car to Road America twice and have made the drive down to Cincinnati many a time. There is about 30K miles on the engine now and I plan on keeping this car running as long as it will go. Eventually I would like to get it to the JDM GT-B spec with the 2.0 Twin Turbo boxer and Bilstein struts but that is a pipe dream.
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Post by Juha Bos on Apr 21, 2021 20:43:25 GMT
I can fill a book with all my stories.
I have no idea which poor soul currently owns the only car I ever bought brand new, but I think by now he'll have found out why I didn't want it any more. I did state the engine had seen its best days (putting it mildly). This one doesn't have a happy ending though. 
From day 1, it never drove in a straight line. I always had to steer left to go straight. Brought it back to the dealers, they didn't find anything wrong. The steering made noise, but that wasn't it. Four years on, having covered about 60.000 km's, I borrowed it to a friend. He thanked for the gesture me by hitting a kerb (with me sitting alongside him, in my own car) breaking both wheels on one side. Fitted two new ones, and new tyres. They lasted 7.000 km. The next set also was showing the steel inside before reaching 10.000. That's preciously little for a car which wasn't exactly a high performance vehicle, but a 75 bhp shopping trolley.
Not planning on spending even more money on new rubber, I had the car checked again at a different place. Result: "I've changed both front struts and suspension triangles." "Because they come in pairs?" "No, because both sides where bent like a banana." Even the one that hadn't taken a hit, which may have been like that since I got the car. That nearly solved it. Nearly, because one of the new struts didn't perform properly and after driving over a speed bump I could book the car in for a new windscreen.
Happy I was finally rid of all its faults, a new one appeared. The lights shut off completely at night. A common problem, issues with the motherboard, repairable under warranty... if only it hadn't expired two years prior. "How much does it cost?" "Considering how often the car's been in my workshop lately, I wouldn't bother wasting money on it!" He wasn't even joking.
After 7 years of (un)happy ownership came the final straw. On my way to the airport, the oil warning appeared for half a second. On the 80 km trip that day, it never showed again. "Must be another electronic glitch then, it's been serviced two months ago." Left it parked for a week, drove it home again and 1 km from home, on came the oil light again. This time I did check. The engine had the cleanest dipstick ever... I thought I hadn't inserted it far enough, until I noticed the bottom (not the side, only the bottom) had 1 mm of oil on it. Poured two litres into it. It lasted two months. I poured another two litres in, that last two weeks, by which time the head gasket had started to produce mayonnaise. Not being too interested to know if this was either a failing head gasket or engine block, I gave up on it and bought a German car instead of a French one. |
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Post by Jason White on Apr 22, 2021 3:17:43 GMT
I got locked in an Alfa 75 at an auto show once. I was 11. Scarred me for life...
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Post by Alberto Ibanez on Apr 22, 2021 7:15:42 GMT
Not sure if this is purely a car related story or not, but anyway ...
Back in the days when I was young and stupid (Well, more stupid than now at least) we went out a night and got stone drunk as usual. At 6 AM with the first dim light on the horizon we left the pub (Or rather, were thrown out of it because it was closing) and it was raining big time. My friend and me went around for about half an hour trying to get the key to open all the white Ford Escorts we could find, because we went to the area so many times and parked in many different places that we could not remember where we had parked this time. After trying for the 3rd time on the car that seemed to be more fitting, soaked to the bones and still dizzy from the Vodka, my mate says: Hey wait a moment! Didn't we get here tonight on your mom's car? I approached the key to my eyes under the heavy rain and there it was, a prancing lion laughing his ass at me. First Peugeot at the area we tried, it opened up and we got back home, with the worst cold I had caught in years.
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Post by Juha Bos on Apr 22, 2021 19:30:32 GMT
After yesterday's tale of woe, here's another one, but with a different car and a more exotic touch. In 2013 2 mates and me decided to go to Sardinia to see the WRC. Our hire car was a Mercedes A Class. For two days we took it over a series of goat paths trying to find access roads. During the rally, we tried the roads again, at one point resorting to building a stone bridge to cross a stream because we couldn't even reverse it out from where we'd got it. Four days of off roads driving and not a scratch on the car. On Saturday afternoon, we set of to see the last stage. For once it was a smooth gravel road, nothing to rough for the car. We spot a bike coming the other way, so move aside into the grass... straight into a rock which puts a hole in the wheel and tyre sidewall. Out we get to fit the spare. We open the boot.. No jack, no tools, and most of all: no wheel, just a bottle of puncture repair spray. Four days we'd been doing all sorts of things without knowing we didn't even carry a spare. 100 km's away from our hotel, and another 120 from the hire car depot, we had a problem. So I rang the breakdown service whose number was on the windscreen. My interlocutor only spoke Italian. "Why do not try the spray? Why is it not working? But have you tried? But you should fix it like that!" Well that's not working when you've put a dent in the wheel. Having finally convinced her we required a breakdown truck, the question was "Where are you?" We were on an unnamed road on top of a mountain. After five minutes I still hadn't managed to even get her to understand to name of the next village. An Italian offered to help, 15 seconds later all was sorted and the truck was to be sent to the next village in an hour. We dispatched one of us to wait. Two hours later, he still hasn't returned. A text arrives: "I've got 1% of battery left on my phone. Still no truck." 5 minutes later he arrives, with a truck and a raging driver who was disgusted at the fact had to take his truck onto a gravel road (even if this was a good one). Mercedes loads onto the flatbed, we get in the truck. 2 km's on, we reach the village and are told to "get out, I only take the car back, not you". Saturday night, 7 PM village in the middle of nowhere, no one speaks English. Things were on the up. Only two bars appeared open, we enter the one where the crowd looks calmest and ask or a taxi. "No taxi here." Of course not. Meanwhile the Carabinieri had entered. Not looking like the average villager, he was onto us quickly. Within 30 seconds I'd been accused of having destroyed the car. It's amazing how quickly one's language skills progress when being in a deep mess, so I actually managed to explain in Italian it was just the tyre, and not the car. Having cleared me of any criminal charges, our Carabinieri became friendly and enquired of anyone could drive us back to the hotel. Someone agree, and after a 3-figure sum for 100 km's we were back in town. Or nearly. Our hotel was next to a Carrefour supermarket. Upon spotting a Carrefour sign, my mates said "it's fine to drop us here." I disagreed, this was the wrong location for me. But two against one, I lost. Out of the car, it was now 10 pm. "Can any of you two actually see our hotel?" "No, can you?", "Oh yes I do. Have you noticed there are two Carrefours here? And the other one is on the other side of the bay, 7 km's from here You can see it, over there on the horizon." I didn't fancy the walk back. So I did like they do on Who Wants to be a Multi Millionaire: phone a friend. "Hi mate, I just saw on Facebook you're having dinner in a restaurant in Olbia. When you're finished with dinner, would you mind picking us up?" And sure enough, he showed up and dropped us off at our hotel. The day after, we get to the hire car desk. "Can we get another car?" Nope, it's Sunday, no way to check we hadn't written off the other one because the garage was closed. We went to the next desk and got another car. This one did have a spare. |
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Post by Juha Bos on Apr 22, 2021 20:18:54 GMT
Another Saturday night, this time on a colder climate: Austria in January (the year before Sardinia).
Having spectated a weekend on the Jänner rally in my mate's which he'd driven from Belgium, we needed diesel for the journey home. Choice of two places, my driver picks the cheapest. Reckoning he's not aligned correctly, he tries to park it alongside the pump again and hits a piece of metal sticking out of the kerb. Just like in Saridinia, the sidewall is slashed and of course there is no spare wheel. "I hadn't had time to buy one."
As luck would have it, the fuel station was also a tyre shop. Nice, problem sorted you'd think. But "It's Saturday night, I'm closed, and how dare you break down on my forecourt, move that car somewhere else!" So much for customer service!
So we enquire at the lock info desk. "Sorry sir, everything's closed, tomorrow is Sunday so it's all closed so you'll have to wait for Monday. The only tyre shop is the one you got kicked out of, and there's a guy called Hubert a few km's out of town. But he's probably closed too."
I tried the "phone a friend" option this time as well, and found a friend in the same town. He was 100m away and had a tyre truck... which had left for Germany. 
But there's a rally on, so tools and people are on hand. We just need a tyre. We walk into the prizegiving,an arena full of partying and drinking Austrians. Straight to the info desk. A nice lady gives us a phone number of a guy who can help us. Turns out it was the same Hubert who was mentioned earlier. "He's in this hall, but the handing out the trophies so you'll have to wait". Small effort, we can wait.
Prize giving over, we ring... and understand ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing of what he's saying. I had the phone to the lady, who despite being local, had to ask twice before understanding what was said on the other end. But Hubert does come to meet us, and agrees to fit a tyre he has lying around. All we have to do it meet him at the desk with our tyre.
We set to work and return, standing outside the front door with a broken wheel while waiting for Hubert. Suddenly, help is offered from all directions... "you should call Hubert" "Thanks, I did!" and "My brother can help you." "That's very kind but we're waiting for someone." "Well i he doesn't show, ask me, I'll ask my brother, Hubert! Oh look, there he is already" "well... that's our Hubert!"
Most popular man in town it appeared, Hubert!
He helped us out big time, allowing us to get home instead of spending two days waiting. |
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