Your most shite experience

[Roverageous]

What’s your most shitiest story?

 

In 2008 my brother, grandmother and I were supposed to be driving to Scotland to meet my parents there for a weeks holiday (they were already up there for some conference or other). With two days to go before we were travelling the clutch on the aging Vauxhall Agila that I was supposed to be driving gave up. After some frantic phone calls it looked like there was no hope to get the car fixed in time.

 

Cue a sight unseen eBay purchase of the first, and cheapest thing I could find. A 1998 Hyundai Accent 1.3 mpi in green for £100. It was a properly basic car with no electrics, but went surprisingly well & was reasonably nice inside. The rear arches were mostly held together with paint, it didn’t like cold starts in damp weather (wd40 on the HT leads usually cured it), the drivers window was taped up (to stop it falling down) and there was so little oil when I picked it up that it sounded awful & none registering on the dipstick.

 

Less than 24 hours after buying the car we were packed and setting off for Inverness from Hull. The thing I really remember about it was how well it went considering it was a small engine and loaded up with luggage. The journey up was uneventful, in fact it helped to jump start another car that was stuck in Gretna Green when we stopped for lunch.

 

We did 1200 miles in the car during the holiday and notwithstanding the aforementioned cold starting issues, it didnt miss a beat at all. Initially I was going to shove it straight on eBay when we got back, but I think I kept it for the best part of a year before it failed it’s mot on the rear shock absorbers. Still got my money back on eBay though!

 

Unfortunately I haven’t got any pictures of the Hyundai, so have one of a Rover that I bought for £300 on eBay and then drove 3000 miles around France in...

 

[Guest Hooli]

I once purchased an old Saab with a fucked* gearbox for £180 & took it around Scotland.

 

 

15k miles later I've not fixed the gearbox as it keeps improving slowly....

 

I have replaced the odd alloy though, which also cured the slow puncture.

[Guest Hooli]

Thinking about it, it's been back to Scotland again since over that weekend of OMGSNOWCHAOSDONTTRAVEL! no issues then either.

 

Just recalled another fault though, a pin hole appeared in a heater hose so it started to use water. Cost a whole £25 to replace them.

[chodweaver]

Undoubtedly it was my first car. A 1971 Maxi (not the diesel though) that a mate's parents had been so desperate to sell, they'd kept it locked away in their garage, not advertised it, nor told anyone it was available. Except their son, my mate.

 

They were terribly apologetic that it had been touched up with a rattle can of completely the wrong green (so it looked like an inverse camo paint job, if you get my meaning) and had an oil leak (which, with a few years of experience of shite with PROPER oil leaks I now fully realise was utterly trivial) and they wanted to give it to me for free. I insisted on buying it from them for £100 (again, I don't know why - though I had been on the dole for a couple of years, living cheaply at home with my parents and saving the lot so I must have felt right flush).

 

The oil leak was nothing more than the worn oil seal on something that even 19 year old me realised would be cheap to acquire and easy to fit and indeed it was. It was duly driven around a lot.

 

I took it to uni. Me and a mate took it out at midnight in the first proper snowy winter we got in Coventry, specifically so that we could get it sideways in the Asda car park at Walsgrave.

 

It went to Glastonbury festival, with a full complement of 5 hippies, a MASSIVE teepee made entirely out of stolen and otherwise misappropriated materials on a roof rack (that was, remarkably, legally acquired in Coventry's marvellous 'rubbish amnesty' scheme) and a stove made out of a corn oil can from a chippy. We even took a supply of firewood for the stove. All this fitted in this brilliant car.

 

I lost it (this WAS Glastonbury in 1986). I found it again. I drove it to Skinner's Bottom festival in Cornwall (an event NOT on the same scale as Glastonbury), in the fog, with a really irritating misfire above 65 that turned out (when I finally decided that it was not going to go away and I needed to do something about it) to be a loose spark plug cap. I flattened the battery providing illumination while we all tripped our tits off there.

 

I crashed it into a Datsun in traffic, turning a headlight into a puddle light, (I was so ahead of the times). The Datsun was, of course, undamaged. Not deterred, I drove it to Edale the next morning, to watch the dawn, then realised that between me and two mates, we had 72 pence with which to put petrol in it at Leicester Forest East services and limp back home to Coventry, which it managed.

 

I fixed a pair of cheapy spotlights to the bumper to make up for its ill-adjusted illumination. I got pulled by a Special Constable on account of said damaged headlight, and was given two weeks to sort the headlight. I embarked on what I now realise was weapons-grade bodging as the wing around the headlight didn't exist anymore - the impact had turned what had no strength anyway into a pile of dust so I had to make a new support for the headlight that fitted inside the wing. It got the green light from the MOT tester and I was off the hook. I drove it around a bunch more.

 

Then, the world of work descended upon me, bringing with it an inexhaustible supply of company Vauxhalls to thrash and crash. The Maxi returned to my parents' garage and sat waiting for its next grateful owner. I paid a mate to throw some paint onto its bodged wing and headlight repair and sell it, splitting the money with him. He found a woman in Bristol who, being registered disabled in some way or another, believed as a result that insurance and road tax did not apply to her but that this should not stop her buying HHU104N. I believe she was very happy with it, but I never saw it again. This makes me sad.

 

ETA If you catch me being sentimental, nay, even emotional, about Maxis, this is the reason

[alcyonecorporation]

I spent the evenings of September 2017 driving back and forth between two units in Stockport and Peterborough, emptying the former out after work each day.
I'd finish in PE1 at 5.30, drive to SK8 in the evening, then spend the small hours asleep.

I did it all in a dented £320 1985 Peugeot 305 Automatic estate, kipping each night on the Woodhead Pass fully loaded. I'd pull into a truck stop around 11.30-midnight, set my phone alarm for 5 am, get a coffee from the local McDonalds every morning, use my shoe as a cup holder, and drive in my bare feet. I got back to work in Peebo for around 8.45 each day.

This lasted for two weeks on weekdays and was a weird way of getting acquainted with BBC R4 LW's running order.

Later when I put the car in for a preliminary MoT, it was found to have 6 per cent brake effort on one rear drum, and 0 per cent on the other. The front brake flexis were utterly destroyed.

That car will go back on the road this year. It was magnificent.

[Slartibartfast]

My second, third or first car, depending on how you count. A 1998 Renault Laguna 1.8. This is not nearly as shite as the other stories.

 

I bought it in 2011 from my landlord while learning to drive, who had accepted it as payment for rent arrears from another of his tenants. I paid £750, in instalments. This purchase turned out to be somewhat optimistic as I would fail my test several times before eventually passing in 2012, meanwhile the Laguna was languishing on someone else's driveway with a completely flat tyre. When I did eventually pass, the only insurance quote I could get on the car was coming in at over £4000. So it was destined to languish some more, and instead I bought a 1.8 diesel Focus mk1, which for some reason I could insure for about £3000 less.

 

I promptly wrote off the Focus in the driving rain skidding off the right hand carriageway of an A road and impacting the median, while trying to avoid an accident ahead.

 

At this point, I transferred my insurance policy to the Laguna for only a nominal fee. Work that one out because I never could.

 

The car was tediously reliable, decked out in a wonderfully tasteful* cloth velour and looked pretty decent really. For some reason it gave me a very unpleasant pain all up my left leg and into my left buttock when used for any journey longer than an hour and a half, which was a pity really because my journey to work was three and a half hours long. I endured this, assuming it was normal, and it served as a timely reminder to have a break during any long journey.

 

When it came time in 2012 to relocate from Birmingham to Hayling Island, I hauled most of our stuff down in it, loading it mercilessly up with anything that would fit, with no thought to added weight. It was a surprisingly capacious car for a hatchback, and drove exactly the same when loaded fully with boxes of extremely heavy books as it did with just me in it.

 

It had no FTPs, except the six or so times I ran the battery down by leaving my lights on, since the bonger didn't work (I assumed it didn't have one and later discovered a faulty driver's door microswitch to be at fault). The latter couple of times proved problematic as the bonnet release latch had become jammed and latterly the cable snapped. It was jumped from underneath more than once.

 

It went to the scrappy some time in 2013 when the full extent of the tin worm became clear and it failed its MOT spectacularly. I think my previous friendly garage had generously been somewhat less thorough than maybe they should have been at MOT time.

 

I was sad to see it go, and the loss of that car precipitated a period of terrible car ownership which included a Mondeo TDCI with a borked fuel pump, an '04 Tourneo with a clutch that didn't last the first journey home, a fuel filter air leak, a turbo that failed catastrophically stranding 9 of us on the side of the road late at night some time around Warwickshire (the oil being flung into the exhaust system produced such an enormous cloud of smoke that we genuinely thought it was on fire, which was terrifying) and it later turned out bad injectors AND significant accident damage, and the Megane that brought me here.

[purplebargeken]

Pick any car I have owned since 1981.

[bub2006]

Buying an m reg Orion Ghia from cropwell bishop. Just passed test so first car. Got as far as Clifton bypass and it died an horrible death. Smoke from all the air vents,l and a loud bang. I wish I'd had it recovered. Bought corsa b later that night. Had very twitchy handling. I found out the rear end had rotted so was getting so much camber on nearside wheel that a dubber would be proud. Bought fiat punto MK2 which went all Italian then bought the xsara that took my to my first shitefest. I regret selling that. I still see it now. After that it all went downhill fast.

[alcyonecorporation]

305 IN PICTURES



A hen called Pauline liked the 305.  My mate gave her a lift round the compound with the Pug a few times. 



It did a lot of trips to and from my current unit in Peebo (pictured). 





It drove through a massive puddle to take Partridge back to Thetford Forest (1 and 2, pictured). 



I used it to recreate the breakdown picture on the A148 where my first 305 S5 did a coolant wee. 





It was used in the filming of a music video. 



Months into ownership, I realised the headlamp diagram was actually an overhead projection of light (dependent on side, dipped or full). Really quite neat. 



Hotel 305 is cheap (but noisy). 



Hotel 305 can sometimes be scenic (but noisy). 



Feet helped the coffee bloom. 



Rush hour traffic into Peebo was always a delight. 

 

[Split_Pin]

I won my old Mk1 Megane on Ebay for £159 with 7 months MOT and absolutely nothing wrong with it.  It only had 3 owners from new and the last 2 were from the same family. The girl was going to scrap it if it didn't sell!

 

All it needed was a good clean, a timing belt/waterpump and I replaced the radiator for good measure.

 

I got nearly 2 years out of it, both MOTs required no work apart from a numberplate bulb.

 

It now lives on with another shiter hopefully maintaining its unblemished record.

 

TTT CarSearch, 5 Black Pudding rating provided.

[320touring]

Thanks for the review:)

[Shep Shepherd]

My most shite experience has undoubtedly been my 15 year love-hate relationship with The Volvo. 

[clayts450]

Driving successfully in the Marina (YLO 774S) all the way from St Albans to York for a week's break, with journeys to Leeds and Hull thrown in for good measure (about 500 miles all in) with a piece of blu-tak (the only thing to hand) in place of the radiator cap which had mysteriously disappeared prior to setting off. Was about 30 yrs ago, but seem to recall much focus on the temp gauge the whole time I was driving,  but mission accomplished without too many scares.

 

The backbox of the same Marina dropping (but not completely off) on the M4 on the way down to the Reading festival (must have been 1989), with many passengers and a boot full of booze. Upon arrival at the site the only logical thing to do was to remove it completely, so drove all the way back to St Albans without it and sounding like a Spitfire (sounded spiffing I seem to remember). Very loud, road performance very poor. Could barely make it up a mild incline. Somehow got it home. Also used it as a tent due to the lush velour seats (it was a Super dontcha know).

[Aston Martin]

It was October 2012, I had bought a Panda Selecta for £300?

It was in Huntingdon, i had a shift at work, so by the time I got the train and a bus and countless phone calls from the owner who wanted me to see the car in the daytime. (A nice seller, how about that) it was about 6:30pm when I arrived.

 

Anyway, the car was fine. Too nice to rape the doors (my initial plan) and then the lady said

 

“you’ll be cold in just that hoodie.”

 

“Why will I?”

 

“Oh the heater doesn’t work.”

 

“...”

 

As I had bought a one way ticket and I’m not attempting that journey back on a bus and a train, I’ll have an adventure... in October, in a 19 year old Fiat with barely a months MOT.

 

I fill up at a petrol station and the car stinks of petrol, the drivers window is electric fantastic!!! It doesn’t work obviously, the sunroof is cauked shut, the heater doesn’t work, the radio doesn’t work and my sat nav fucked me a few times. I stopped at Donny services, which makes no sense as I went over the Humber Bridge home. (Sat nav did a proper detour.)

 

I drove for 3+ hours, absolutely frozzen, hoodie-up all of the way home. Opening the car door to pay the bridge toll was a bit weird.

 

I didn’t bond with the FAP.

[Justin Case]

We had to return early from our honeymoon (touring the West Country) because the ancient Cortina I owned at the time started to only run on three cylinders. Investigating the misfire when we got home, I found that it was due to a hole in the top of one of the pistons

[bramz7]

I think mine is this:

 

I passed my driving test in August 2016 (cor that long ago?), and basically straight away threw myself right in at the deep end and took me and the ex 450 miles to Scotland three days later. 

 

I had my first car, bought off of Gumtree from a seller 3 miles away after Mouseflakes posted the advert on the ebay tat thread. It was a great car, apart from when the starter motor decided to die for no reason one morning. I even paid out for kwik fit to come round and fit two spankers Michelins to the front. 

 

I only had to sell it when I was kicked out of where I was living and bought a shonky BX.

 

Anyway, I treated the ZX to a nice drive round the 'high road' from Crieff to Aberfeldy. I probably rode the clutch and drove it terribly but didn't notice at the time, it was a blast. 

 

I still miss this car.

 

One week of being a qualified driver.. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

[Tamworthbay]

My Mk3 escort, bought to get me the The Netherlands where I had a years contract. On the M1 twenty miles from home it started smoking badly from under the bonnet and out the back. The RAC diagnosed a borked engine with the guy saying not to turn the engine off as it may never start again. It was loaded up to roof and I thought that if the worst came to worst someone would help push it off the ferry at the other end. It made it all the way ok and the first weekends quick investigation showed a blocked breather forcing oil into the air filter and out of the dipstick. A £5 part later it was fine and did 30000 miles around Europe that year and was goings strong when sold three years and 70000 miles later.

[Supernaut]

Buying a Vauxhall Omega, sight unseen, in Northampton, and having RantingYoof store it on his driveway for a week and a half. When it came time for me to fly down, my flight was cancelled, I ended up getting put on a bus even further north (to Inverness) in order to fly to Birmingham. I arrived 8 hours later than originally planned and it was dark and I was tired by the time I got to RantingYoof's house. I just walked straight past my latest purchase and fell into his spare bed. I then drove it back north the next day! I had it for 3 months but didn't really get along with it and sold it at a loss.

 

Winning an E36 BMW 316i base 4 door on ebay for £191, then driving it up from just west of Edinburgh to Aberdeen with no backbox.

 

Buying a Lexus LS400 for £200 from somebody who was due to emigrate in less than 12 hours from the time of purchase, then thrashing the tits off it for 3 weeks, taking it round Knockhill, then roffling it in 5 hours flat after it developed a horrible brake judder and all the electrics failed.

 

Having a raffle ticket for another E36 bought on my behalf as a birthday present, then winning it. Then selling my 9-year newer car in order to keep the raffle-win E36 instead.

[Junkman]

I was living in Frankfurt, had an Iso Grifo, a '70 Cadillac Eldorado, a BMW M535i, a shonky Renault R4F6 and an understanding with a lady in Siderno.

The Iso had a busted diff, the Eldo was in the paint shop due to a slight concrete mixing machine interface and the Bimmer had a blown head gasket.

You all can imagine what the inescapability of destiny was.

[tul66]

Iso Grifo! Well done that man. Nearly bought an Iso Rivola once.

[Floatylight]

Owning a 2001 early Laguna II dci from 2003-2005 from 40-85k miles.

 

Breakdowns / problems with

bent alloys, steering rack, seized caliper, loosing gearbox oil over brake discs, blown turbo, egr problems, key card issues, rear wiper seizing and a load of other issues that I have blocked from memory, swore would never own another Renault and haven't given in yet, although I have had 3 Citroen's and a Peugeot which have been far less troublesome..

 

Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

[mercrocker]

Sadly, I can only approach Junkman's Frankfurt stable with but one lowly vehicle - a Renault 4 Fourgonette of F4 persuasion.   This was the sole new vehicle I have ever had charge of and was far and away the shitest thing I have ever lived with.  

 

The litany of breakages, borkages and stoppages included, but not limited to...

 

Carburettor loosening off causing an ever weaker mixture until inevitable and predictable FTP'ing on a busy roundabout.    

 

Refusing to fire one morning, until the inner-wing mounted exhaust silencer filled entirely with mixture and subsequently grenading upon a latent mis-timed plug ignition.  

 It literally blew every seam and sounded like a Wellington all the way to work. 

 

Electrocuting my finger when a spare key on the keyring flipped behind the ignition lock and crossed three terminals.  

 

Jettisoning both front indicator/side lamp units almost simultaneously out of their mounts.

 

Filling up the floor-well toolbox compartment with water even during a drought.   

 

Sudden engine mount failure leading to the plastic cooling fan shredding itself against the radiator brackets. 

 

Vibrating the single bolt loose that stops the gearshift lever from coming out past the front seats. 

 

It also remains the only vehicle which I have managed to lock myself out of in a car wash, which started before I realised the hopelessness of the situation.  You have to understand how R4 door latches work to know how I achieved that.  

 

I finally killed it by rolling it - front to back.   All of this occurred in the first and indeed only 18 months of its short life.   

 

New-fangled shit.....

[Junkman]

Iso Grifo! Well done that man. Nearly bought an Iso Rivola once.

You mean Ravioli.