Two weeks ago, I showed you what I saw on the 110 mile trip up I5 to the Portland Airport. On Friday evening, I had to make the trip again to pick up some more fortunate members of the family who had just spent two weeks in the Piedmont in Italy. Just a few miles north of Eugene, I saw the flashing lights of a cop car in the median, and I as I whistled by, I saw a woodie Chrysler K-Car wagon, with its hood up. Regretfully, I was by way to quickly before I could even think of peeling off a shot, but it got me thinking about freeway breakdowns, and how rare they’ve become. Cars are so much more reliable today….and then I saw another breakdown…and another….well, not as many as in this picture (don’t ask; I don’t know), but…
It must be the same phenomena as when you have a certain car in mind, and suddenly you see them everywhere. I was sure each one must be the last, and kept kicking myself for not keeping the camera on and in hand. But they do go by quickly. So you’ll have to just hear my descriptions, like in the old days.
I saw a W-body Pontiac on the side, the first of likely several dry gas tanks. These folks even had a sign “Need Gas”. Maybe it was a ruse to just keep getting gas for free.
There was also fairly recent Toyota pickup, and a clean-cut middle aged driver just standing there, also looking out of gas and like he was counting the minutes before his help arrived.
And another; I’ve forgotten now. Cars can be made more reliable, but not folks’ ability to look at a gas gauge. You’d thing the manufacturers would have done something about that by now. If they have lane avoidance, and adaptive cruise control, how about cars that automatically start steering you to the exit ramp when it’s low on gas?
Next up: car on fire. Well, not quite ablaze, but still a bit of residual smoke and a heavily discolored front end, with the hood up. Looks like someone had stopped with a fire extinguisher to dampen the under-hood fire of the red Saturn Vue. And a minute or two later, I spotted the fire engine on its way. One less Vue in the world; what a loss.
I had just convinced myself that this was an unusually busy night for breakdowns, but that I’d seen more than my share, when I zipped by another, a Ford Windstar, whose many occupants were standing around, the kids playing in the tall grass.
Then on I205 outside Portland, I saw another apparent empty tank. And just a mile before getting off for the airport, I saw the last, a couple of cars pulled off, and the occupants all looking into the engine compartment of a heavily modified hot-rod Hornet sporting a similar paint job as this “AMX”. It may have been the real thing, or not, but it was really broken down, spoiling a Friday night cruise.
So the question is, when was the last time you broke down on the freeway? I’ve had a couple of non-freeway breakdowns, including just last summer, but I fixed that. Let me think…they’ve all been either in town, or on two-lane roads, or in a parking lot, or at the dump, or off road, or at a campground, or something I could jury-rig. Can it be that far back; in 1975, when the engine in my last VW Beetle blew? No, I managed to clatter along on the shoulder to the next exit.
Here it is: I’ve never properly broken down on the side of the freeway. Now I’ve jinxed it, of course. How about you?
I had a timing belt go on my ’84 Civic on a flyover connecting the I-10 in Phoenix with the U.S. 60. That was 1988. Nothing since, but I see at least one every day (more in summer) on Phoenix freeways.
Summer of 1989 in a 1929 Ford Model A. I had bought the car in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The plan was to drive it 100 miles to Indianapolis on I-69 with my fiancee (now Mrs. JPC) following in the comfort of her air conditioned 88 Accord.
I was cruising along at about 50-55, carefully watching for red mercury on the Boyce MotoMeter radiator cap. Suddenly, lots of white vapor out the back and the car slowed then stalled. It would not start. Crap, I thought – I’ve just bought it and now I’ve ruined the engine. Lesson 1 – the thermometer in the rad cap did not work.
Short story – my accomplice goes in search of a gas station to get water (I had a jug with me). While she was gone, the A started, so I got it about 100 yards to the next exit where I could get off the highway. This was a bad idea before cell phones. My helper came back and could not find me and drove a couple of times up and down that stretch of highway before she saw me on the side road.
After the second running, the ignition was soaked and it would not start again, we ended up driving to Indianapolis, borrowing a truck and car trailer, and coming back for the immobile A. When we finally got home, it started right up. I learned that it takes more than a little overheating to kill that simple lump of Rouge iron under the hood.
How did you get a Model A up to 55 mph? The best I could do was about 45 once I learned how to advance the ignition.
I have read that when they are running properly, they can hit 65 if they have to. 45 was a very comfortable cruising speed for mine, and between 50-55 was do-able, but the engine was pretty busy.
Ecoboost, of course!
In 1983 I got a flat tire on the Cross Bronx Expressway. Wall to wall traffic. In those days cars on the side of the road of New York highways were quickly stripped. I drove on the flat all the way to the New Rochelle tolls before I put on the donut. The old tire was shredded, but the rim survived. I think the new tire was $50.
Reminds me of the time my family got stranded on the same highway in 1984. The throttle cable snapped on my dad’s Volvo 760 (GLE diesel stick shift, for those of you keeping track). He was panicky because he thought the car would be stripped, and our fate would be worse. But also, he was an engineer, so he found a non-essential nut/bolt under the hood, used them to connect the frayed threads of the cable, and got us back on the road.
He feathered the accelerator just enough to get the car up to 26(?) mph, and then engaged the cruise control to get us up to highway speed. That brought us all the way back to our hometown Volvo dealer in NH. Pretty impressive driving for a diesel stick shift on a crowded highway.
I was late for the dentist back in 1980, so I floored my 74 Javelin along the 401 in Toronto to try to and make up some time, but then I heard a clanking sound, I knew that was bad, I pulled over and sure enough, I’d blown the engine. Boy, that was one expensive trip to the dentist! I can’t say I’ve had too many problems on the highway though, they make cars much better these days after all.
Two weeks ago the fan belt blew on my ’89 E30, with such force it apparently snapped the secondary accessories belt. This was in the afternoon; I heard a big ‘z z z z z iiing!’ and was like, ‘What the hell was that?’ But as I was on the road and a mile from home, the gauges didn’t change… I thought it was just some weird summer sound, kids with firecrackers, as the windows were open and I’m in rural New York for the summer. The next night, I was teaching my main squeeze how to drive stick in a parking lot, do the car was getting hot. on the ride home all of my gauges came on, the temp spiked- which has never happened- and I immediately pulled off and cut the engine. Belts SHREDDED- Total overheat- on a rural road late at night. Scary stuff. Luckily I have AAA Plus, and the tow truck came quickly. And thankfully there was no damage! But those 45 minutes on the side of the two lane were scary indeed. I haven’t had a breakdown in seven years. Glad it happened close to home… Otherwise it likely would have broken down on the Thruway two days later when I was scheduled to go to Boston. And that would have SUCKED.
I still have the old VW disease, well the other day after a visit at my buddies place I fire up the old van and notice coolant peeing out the back (miss the aircooled one only had to worry about oil leaks). Well at least it was at a safe place to leave it. Pick up a bunch of new heater hose some connectors and coolant the next day. Get under there and manage to fix it by cutting 1/2 inch off the hose a a couple of new hose clamps. A few days later the big wire on the alternator came off and blew what was left of the muffler away, new ring connector and a quick weld from a friends borrowed mig welder and I am back on the road…. Until the next “adventure”….
I know well the FIRST time I had a break-down on the road:
I was driving my very first car, a $75.00 1952 Chevy rusted-out DeLuxe down to Times Beach, MO to see a crazy buddy. All of a sudden, I felt the car lose power and saw nothing but steam. Great. I pulled over just short of the Manchester Road exit on what is now called I-270 and popped the hood.
A ruptured heater hose! I was able to temporarliy mend it and had to hike to the nearest house which actually was an old farm house complete with well and the person gave me a bucket of water. I filled the radiator, returned the bucket and got off at the exit to a Standard station which had a repair garage that was open on a Sunday! A length of new heater hose: 80 cents. Car fixed.
My last breakdown:
Driving home on a beautiful mid-September day in 2007 when my 1992 LeBaron convertible’s engine gave up the goat. I coasted into a school parking lot as ths was a local road, for where I worked at the time was a dream commute of all back roads.
I had the car towed to our mechanic and he confirmed what I feared, the 2.5L at 148K miles was toast, for no apparent reason. It would have cost around $3,500 for an engine, computer and a host of other stuff. I had put enough money into that car for the last 8½ years and I felt that was enough. I asked him to buy it for $500.00. He called me back and had a buyer. He gave me the check and I divested myself of what was a beautiful, delightful car, but no longer worth patching up to me.
I saw it back on the road as recently as last summer! The guy who bought it worked for our mechanic and fixed it for about half of what it would have cost me…
Coming back from Austin with my son about 20 years ago. Had an 81 Datsun pickup with a contractor shell on the back. Beat the snot of that truck. After dark and the engine just came to a stop. At about 270kmiles I had spun a bearing. Put a junkyard engine in it and drove it about another 100k before a broken heater hose on a tall bridge overheated and took out the head gasket. I gave it a good sendaway.
“…a broken heater hose on a tall bridge overheated and took out the head gasket. I gave it a good sendaway.”
Did you push it over the side?
Military funeral. Played taps.
This was on a back-road, not the freeway, but the mechanical fuel pump in my 66 Newport convertible broke down on the way to a car show last summer. I initially thought that the fuel gauge had broken and I had run out of gas, so I called my wife to come with a jug. Put most of it in, cranked and cranked but no fire. Worried that the battery would die before I got fuel to the carb, I put a bit of remaining gas from the jug into an empty water bottle and trickled it down the carb throat while my wife cranked the starter. That got it running. Once the fuel system was primed again, the fuel pump worked well enough that I drove to the car show and back home, but if it idled for any length of time it would start sputtering because the carb would begin to run dry.
My last highway breakdown was about 5 years ago with my pickup truck. A transmission cooler rubber line popped off of the steel line it was clamped to and I lost all the trans fluid. Fortunately I was just exiting the highway anyhow. Went to accelerate at the end of the offramp and the transmission started flaring and misbehaving. I pulled into a restaurant parking lot and almost got it into a parking spot before it wouldn’t move any more. Reattached the hose and, once I got a jug of ATF to refill it, I was on my way.
Before that the engine in my hardtop died suddenly while I was on the highway. I coasted to the side and popped the hood. The high-tension wire had come off the ignition coil. Put it back on and away I went.
I did run my hardtop out of gas once, at a stoplight, not on the highway fortunately. I had a jug of gas in the trunk because I knew I was taking a chance this particular day, so I wasn’t too worried. The fuel gauge in that car reads empty well before the tank is actually dry, and I had been hoping to make it to a gas station that I knew had cheap gas. My biggest worry was that the car was sitting in a lane at the stoplight, it does not have 4-way flashers, and I wanted to warn other drivers so that I didn’t get rear-ended while dumping the jug of gas into the tank. My solution was to put the hood up, which made it obvious that the car was not going anywhere.
Many years ago I was driving my mom’s 92 Roadmaster and my dad was in the passenger seat. I floored it getting on an onramp. The block heater popped out of the side of the engine and it lost all the coolant. That’s the only time I’ve ever needed a tow.
I’ve already written about the sudden loss of oil pressure event I suffered in my ’87 Celica. Got stranded up on the I-405 Fremont Bridge in Portland on the way to work. The oil filter came loose and the engine dumped its guts all over under the hood. A sympathetic cop came along pretty quickly and ordered me a tow to my local dealer. Total top-end rebuild. Last oil change the old filter gasket stayed behind on the oily side of the block up where you can’t see (transverse FWD), so the new filter felt screwed down tight but wasn’t. My own damned fault.
On the other hand, shortly after getting his new Prius, back when they were rare, my brother-in-law ran out of gas on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, certainly one of the Top Ten Places Not to Break Down in the USA. Its hybrid battery had just enough charge left for him to creep across and make it to a gas station.
Last month I saw one helluva fire in the cab of a late-model pickup on the US-26 Sunset Freeway here. Big flames and smoke pouring out the windshield, could see it for miles. Careless with matches?
The theme here is how many breakdowns are actually the car’s fault. Darned few. Corollary to the longevity we’re getting out of out cars now.
Speaking of which, in the old Bogart/Bacall movie we watched last night (Dark Passage, 1947) a small-time crook drives an old Ford Model A roadster that barely runs and can’t go faster than 30. A total junker, grossly obsolete as well as worn out. Bogart calls it a “jalopy”. That car could not have been more than 20 years old (1927-1947).
Must have been something with ’87 Celicas, because that happened to mine too. I noticed the pressure gauge drop to zero about a mile after leaving Jiffy Lube. The filter was still hanging on by one thread and I caught it early enough that it didn’t do any serious damage. Sure enough, the old gasket was stuck against the new one… earned me four free oil changes. If I’m remembering correctly, on that car the filter mounted facing downward off the block at a 45 degree angle and it was very tough to see where it actually screwed in. Guess that wasn’t the best design!
The old double filter gasket issue…has caused many engine failures. All I can say is, if you choose to use a cheap filter, ( the one with the paper end cap, and its orange) you better make sure the old gasket is with it when you remove it!
Latest breakdown was a failed coil on our ’03 325i. The engine ran, but rough and the wife did what I told her and didn’t continue driving when it started acting badly.
The best breakdown story of my life: driving my $475 ’80 subaru wagon 4WD back to Florida after an epic one month ramble through the southwest and california in 1993 or so. I had gotten into some poison oak while working on some property in Big Sur and had nasty sores all over my legs arms and hands.
Driving across the desert in Arizona at about 50-55 mpg to keep the temp out of the danger zone. Hot as hell and I am itching like crazy. All the sudden the car stumbles, I look down and the temp gage is on zero…put the clutch in and the engine immediately dies. I then start smelling buring oil and see the smoke. I pull off and pop the hood and the engine is smoking, not steaming, smoking. It has puked the water out a heater hose and the water never hit anything hot, so it never steamed to warn me. The engine was so hot smoke was coming out of the PCV and oil dipstick and the fuel in the carb was boiliing. I thought it might catch on fire so I got my mountain bike out of the back and the rest of my stuff and sat on the side of the road in the sun while it cooled. All the while I am thinking how I have no money to fix this car and will need to figure out another way home…surely the engine is toast after being overheated that badly…
I had to wait close to two hours before the engine cooled enough that I could lay a hand on it, as the owners manual stated, to add water to it. To my amazement it started and ran OK. I fixed the hose and changed the oil in the next town and drove that car another year or two and it ran fine.
I on the other hand was a complete wreck–poison oak, a nasty nasty sun burn and looking like a true hobo, but I made it home OK. Best trip of my life, in retrospect.
damn that’s an endorsement for subie if i ever heard one! somehow, i don’t think the modern ones are that tough.
81 Accord around 84-85. Carburetor craps out in a snow storm. Call a coworker who lived about 10 miles away. Pre cell phone. Had to find a house with lights on. Tried to drive it to the dealer about 15 miles away with him following. The thing died a couple of times and wouldn’t go no further, but I did make it to a bowling alley parking lot with a outside pay phone. Called a tow truck to pick it up and drop it off at the dealer and the coworker drove me home.
My other story is in the Berkshires, at my parents cottage with my POS Saab that was 2 years old. Car won’t start. We tie a rope around my dads bumper hitch and drag me to the main road. I then proceed to coast the car 8 miles down hill with a couple of love taps by him when the car coasted to 0 mph.
I am reminded of the summer when my Chrysler 300L hardtop developed a nasty habit of quitting on me without warning. It seemed to be ignition but I couldn’t find the problem, and after fiddling around with things I’d try to start it, and it would start and run fine. I had two or three of these episodes, and the problem turned out to be a wire in the lower part of the distributor that had become bare and would now and then ground against the distributor housing.
I got to the end of your second sentence and thought, “I bet it was the wire in the distributor”. đ
About a year ago I was driving the truck southbound on CA85. Traffic slowed in front of me, and when I pushed in the clutch to drop down to 4th gear, something went “clunk”, and the pedal dropped straight to the floor and stayed there. I just coasted to the shoulder and called AAA.
Something had produced excessive pressure in the hydraulics, and the weak link was the roll pin holding the fluid line onto the slave cylinder. The pin bent and the line popped off. Twice more in the next 2k miles I had similar failures. Once the master cylinder failed internally so it just wasn’t pumping fluid, and the next was the line itself, which ruptured somewhere between the master and the slave. The final straw was a similar “clunk”, which resulted in a clutch that still seemed to function but had lost half its pedal travel and wouldn’t completly disengage. At that point I parked the truck and started saving up for a clutch job. And on the 8-block drive to the shop, the pedal dropped to the floor again the second time I tried to stop. (hmmm. 4 stop signs between here and the shop… Flashers on. I can do this. Hope there’s no cops)
I have to assume it was some bizarre failure of the dual-mass flywheel, but there’s no obvious damage to it so I remain mystified as to what was the cause. I replaced the dual-mass flywheel with a solid one and a different clutch disk, and so far (fingers crossed) no reoccurance. Any clutch experts out there with a guess? The shop which did the job did not report any damage to or malfunction of the throwout fork or bearing. Small rear mainseal leak but no oil on the clutch plate. And one of the rear tranmission mount tabs was broken off and missing, so some potential that the box had been twisting under load.
For me personally, it was probably around 2003, when the rear driveshaft u-joint on my ’69 F-100 failed. Called the wife and told her what part to go buy and had her bring it to me with the correct wrench to re-install. Did it on the side of the road in about 15 minutesâŚ
When I drove my ’64 Beetle in Atlanta for six years, I probably averaged 2-3 breakdowns a year that required either someone to come get me, or some pretty clever “Idiot Guide” jury-rigging to get it home for a more permanent repair. Muir is right – you *can* drive a Beetle with no brakesâŚÂ or no clutch cableâŚÂ or no accelerator cable⌠(did ’em all).
For my wife, it would have been three years ago when her ’06 Grand Caravan took a direct lightning strike during a heavy thunderstorm. No fixing *that* on the side of the road!
My son’s ’84 Mustang “L” is providing plenty of opportunities for roadside repairs these days, so at least I’m staying in practise.
I’ve got a VW story…when the throttle cable broke on my ’70 Ghia, I made a ‘fix’ with some fishing line tied to the cable. I wrapped it around my fist and drive home. As I also had a motorcycle, it was pretty easy to accelerate and decelerate by turning my wrist. The fishing line made it super easy to pull the new throttle cable thru, too. Another time, when it wouldn’t run, I remember leaving it in 2nd gear and using the starter as a motivating device to get me to a nearby parking lot.
Not a breakdown story, but a parking-lot repair.
Xmas vacation 1968, senior year in high school. My 1961 Bel-Air needed a generator. My buddy and me drove up to Target – they sold parts in those days – I bought one and we proceeded to replace it in the lot to save taking the old one back for the core charge.
Thing is, it was below freezing and the ground and much of the lot was snow-covered and we had inadequate clothing for the occasion.
We fussed with that for the better part of an hour but finally got it done.
The next evening, we were sitting in my basement listening to music when my friend didn’t look so good. He went home. He came down with the flu. So did his brother. Two days later, so did I.
Misearable and sick through mid-January, didn’t miss school, though, but should have!
We still laugh about that one.
Driving on I-595 after dropping someone off at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Lower radiator hose popped on my Northstar powered 1999 Cadillac Deville. I kept driving, expecting “The Northstar System” that supposedly deactivates 4 cylinders at a time to let the engine cool and be able to go 50 miles with no coolant to do its thing…. yea…. THAT does not work.
When the computer said “turn engine off” I pulled over and called a tow truck. Replaced the hose, thought it was all fine. A few days later the coolant was low. The overheating blew the head gasket. If I knew the limp-home feature did not work, I wouldn’t have driven on it.
That is when I learned that a Northstar powered Cadillac was designed to be a throw-away car đ Now I drive a Lincoln.
I’ll save my non-freeway breakdowns for another opportunity. As I mentioned before, I had relocated to NC from AL & had a bunch of vehicles to move. What’s odd is out of the ten or so <$500 beaters I've driven from AL to NC when I moved…only one of them gave me a bit of trouble & it was the very last one I expected.
So I have this '83 S-10 with the (non-computer) carbed 2.8 V6 & 700R4 overdrive transmission. It was very reliable & one cold weekend I got a free ride back to AL so I could bring it up here. The torque converter clutch would not engage once the transmission got hot so I figured I'd be smart & temporarily ditch the thermostat for the 600 mile journey.
It was late Saturday night & after making it through Atlanta via I85, I noticed I was losing speed going up a very minor incline. It was so gradual I didn't even realize there was an issue until the transmission downshifted into third gear & when I went to add a little juice, my foot actually touched the floorboard. RPMs indicated no drivetrain slippage.
By the time I made it to the next exit, I was down to about 15 mph, foot still on the floor. I pulled into a gas station, truck still floored but was down to 5mph. The oil, temp, & fuel gauges were fine & the engine sounded great although throttle response was nearly nil when I revved it sitting at the gas pump.
I opened the hood & everything looked fine, then figured I had better get away from the pump in case someone needed gas. Well, I put it in gear & pulled away with no issues. Weird… the truck seemed to have some power. It was late so I figured I'd make another go of it & pulled back out onto the interstate.
It was completely back to normal…well, for about an hour. Then somewhere around the SC line I started losing power again…. I kept the accelerator floored & finally stopped after the engine wouldn't run above idle. It was sitting there running pretty-as-you-please but when I floored the accelerator pedal there was zero difference like before…Being a carbureted vehicle it made no sense to me because nothing "broke". After sitting stationery about 5 minutes, I was able to pull off the shoulder & resume the trip.
This cycle repeated itself 5 or 6 times the remainder of the way which was nerve-wracking to say the least. After I got "here", I tinkered/tweaked with it, replacing the thermostat & eventually replacing the Torque converter clutch solenoid, wiring it up manually (love it this way).
Then one damp morning months later it did it again. Pulled off the road, opened the hood when I was revving it up at the carb, I noticed the air cleaner housing felt literally ice-cold. Aha! It turns out that the Thermostatic air cleaner was stuck open & all that cold moist inlet air courtesy of the intact air cleaner snorkel was causing the carburetor to actually ice up when I was whizzing down the road. The “stick-up” sitting on top of the air-cleaner snorkel in the below pic is the sometimes-very-important doo-dad I’m referring to.
When the truck was stationary, the underhood temp thawed out the carb & everything returned to normal. It all made sense but it still was one of the weirdest things I'd ever experienced.
Last freeway breakdown was well before I could drive.
We were heading back home along I-94 from East Lansing, MI, in our 1981 Dodge Aries (2.2L, 4 speed manual, bought new) in 1983 (Saturday night in December, IIRC). We had had a problem with the distributor cap earlier in the day, stopping at a Kmart in Benton harbor for a repair. On the way back, a mile or two east of Paw Paw, the car died with the complete failure of the distributor cap repair. It was towed to a Dodge dealer in Paw Paw where it was repaired. We kept the car for another 12 years after that with no other distributor cap issues.
Dang, it’s been about 20 years since my last freeway breakdown. Back in ’92, I replaced my ’66 Catalina with a ’76 Vega. The big, fast Pontiac was costing me dearly; not so much in miles per gallon, but in speeding tickets per month. I reasoned that something as gutless as a Vega would cure the problem, and I was quite right. However, the gas gauge on the Pontiac was on the right, whereas the one on the Vega was on the left. And previously, while learning to drive a stick, I’d developed the habit of steering left-handed, which obscured the gas gauge on the Vega. A passing State Trooper gave me a ride to and from a gas station about three miles away. The guy really bent over backwards for me– I think he expected me to be a drunken idiot rather than the stone-cold sober variety.
Oh, and BTW, I did get one last speeding ticket in the Vega before I became a solid slow-driving citizen. It was for going 72 in a 55 zone. And YES, I was going downhill.
My last time breaking down on the freeway was in 2007, and it was a direct result of breaking down somewhere in town a week before. I’d bought my Saab 9000 about a month before, and when I went to start it at school that day, it wouldn’t–called triple A and they diagnosed it as a broken fuel pump and towed me to the dealership. Dealership replaced fuel pumpm and all seemed well and good until a few days later.
A few of my friends and I decided to take a little road trip to go camping a few hours away. When we were about halfway I noticed a faint smell of gasoline, but thought nothing of it until truck drivers started pointing at me while pinching their noses, and I noticed that the gas gauge had dropped precipitously. I pull over at a gas station (great move, obviously), and see that I’ve left a pretty nice trail of gasoline behind me. Oi. Triple A makes an appearance again, and the tow truck driver finds that the dealership hadn’t properly connected the fuel line to the pump, and it was leaking at the connection. A couple of tie wraps later, everything was hooked up properly again, and the thing never gave me any more trouble. Well, the fuel pump, that isâthe car ended up needing a new transmission and head gasket soon after that… (Saabs are cruel mistresses. But when the turbos blow the way they should, you tend to magically overlook their transgressions.)
My last breakdown was about 6 years ago when my ’98 Accent GT decided it didn’t like the platinum spark plugs I had installed a few days prior.
I bought the Accent as a cheap commuter when I was traveling about 80 miles each way to a new job. It was perfect for the drive and cheap on gas, but the high mileage after a year or so meant it was time for a tune up. I bought new wires, replaced the coil pack (I eventually went through 3 used ones) and decided on Platinum spark plugs, as they seemed to work well in the Caravan I had at the time.
I found out later that those engines don’t like the platinum plugs at all and I was better off just getting the cheapest copper ones I could find.
Driving on the highway at 70 mph on my way home one night, I heard a loud bang and a shower of sparks started coming up from under the hood. I pulled over, popped the hood and saw that one of the plugs was hanging by its wire and sitting on top of the engine. The white ceramic insulator blew right out of it and the “screw-in-part” was still screwed into the block. It came out with such a force that there was a dimple on the hood that could be seen from the top side.
I had no extras, so I called for a tow. Luckily I was only about 15 minutes from home and had CAA, so the tow was covered.
I replaced the plug with a copper one. A couple of weeks later, the same thing happened, but this time, I had a spare and some tools. I fixed it on the road and once I got home, I replaced the other two. No problems with plugs after that.
Last failure ON THE ROAD…was in 1989 when my Yugo engine grenaded like the Rube Goldberg appliance it was. Alternator belt pops off, taking the timing belt; taking the valves out of sync; taking a valve head and a piston crown.
But that’s not to say I haven’t had failures en route. It’s just that with experience, I’m more attuned to something going wrong as it’s going wrong.
Two summers ago, on my way to a new assignment in Middleofnowhere, South Dakota…I heard funny noises from inside the doghouse of my Dodge van. Not very nice noises.
I stopped, and investigated; the water pump had chosen that particular time to have a bearing failure. It was a Thursday night; outside Madison, Wisconsin.
I was off the cloverleaf and by a motel; so at said motel I stayed. At 0600 the following morning, I was at the Dodge store, with a credit card and a pathetic look.
I was pitied. They fixed. I was on my way by Friday afternoon.
What I spent on an expensive hotel room, was what I saved in not getting a tow. By knowing my vehicle and listening to it….
Not sure the throttle linkage coming undone in my Beetle in 2000 counted. Took 5 minutes to make a phillips screwdriver act like a hex key to tighten it up.
Real breakdowns: New years eve, 1971, just outside of Blythe Calif. Four of us college kids took a road trip from Urbana, IL to the Left coast in a 66 Tempest. Snow tires in the trunk and four guys and it was a bit overloaded. Coming back, one of the drivers got a bit hot on the throttle and a couple of hours later the rear wheel bearing let go. It was spectacular, taking the brakes and starting the tire on fire. We were getting ready to piss on the tire when the CHP rolled up with an extinguisher. The lead-footed guy had relatives in Blythe, so we had free lodging while waiting out the holiday to get a new bearing from Indio. (Pontiacs were a bit exotic for Blythe. Chevies, no sweat.) The parking brake wasn’t fixable at the time, so it was a womp-ass offense to use it…
A year later, the sidewall on my MGB left rear let go on I-57. Fortunately, I wasn’t going as fast as I normally did so it wasn’t too eventful. A brick works well when you give up on the rubber mallet for the knock-off spinners… (I kept one of each in the trunk.) The split ended up 3/4s the way around the tire. That car could have killed me several times, but it must have liked me, or something.
Ah, the good old days before dual master cylinders! Back in the late 80s, I was moving to a new place, and I had all of my stuff packed into my 1966 Catalina when a rear-wheel bearing gave out. (Yep, another ’66 Pontiac.) I was going about 55 or 60 on the freeway at the time. I heard a thunk, and then the brakes completely gave out. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a really pretty shower of sparks from my frame scraping the asphalt. It seemed like forever before the car finally lost momentum, but I was able to slide it off onto the shoulder without hitting anything. I ran back and found my right rear wheel, still attached to a foot-long piece of the axle. And then it started to snow. Really, one of the oddest experiences of my life.
2004. 1991 Volvo 940SE. A $10 relay that I didn’t have with me died near North Bend, WA on I-90. I called AAA on my cell phone and walked about 500 feet to the nearest exit and got McDonald’s before the tow truck showed up.
Thank God, my one and only breakdown was a flat tire on I-64 west of Richmond, 1970. Uh oh, now I’ve jinxed myself. I
The only breakdown I have been part of was before I could drive. In the mid 90’s my famaily and I were returning home from a weeks vacation in Michigan. On the Michigan/Indiana border the driver’s side front tire on our 87 Plymouth Voyager blew out. Fortunately we were in the right lane and able to pull over. My dad put the spare on (thank goodness it was a full size spare) and we headed home. He was none to happy however as he had just bought replacement tires 6 months prior. The guys at Goodyear gave him a new tire free of charge.
2004 or 2005. my benz 240d ran out of diesel on my way back to nyc coming off the ny thruway going uphill as we were approaching the palisades parkway. i had just passed a rest area but decided to go home because i thought i had at least two gallons left. i did but it turns out that it was two gallons of sludge. road service came quickly and put 5 gallons of diesel in. after mucho cranking it came to life. black smoke spewed out for miles and it ran rougher than a bronco. after my mechanic cleaned the fuel line and replaced the (plastic) gas tank and it was fine. lesson learned: never run a 20+ year old diesel to the bottom of the tank!
oh almost forgot, last year the alternator on my volvo crapped out on the belt parkway on the way back from jfk airport at 6:30 am. barely had enough momentum to steer the car into the weeds before it stalled. the day before that my (ex) mechanic had assured me that there was nothing wrong with my alternator and all i needed was a new battery. my wife’s cousin first view of new york was standing on a corner in crown heights in her mini-skirt while the locals whistled at her as i was trying to arrange for car service back to manhattan.
My last (and only) motorway breakdown was summer 2001. For the preceding few months I’d been pushing my faithful-but-elderly (1989) FIAT Panda to keep on chugging with a leaky coolant manifold. I knew it had a slow leak but I kept topping it up and – lets face it – living in Scotland, overheating wasn’t a pressing concern. My main issue was that the nearest useful scrapyards I knew were over the bridge in Fife and I didn’t have the time right then to go diving for a replacement.
Inevitably we hit standing traffic on the Edinburgh bypass one particularly sunny July afternoon, and I wound up pulling off onto the grass verge and sitting for a time, after the engine temp needle had climbed well into the red.
Not sure it really counts as a “breakdown” being as it was self-remedying (the poor thing eventually cooled down, gulped in some extra water I had in the boot, and got me home)… but that’s the only time before or since that I’ve been put on the side of the motorway by my car.
Unsurprisingly the following weekend I made the time to go find the replacement part.
I’ve had two breakdown-type things on a freeway as there are not too many of these outside metro areas in Australia. One was having some major trailer sway towing a car, just after passing a big truck I suspect the sudden change in cross-wind set off what felt ok but was clearly marginal balance plus perhaps soft rubber torsion suspension, and it started to sway dramatically, sliding out to one side then the tyres would bite at some angle that felt beyond 45deg and shoot off to the other side. I couldn’t get onto the correct steering inputs to get ahead of this behaviour as the swaying became more violent, and accelerating to pull straight was not enough to stabilise things by that point – I now had a bigger problem thanks to the extra speed. Ended up going off onto the central median which was thankfully smooth grass, and without the lower-friction surface I was able to bring it under control and to a stop. After letting the heart rate settle I was able to continue, firstly pull off the highway to check and adjust the car & lashings.
The other was towards the end of a week-long business trip, I had about 3 hours to travel to an airport & flight home, when a tyre blow-out pulled the car to the right and I hit a plastic marker post and again came to a halt in the median. Drove back over to the side of the road and had the fun experience of changing the tyre on the traffic side just around a bend, past an overpass at dusk. Happily turning in the car wasn’t a hassle, just a form to fill in, so I was able to make the flight.
My last story wasn’t me but a friend. On a 60 mile trip returning from a car show I saw a familiar car parked in the emergency lane, then 2 people walking up the road. I wasn’t in the right lane to pull over, so got of at the next exit and circled back to give them a lift to a petrol station and back to the car. What happened was that he’d put $50 of petrol in the car for the day, trouble was due to the price rises 5-6 years ago it didn’t get as much fuel as normal – doh!
According the the interwebz the lead photo is from I-45, Huntsville TX, 2005. Evacuees from Hurricane Rita, out of gas on the side of the interstate. Note also that traffic is facing the same direction in all lanes, SB and NB.