Recent experiences, combined with Brendan Saur’s post (here) got me to thinking.
Earlier today, my wife called me at work, sounding quite frantic. The ’93 Buick Century was suddenly running rough and, being 10 miles from the house, she was worried. After I attempted to drive it, I parked on the shoulder after it started violently coughing going up hill. The thrill of tightwad Jason having a low mileage twenty year old car as a daily driver can have consequences, I suppose.
Scurrying to the equipment rental three minutes prior to their closing, I soon had a well worn car dolly hooked to my F-150. Going back to the Buick, I had the joy of loading it up on the shoulder of a four-lane divided highway.
Two weeks prior to getting married in 1998, my then fiance and I were in my father’s ’84 F-150 pulling a 16′ utility trailer on I-70 across the Missouri River bridge near St. Charles, Missouri. At that time, this particular segment of highway had just over 250,000 vehicles per day. Upon our being in the center lane in the midspan of the bridge, the right front tire of the pickup blew out. This prompted my having to change it on the shoulder of a very busy interstate.
This leads to my question: What sort of location were you in when an automotive gremlin caused you to be at peak nervousness?
Flat tire on the Tappan zee Bridge in my 1998 Volvo, hot summer Friday evening…not fun. To those not familiar, this is a particularly looong, heavily traffic-ed bridge over the Hudson north of NYC.
FWIW, always thought of this as the Chimpanzee Bridge.
When my wife called me to tell me that our 95 Volvo 960 was overheating and smoking. I had visions of molten aluminum running out from under the car. The problem was actually a seized and overheated electric cooling fan. I bought one at a wrecking yard and life was good once again.
Bless her heart for turning it off!
Heading downhill on a country two-lane – when the brake pedal of my 68 Delmont 88 convertible goes to the floor. Emergency brake pushed all the way in hardly made a difference. Luckily coasted to a stop in the rather large parking lot of the local propane dealer.
Ted Kennedy sympathizes.
Last summer I was driving my convertible home from my parents’ cottage. My son was asleep in the back seat. Early-on the engine had sputtered a bit, like it was starved for fuel, but had been fine ever since. Two summers ago I had replaced the (mechanical) fuel pump and filter after it had left me stranded, beginning with the same symptoms.
I pulled out to pass a slower car. Just as I pulled out an oncoming car appeared on the horizon, but I had plenty of time. The car I was passing was about level with my rear fender when the engine started to sputter and lose power! I hung in there and just got back into my lane in time.
The fuel pump has an arm which is driven from a pushrod, which rides on an eccentric lobe on the camshaft. It turns out that the camshaft-end of the rod was wearing down, so the pump stroke was getting shorter and shorter, providing less fuel to the carb. This is a very uncommon problem. It turns out that replacing the fuel pump and filter had only been a temporary fix. I almost made it home before getting stuck on the side of the road around the corner from my house.
I was driving my 1988 Eagle Premier around I-475 in Toledo and the transmission went out. It was a horrible day, as the Premier (and all of it’s oddities) was my absolute favorite car other than my first car (1977 Cordoba).
On I-95, heading for the George Washington Bridge in NYC, in 90+ degree temps and insane holiday weekend traffic, the power steering pump on my ’09 Mazda 3 conked out. Not the end of the world, but definitely nerve wracking making it across the bridge and all the way to the first rest area on the Jersey Turnpike with a suddenly heavy steering wheel. We were 4 hours from home and 2 from our destination, so I wasn’t about to stop. Fortunately, the pump came back to life after cooling off in the rest area for a while and survived the rest of the trip. The worst part was that I knew it was under recall and had just never gotten around to having it replaced.
Driving back to college in 1990, at night, 4 hours at 55mph on the rural interstate in my 72 AMC. Boring Boring.
About half way there suddenly the steeing wheel starts to jump in my hands along with bangbangbangbang coming from the right front wheel.
So I stop and jack up the wheel, as I rotate it forwards it jams. I turn it backward and it turns freely, and now it turns forward freely too. Hmm.
So I let the wheel back down and continued on my way, VERY nervous trip.
Turns out the drum brake self adjuster cable had broken, and the hook end was bouncing around inside the drum. When I turned the wheel back I carried the loose part up and it fell into a crevice and stayed there.
Free college cars were always an adventure…
Having put well over 100,000 miles on my ’71 Vega, it will be hard to choose exactly which story to tell… One that comes to mind was when the accelerator cable bracket worked loose on the way to Ga. Tech one morning in rush-hour Atlanta traffic. I felt something give and realized I had very little throttle control left – just enough to drop it into second gear and cross three packed lanes of traffic to the next exit, where I then lost all ability to give it any gas. The bracket fell off in my hand when I started poking around under the hood. Thankfully, the bolt was still in the bracket, so I got my tools out and reattached it. Never had it do that again. Never wanted to, either!
Speaking of changing flats on busy highways, my Uncle was killed doing just that, when a driver high on drugs swerved across three lanes of traffic trying to catch an exit at the last second and lost control, slamming into my Uncle’s car.
That reminds me of the time I took my hardtop out for a drive and the gas pedal matted itself! My car wound-up roaring down our quiet street in the ‘burbs until I shut off the key, at which point it backfired and complained bitterly as I came to a stop. WTF?!!
I popped the hood and discovered that the throttle cable had slipped in the bracket, holding the throttle on. Weird. I undid the bolt, readjusted the cable in the bracket, tightened it back up, went to drive off, and it did it again!
Then I realized that the drivers-side motor mount must be broken, allowing the engine to lift up and yank on the throttle cable sleeve. I confirmed this, and drove home backwards so the engine wouldn’t lift up again.
My ’65 ran away like that once. Took a few minutes to figure out that the secondaries in the carb had stuck open.
My 93 Crown Victoria once lost almost all of its gas pedal travel. I assumed a linkage problem as on your Vega. Nope, actually quite a lot easier to diagnose. It was the gazillion black walnuts packed all around the engine by an industrious but misguided squirrel.
What was wrong with the Buick? Seeing as I have one with 300k I could make quick work. I would almost guess an ignition module.
I was thinking coil or ignition wire.
The later Delco ICMs are pretty stout in my experience.
Still diagnosing it, but I’m thinking module or coil, also.
First, I thought the MAF sensor was dirty so I cleaned it and that helped quite a bit. After I did that, it was sucking air from a vacuum line on the front of the engine, and adjacent to the thermostat, that was dry rotted. So I fixed that. I then replaced the fuel filter (one should do that ever two decades or so) that was full of nasty that looked like black pond water. Yet it is still missing.
At this point, I agree with your ajla’s assessment. You know what I’ll be doing tonight and this weekend.
Incidentally, it just rolled over 59,000 miles.
If there is no check engine light, I would:
1- Check the fuel pressure. My Mopar Mentor Gerry screamed this every day and he was right like 90% of the time.
2- Replace the coil pack and all wires. Not that expensive and a maintenance thing anyway.
The check engine light came on briefly then went back out.
Since I’m hearing coil packs, I shall replace them. The plug wires were replaced about four or five months ago.
I’m supposing low fuel pressure would indicate worn fuel pump? I did catch the outflow from the filter and there were no metal shavings, just nasty dark colored fuel.
Put a paper clip in it and see what the light says. Best to gather evidence before spending money. Since the coil packs are identical, you can switch them around to see if you can isolate a miss. Also make sure no plugs suffered a failure.
I had to replace the ICM on my 93 Century V6 in 2011 when I had a hard time getting it started.
There is a Schrader valve on the fuel rail you can test for pressure even if you don’t have a gauge if you depress the valve with ignition on and see how strong the stream is. 35lbs like a car tire will come out strong anything less than strong is suspect.
The 3300 is batch fired so no cam sensor to meddle with timing.
Inside the gas tank there may be either a short hose or “pulsator” that connects the electric fuel pump to the sending unit. Thanks to the wonders of ethanol I suppose, these things dissolve:
I’ve had probably six or seven different GM cars that did this. The latest one is a 1990 Firebird. I can hear the pump humming away in the tank…but I can also hear a slight trickle/sprinkle…the pump is still able to pump some fuel, but thanks to the in-tank leak…it cannot pressurize the fuel enough to make the engine run.
The car starts and runs. It idles, not completely smooth, but then really starts to miss when in gear and accelerating. I’ve not had it above 25 mph since hauling it back to the house.
“The check engine light came on briefly then went back out.
The car starts and runs. It idles, not completely smooth, but then really starts to miss when in gear and accelerating.”
Yea, this sounds EXACTLY like what I encountered when the 3-6 coil went bad on my 3300.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed because that’s a lot easier than screwing with the fuel pump or injectors.
With the symptoms you’re describing, I would suspect a worn out fuel pump.
I had been lucky that my previous car breakdowns had happened under auspicious circumstances. Not so much this time. We visited Chicago late in December 2008. We left the hotel that we were staying at about 9AM on a Monday morning. There was snow on the ground from a weekend storm and the temperature was about 10 degrees F. And of course there was the usual Chicago wind. The valets at the hotel fetched our car (2003 Malibu with 3.1 V6) from wherever they had stuffed it and left it running with the heater on when it was given back to us. I headed to the interstate and got on it heading towards home. Funny thing though was that the car was quite cold with no heat yet. I first thought there was no heat because it was so cold, but then the check engine light came on. There was minimal clear shoulder because of the snow, and I was afraid that we would get rear ended or die of hypothermia waiting for help if I stopped on the side of the interstate. I figured our lives were worth more than the crummy Malibu with 120K miles and pushed on. The engine started making dying noises at this point but I mercilessly kept giving it more gas against the dying engine to keep going. I got off at the first exit that looked safe and there was a Cadillac/GMC dealer there. I drove it into the heated service area and shut it off. That was the last time that engine turned over. They diagnosed that the water pump had crapped out. There was also the additional damage from driving it without circulating coolant. I think that I got as far as I did because of the cold air. I ended up buying a used car from them and stopped at a motel later that day. We woke up to an ice storm which had shut down the roads and waited till everything was clear. I didn’t want to destroy two cars in two days.
P.S. I would have been much better off if I had done a one way rental car, even with the extra fees it incurs, or hired a driver and car. We had other vehicles at home. And of course the dealer knew they had me over a barrel. I did ultimately get more than I paid for on the GMAC extended warranty I bought. That’s another story.
P.P.S. Previously this same Malibu’s electric fuel pump suddenly died on another interstate on Christmas eve 250 miles into a 500 mile drive. I was lucky to get onto the shoulder before the car stopped rolling. We were also lucky to get towed to a shop as they were closing, and to get to Enterprise before they closed for Christmas.
In 2001, my oil light came on in my 1985 Saab 900. I was mid-span on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge between St Petersburg and Bradenton, Florida. It is very illegal to stop for any reason what-so-ever on that bridges due to the hight of the bridge and amount of suicide attempts. Luckily it turned out to be just the sensor and didn’t ruin my engine to keep going.
97 Saturn SL2… I heard a very faint metallic “ping” noise and thought oh, that’s strange. When I came to a stop and was missing 1st and 2nd gear I realized it was a retainer clip for the shift linkage cable. Trying to start out in 3rd gear was quite an experience. For less than 2 bucks at the Saturn dealer I had it working again thankfully. Considering all the junk I’ve owned and driven, I’d call that a minor incident.
So many times….but probably my scariest moment was when I was pulling (with Jeep Cherokee) a very long double-axle rental trailer full of heavy debris, concrete chunks, etc. and was towing it out to the dump in the San Fernando Valley on the 101, one of the busiest freeways in LA. I’m guessing it weighed some 4000-5000 lbs. It probably weighed 50% more than the Jeep.
As I managed to merge and got up to speed, the back of the trailer started fishtailing, violently. In a bizarre development, the trailer’s motions started whipping the little Jeep, making it point in directions I wasn’t intending it to go. Next thing I know, this whole rig is totally out of control, the Jeep pointing to the shoulder one instant, and then to the center divider the next. My steering inputs were utterly irrelevant; we were on the end of a “crack the whip”. I thought for sure this was going to result in utter calamity, with all of us either turning over, or getting nailed by traffic behind us.
We were now using up all three lanes of the freeway, but the drivers behind me were on the ball, and slowed down to watch our ballet/break dancing across all three lanes. I was sweating bullets.
This started on the far right lane; when enough speed had been scrubbed off and the gyrations stopped, I found myself in the far left lane. I squeezed into the tiny sliver of shoulder between the lane and the concrete divider, stopped, and considered our plight. How was I going to get back into traffic, at a speed high enough to merge into the rolling conveyor belt of cars, and avoid triggering the oscillations again, which seemed to have set in at about 55 mph?
I had no choice but to get my speed up to 40-45 or so, and then just pull into the fast lane, and then keep pulling to the right. I have to say, most LA drivers are quite attentive (or were back then), and I managed to get across all three lanes and out on the wide shoulder without exceeding 45.
As I finally pulled off on the shoulder, my Mexican helper, who had loaded much of the heavy concrete chunks into the back end of the trailer, jumped out and got down on his knees, crossed himself and thanked various deities. I wish I had had a camera.
We re-loaded the heavy stuff to the front, and got back on. The trailer tracked like a champ at 65 mph, and we headed to the dump, uneventfully. And I’ve never let someone else load up a trailer without me checking the load distribution carefully first.
I had an experience like that retrieving a ’68 F-250 I bought for parts. I borrowed our church van (15 passenger full size Dodge) and a two-axle trailer. We had the truck as far forward as we could get it on the trailer, but as it was sans engine, the CG ended up being too near the Center of Rotation, leading to similar oscillations above 40-45. There was some serious cushion munching going on right after we pulled on the highway until I figured out the VNE.
Father-in-law had similar about 5 or 6 years ago. Scrap metal was high and he was flush with it. He thought he had about 1100 lbs or so.
We spent nearly two days loading his trailer (the one I was pulling as described above) as well as his ’99 Dodge 1/2 ton pickup hooked to the trailer . He heads out to the scrap yard and it starts swaying at around 35 mph on a curvy two-lane road. But he did get a check for 13,000 lbs of scrap on a single trip.
Same experience, but at much lower speeds towing a 5,000 pound 63 Cadillac I got for parts with a 3,800 pound 74 Cutlass Supreme. Rented a tow bar that attached to a hitch on the Cutlass. Had to drive it about 30 miles to its final resting place, but never had the guts to get it over about 35. That Cadillac would periodically get a mind of its own and would toss the butt of the Cutlass fairly effortlessly. I was glad when I was done with that trip.
Towing…meh.
My supreme moment of idiocy was, when I decided to flat-tow my Geo Metro with my Jeep Wrangler. I had a shop weld on a tow-bar bridle; and the Wrangler already had a receiver hitch. Why, I don’t know…more on that later.
There’s a lot to be said about the weight of the towing vehicle versus the towed object. But of equal consideration is the WHEELBASE of the rig. I had figured, with about 3300 pounds on the Wrangler and 1700 on the Metro, I’d be okay.
And I was…until the first sweeper at legal speeds.
You see…when you’re towing something, the object behind you exerts some forces as well. And this is doubly true when you’re flat-towing a car. Going into a turn, the tow car pulls the tongue of the towed car the OPPOSITE way…since the pivot center is the centerline of the rear axle.
Then, having altered the kinetics of the towed car…the towing vehicle starts pulling it the OPPOSITE way. So the towed vehicle shoves on the rear of the towing rig. In the opposite direction; basically encouraging some oversteer.
On a “normal” American car or light truck, with a 115-inch wheelbase, or thereabouts…you scarcely notice it, unless you’re running from the cops. But on a 93-inch wheelbase Wrangler…the slight deflection of the rear tires translate to IMMEDIATE, ALMOST-UNCONTROLLABLE OVERSTEER.
First time it happened on that evolution…towing from Indianapolis to Cleveland…I almost lost it. That was at 35 miles per hour; and it was so sudden I thought I had a flat tire. Nope…tires were okay.
I pumped them up to 40 lbs…helped a little but not much. I had to make that trip on U.S. Route 30…I was afraid to take the rig up to Interstate speeds. There wasn’t any one moment I thought I was gonna pile up…after the first turn…but I was against a clock; and there was no re-doing it; and nothing to do but drive all night in a cold sweat.
NEVER…AGAIN. Later I towed it with my Dodge Van…full-size but short wheelbase. Didn’t even feel it back there.
I wonder if this was part of the issue when I towed the 129 inch wb Cadillac with the 112 inch wb Cutlass. Unlike with a trailer, you have to fight the front steering wheels on the towed car. Add the extended wheelbase on the back car and it may make the effect worse. Get the 5,000 pound Cadillac starting to steer left when the lead car is straightening out feels like Godzilla smacking your right rear fender to the side. Not fun. I have no doubt that if I had tried to get up to much speed, there would have been smoldering wreckage of two cars on the side of the road.
First rule in towing trailers Paul You tow it if it tries to overtake you are doing it wrong, I do this towing trailers for a living and the tow vehicle must out weigh the trailer or in the case of the Scania I drive be capable of controling it
I’ll give you a trailer event This morning having run north Friday night in the rain and made it up hwy5 with its 1in8 grades I swapped into a similar but by no means identical Scania and drove back in sub zero temperatures on ice up the same mountains and down again and being already sideways in the truck on one black ice corner coming home the trailer gave a push when it hit a bump. The people who load the swap I collect drive on motorways and think they need more traction to go uphills, I need to be able to steer on slippery corners and sudden staight line traction if you cant steer it is scary stuff in a car on a wet road in a 22 metre long truck and trailer set keeps you very busy. I gave up and let a regular guy past his wheel tracks were easy to follow and he knows his truck I see my swap set once every 2 weeks.
Id love to see Hugh Alex and Lisa try being a swap driver on my run in mid winter only Hugh can change gears but we have autoshift trucks for Lisa and Alex and european trucks have clever traction programmes if they cant drive an American truck uphill they can have something that can do their trips on cruise cobtrol Adigan pass is not steep its not even a climb its driveable using the controls on the steering wheel and steering of what I swap in. Swedish trucks are awesome on ice, both brands as is the Italian Iveco Ive driven them empty and fully laden those guys should try better gear in a fun environment a girl took over my Navistar and kept the wheels on the ground. Trucks here are fitted with incident cameras that in the event of an incident the last 15 minutes both in the cab and in front are saved on impact.
My car’s alternator died and the battery went flat right on the end of the I-83 ramp to PA 581. My stepfather seemed convinced that we could get the car to Pep Boys, only a few miles away. Unfortunately, this was when they were doing construction on 581 so the road was a one-lane cattle chute with absolutely no place to pull over.
We charged the battery off his car, and he told me to drive without lights, the fan, the radio, or any accessories on. At 9:30. In the dark. Between two concrete walls. At 35 miles per hour max so we could make it. Suffice it to say I was utterly petrified. I’m poking along, past the point of no return, hoping that the battery has enough to make it.
A similar story for me in my ’66 Tempest 4-door. I had swapped a mildly hopped up SBC / THM350 for the dead OHC six and two-speed auto. While driving from Atlanta to Inman, SC to visit friends, the alternator pooped out around 9pm. I managed to find a garage still open, but all they could do was throw a fast charge on the battery for 20 minutes.
I headed off in the dark, and as soon as my route left the highway, I traveled most of the rest of the way in blackout conditions. Thankfully the country back roads were lightly travelled, the moon was near full and the battery held until I arrived.
It was a surreal trip, come to think of it.
Scariest? 100 MPH on a gravel road in a ’65 Pontiac Custom Sport, with the RCMP about a half mile behind us. We lost them in the dust.
+1!
In the late ’70s, I had borrowed my roommates VW Bus and went up to ski at Yosemite with some other friends. As we were just getting into the toehills on SR 120, we smelled a quick blast of fried electrical insulation. Knowing my roomie’s casual attitude towards maintenance, and having no tools, I elected to press on. A few seconds later, we topped a rise and as I let up on the throttle, discovered that the throttle was wide open and stuck.
OK, I’ve had this before on my old MG (frozen throttle cable, that time), so I turned off the ignition and prepared to coast to the shoulder. What I didn’t know, was that VW had the headlights on the ignition switch. (I later learned that the brights would have overridden the switch. News to me…) Getting the beast stopped safely in the middle of nowhere on a dark night was a brief moment of sheer terror. Turns out the heater blower motor fuse wasn’t in its clip, and as it rubbed, it shorted out and dropped into the linkage, thus the fun and games.
When the fuse holder was back in place, I asked (still quite rattled) “who’s going to drive this home?” My friends felt it was OK to press on, so we did, without much heat or any defrost. I sat in back with my girlfriend, so once the excess adrenaline left my system, the trip wasn’t half bad…
Driving through a tunnel on the Pensylvania Turnpike, young and stupid and stubborn and convinced I still had some fuel left in the tank of the Vega,cause it “should” go 225 miles on a tank, the tunnel got longer and longer and finally, just as we came out into the light the engine died. We rolled off the turnpike, right into the rest area, up to the gas pump and filled up. Never again.
I’ve had a couple close calls with fuel like that, too. Once in the Vega and once in my ’64 Beetle. Literally had enough momentum in both cases to just roll up to the pumps.
That was a LONG time ago, since the only place that was possible was the Path Valley rest area right outside of the Tuscarora Mountain tunnel eastbound. The Path Valley rest area has been closed for at least 35 years, since I’m 37 and I never remember it being open on my biannual trips to Pittsburgh. They tore the building down nearly two decades ago.
Flat tire on the West Side Highway, NYC blocking traffic
The annual trip back from the in-laws in Bangor, ME, summer of 2004. Only this time my wife and sister in law flew back and I drove the 1990 Jeep Grand Wagoneer that was a gift from her parents to me.
The trip went fine heading into Bucks County, PA to spend the night at my sister’s. About twenty miles from her place I noticed the battery charge meter pegging bottom. Sure enough, the alternator had died. At this point, I decided the further south from DC I could get, the better chance I had of not getting raped by a repair shop, so I figured I’d bull it out and go for as long as the battery could power the car. Of course my total non-motorhead brother in law (he owned an Austin Marina at one point, fer chrissakes!) didn’t own a battery charger. So much for topping up overnight.
The trip went fine until I got south of the beltway. Of course, no lights, no A/C, no radio – gotta preserve what power the battery had.
And then it started to rain.
The next eighty miles were a typical southern thunderstorm. Wall of water, sheer downpour. I’m allowing myself one swipe of the windshield wipers every mile, and watching the instruments start to die. The Jeep continues on. Then I realize I’m going to make Ashland, VA after all! Two miles south of US 1 and VA 54 is the Jeep dealer where I bought my Cherokees. Now the Jeep is starting to run bad from lack of power, but it keeps going. I lose the digital clock as I cross VA54. And keep pushing. All instruments other than the speedometer are dead.
I manage to pull into the lot of the Jeep dealership and get it to within 100 meters of the service department door when it finally dies. The service writer brings out a jump box, hooks it up to the battery, and I’m able to restart the Jeep and drive it up to the service desk.
That’s one of three times in my life that a vehicle has dragged me home, and the only one that was a car. The other two were motorcycles: My ’69 Bonneville about fifteen years ago, and my ’88 Harley last month. This is the kind of service that makes a vehicle a permanent keeper in my garage.
Unfortunately for the Jeep, 14 years residency in Bangor, ME insured that the tinworm was already well establish in its bodywork. Four years after getting it, the frame was showing enough damage that keeping it wasn’t an option anymore.
My ’83 Bonneville had the ignition module start go out on it once it would get hot, I was heading down the road and it would begin to run poorly. Luckily I was able to turn around and get home without any more issues. Then there was the time before I rejuvenated the car and the front and rear brake lines failed at the same time! I couldn’t believe it. I was on a downhill grade and only doing 30-35mph but wow what a wakeup call that was. Thank god the parking brake worked.
The absolute worst times were leaving my overnight job at 6am in the dead of winter with it. The cat was partially clogged I later figured out and you would have to be on point starting it, one tap of the pedal and holding the key in until the RPM’s were up. If it flooded forget about it, and if it didn’t build RPM or you did anything wrong with the sequence, you were screwed. The anxiety of leaving work when it was anywhere below 20 degrees sucked! It ran fine otherwise, I should’ve just had it fixed. I was far more forgiving of that car due to it’s age than I would be anything newer putting me through that.
While studying for my Bar exam, I was attending a bar review class evenings in downtown Indianapolis. I started for home after class, and very soon, the temp gauge on my 77 New Yorker started to climb. I had to cross through some dicey neighborhoods on my way home. Of course, no place open to replace the hose.
I made one stop at a hotel bar about half way home and got a couple of pitchers of water to pour in. That got me another mile and a half, in an even worse neighborhood. I decided to just let it sit for a few minutes, then started it again and gunned it for home. It was quite hot when I got there with the little red LED in the gauge glowing. I got a new hose on it the next day and it was fine (well, fine for that car) thereafter.
Oh, so many times…
The one that I thought would get me killed, though, was when I had a front tire go out on a busy section of the Eastex Freeway in Houston. Couldn’t tell you today what part of town, but it was an elevated roadway; and the shoulder had been made into a traffic lane; in fact all lanes were condensed. It was four-lanes each direction, IIRC.
This was morning rush-hour traffic, and I was trying to make a job interview. The car was Blazing Saddles, my 1973 Pinto Squire. Front tires were a little worn when I bought it; but I was young and the inspection sticker still had six months on it…so, it being the dry season, I kept driving it.
Traffic was stop-and-go about 25 miles an hour. And I get that hard feeling in the steering wheel…and then the rough ride…I’m in the FAST LANE. And traffic is starting to open up. There is NO way I can stop where I’m at. And there was NO way I could get it up to the speed they were starting to pass me on the right.
I went like this for half a mile, cheeks clenching. Getting rear-ended in a Pinto was no joke; and in the 1982 boomtown climate, Houston traffic was lethal.
Finally…a truck saw my predicament and got just behind me on the right; held traffic back so I could swerve in front. And the driver kept on doing that, walking me over to the right lane. Good fortune had an off-ramp coming up, and I got off the highway just as the remains of the tire came off the rim.
Driving a 90 something SAAB down the 610 east loop in Houston. On the last 2-3 miles of my 50 mile commute. At the start of the ship channel bridge I noted the temp gauge starting to climb and by the top of the bridge (a fairly long bridge) it was smoking. It sounded like I was running on 2 cylinders by the time It hit the top at about 10mph. I shut it off and coasted to work. Thats a pretty fast demise for a car that I didn’t like much. There was no place to get off from the time I noticed it to the top.
By the end of the following day I was driving a 2k Saturn SL which never gave me a lick of trouble. Should have done that instead of the Saab to start with.
the dreaded igniter failure on an ’88 Acura Integra. It began cutting out on the George Washington Bridge heading back into NYC and cut out for good on the ramp leading down to the Major Deegan Expressway. Fortunately we coasted long enough to where there was a shoulder, but this was 1992 in the South Bronx – so we weren’t about to start walking – and no cell phones. Miraculously, the car started 30 minutes later and we got home.
About a month ago on a very busy two lane country highway, with heavy mining machinery being transported along it. Rear tyre on the HiLux blew to bits after hitting something on the road. Never found what I hit but it left the wheel like this and took me an hour to remove the remains from the axel!
2007, I was on my way from Birmingham, AL to Charlotte, NC in my ’67 VW Bus. I missed my turn in Atlanta (only the 2nd time I’d driven through there) so got off on an exit to turn around. Without intending to, I was in a rather rough looking part of town. I went to turn around in a boarded up bank’s parking lot and the engine died.
I was sweating, but not because it was hot. Here I was, the lone white boy in a rough part of city with a broken car.
I ended up just being burned out points but the time I was diagnosing and fixing that simple problem was a little scary.
1998, in NZ’s biggest city Auckland. I’d travelled there with two friends for the motor show, and we were in work’s ’94 Toyota Hiace van. Halfway up a steep hill with traffic lights, the hydraulic clutch hose burst… It burst where the rubber part of the hose joined to the aluminium tube part, and the aluminium split when the hose went, so replacing the rubber wasn’t an option. So I was 150km from home with a non functioning clutch. Thankfully I knew that the clutch wasn’t necessary if the engine revs were right, but getting moving up hill when the lights turned green was heart-in-mouth. Started it in gear and floored it immediately, made it up the hill. Conveniently there was a Toyota dealer there, so we called in and asked their advice which was: “The gearboxes in those are bulletproof, do you know how to match the revs…you do…good, it won’t break, and just start it in gear at lights, it’ll be fine.” It was fine but still a nervous drive home though whenever intersections and hills coincided…!
You are very lucky not the clutchless driving I do that with a 18 speed truck transmission but Ive replaced the gearbox in Hiace van because someone tried to do that and wasnt as good as you Toyota commercials are great, tough, reliable, and almost bulletproof the syncro hubs will not cope in any syncromesh gearbox for long not using the clutch roadrangers will cope if you actually can shift and not miss gears though Eaton Fuller do not recommend it. A Spicer range shift gearbox is operated without the clutch by design. A Volvo truck trans you use the clutch because it is syncromesh like the Toyota. Toyota’s heavy division Hino provide an air operated chutch brake to enable you to put in gear it stops the trans turning they use Eaton Fuller transmissions NOT Toyota your mechanic may have been confused.
This was around Christmas time 2003.
My family is headed down to Florida to visit my folks in West Palm Beach. Our trusty steed is a 1994 Toyota Camry with a bit over 225k miles at that time.
Since day one I had done all the maintenance on this vehicle with the exception of one time when it had 90k and had trouble starting up. It had been an easy to maintain and mechanically flawless vehicle throughout that whole period. 27 miles per gallon. Cheap parts. A comfortable and underpowered ride. Not a lot more you can ask for a midsized ride from 1994.
Anyhow, I am headed down south Georgia near Valdosta with an 11 month old, a 3 year old and the wife, when all of a sudden the coolant temp and revs spike all at once.
“Vwwwweeeee!!!!!”
I don’t hear any knocking or other noises that are reminiscent of what happens when an engine is deprived of coolant. But I do see the last rest stop available for the next 120 miles in the corner and I manage to coast the vehicle into a parking space.
I open up the hood and there is smoke… and the car decides that this is the right time to urinate itself of all the remaining excess coolant. The timing belt is sheared off thanks to a collapsed tensioner pulley and I obviously have to replace the water pump, coolant, and God knows what else.
My life at that point had been non-stop business from 7 AM to 11 PM every day. I was liquidating vehicles for Capital One Auto Finance, buying cars at a nearby auction before leaving for my cross country air travel, finishing up my online MBA at Duke Univerisity, working auctions during the weekend, and spending as much quality time as possible with the wife and kids.
I was stretched, so instead of replacing the timing belt myself at the usual 60k interval, I had a friend of mine do it.
If I had done it, maybe I would have realized the tensioner pulley needed to be replaced at this point. The outcome was still my fault. I never gave my friend the part and the vehicle had the good grace of breaking down at a place that didn’t require errant vehicles passing my family by at 80+ miles per hour.
I had no tools. So the Camry got fixed by the same folks that towed it from the rest stop. The total financial cost of the experience was $350 parts and labor. These guys pretty much looked like the usual tow operators I deal with in my business. Part stuck in the 70’s. Part maturing Hell’s Angel. I was working the largest motorcycle auction in the country at the time as well and we had a nice conversation about Harley Davidson bikes over the decades. They both owned late 1940’s knuckleheads if I remember correctly.
Anyhow, I went back on the road and had a thankfully non-eventful rest of my trip. !0 years later that Camry is still on the road with a 200,000 mile rollback on top if the Carfax history is to be believed.
One of the very few noninterference engines around now the Camry 4 banger I suspect this engine was designed that way specifically for the maintenance free US market they made it repairable for you guys without tools, (hey they made them handle for our market you can look up the part numbers and cry) the good ideas became mainstream we were the test country for the world Camry, Small differences are in the one you drive Steve the V6 was redesigned and the final drive ratio was changed, The original will smoke the tyres at 100mph if you stand on the gas the handling is a long way behind what the engine can do so they slowed it down and it used less fuel, it was a nice car.
My sister bought both and the world version she kept 10 years and she and my BIL drove it fairly hard it developed a leak in a rack boot only thats all that went wrong it was nice , but it didnt go or stop and steer like the development model she had first, the handling package didnt make the otions list we got rally grade shock absorbers only, but we all got that unbreakable 2.2 4 banger
Driving north on the Major Deegan Expressway just past the NYC line in a Ford Econoline loaded with 30 pieces of 5/8″ sheetrock, metal studs, etc. for delivery next morning. There was slush and snow on sides of road. Had a flat in rear of van-had to pull over onto the end of an entrance ramp. The scissors jack could not handle the weight of van plus the weight of load. Had to unload half the sheet rock while getting splashed by each car that went by in the right lane by COLD, salty, slush and water. Managed to finally jack up and install spare-then reload sheet rock I had stacked against concrete barrier. Wet-worn out-yet thankful to be alive. Amazing I was not killed.
I was driving from Seattle to San Diego in a new-ish Ranger towing a Uhaul trailer. I stopped in Portland overnight and got caught in a rare severe snow storm (airport closed, news specials, etc). When I left in the AM, there was (unnoticed) about 6 inches of heavy wet snow on top of the uhaul making it very unstable.
Driving down I-5 was very scary – it was snowing and there was snow on the ground and the trailer seemed to have a mind of its own.
Somehow I made it far enough south to get out of the snow. Later that day the truck gradually lost power and eventually died – it had a bad O2 sensor requiring a tow to the nearest Ford dealership. Quite a day!
Starter motor in my ’66 Galaxie busted out its Bendix, causing the entire ignition system to erupt in smoke…luckily it was just the motor and wires that needed replacing, but I thought for sure it was gonna go up in a blaze of glory.
Broken down inside the Sumner Tunnel at 5:00 PM Friday afternoon. This was back when it was a one lane two way tunnel. The death threats I’m sure were very real.
Coming back to the city in early evening from a weekend trip to New England in the ’77 Electra last year. The fan/alternator belt began to squeal. I pulled off the Merritt, and tightened the washer/bolt. Thinking everything was fine, I continued on my way. In the midst of heavy, bumper to bumper pre-Yankee game traffic on the Deegan, I realized my headlights were dimming and the “Fasten Seatbelt” idiot light came on even though my seatbelt WAS fastened. The belt was clearly coming loose again and, since there was no shoulder on the Thruway and I didn’t care for the idea of breaking down in the Bronx, I decided to try to make it back to Manhattan. Got across the Third Avenue Bridge, down 2nd Avenue, and then crossed to go down York after my lights really started to fade out and all power accessories stopped working. Figured I’d be safest on the quietest of the downtown Avenues. The engine kept right on running like a champ until I pulled into the parking garage across the street from my building and turned off the engine.
It wouldn’t start again. Looked under the hood, the belt had come almost completely loose and was like a wet noodle. But the problem wasn’t the belt; the washer and nut had corroded and could no longer hold the tension on the bracket. I tried to tighten them again and this time they immediately slid back down. After paying $7 to the ripoff garage for blocking the entrance beyond the “5 minute grace period”, a friend and I pushed the car down the street to an open parking space. Next day I went to the hardware store and picked up a new, bigger washer and bolt. Problem fixed. Was impressed that the engine (Buick 350 V8) kept on running the whole time and showed no signs of overheating.
Second place goes to an earlier drive in my ’87 Cadillac Brougham on a narrow Connecticut country road in the snow. Took a steep corner a bit too fast (by which I mean, at 15 mph) and as I attempted to slow down, the Cadillac gracefully slid nose first into a tree. The tree and the car were fine, but I had to wait about 20 annoying minutes just hanging out there until a middle aged lady came along in her Toyota to have her sit behind the wheel of the Cadillac (a comical sight since she was all of 5’2) and reverse while I pushed the car back onto the road.