When battered old shite saved you because your newfangled tosh was broken

[Junkman]

Out of four cars I have (not counting the German starry waftbarge, which is a resto project, and the 405, which is no longer insured), at this moment, the only one up and running is the 1970 Rover 2000 TC.

It currently serves as the only daily driver we have and is used extensively by my wife as a hack for her daily chores.

Since we got it, that car hasn't missed a beat and hasn't put a foot wrong.

 

I shit on everything newfangled and non-English!

 

Also, I herewith adjust my cut off date for proper car production to 1976.

[Lukas]

50 % of your Rovers running? Not such a good result...

[Junkman]

0% of everything else running, which makes them 100% worse.

[HMC]

Spen King would approve

[Junkman]

What was good enough for Mr King is good enough for me.

[Guest Breadvan72]

This could call for a new thread:  How often does the keen shiteist find that he owns several cars and that every one of them is fooked?  I recall a weekend in 2012 when I had, ostensibly, six road legal cars (plus one that was MoT free), and every one of the buggers was geshaggered.  Only desperate last minute bodging saved the trip to Cornwall. 

[Junkman]

Actually I intended this thread to be exactly for this kind of talk.

Maybe my title wasn't the wisest choice of words.

[Junkman]

Better now?

[Guest Breadvan72]

Manoeuvre well executed, Number One.

[wuvvum]

I must've missed something - what's happened to the Clot?

[Junkman]

I just revealed it in another post.

The fuel filler neck turned out to be rotten as a pear.

It can't be filled up, nor safely operated this way.

A spare is unavailable.

[hairnet]

bought the civic

 

used it ok for a coupla days

 

flat battery when needed to get somewhere important

 

cue 20 year old motorcycle that hadnt been used for a month

 

battery off that attached to civic and vroom

 

thats a honda too

[scooters]

P38 - lunches gearbox last Friday afternoon, Series 3 88" now my wheels and Citroen CX GTi is now the family car!

[panhard65]

A few years ago I set off on a 250 mile trip in my "modern" Megane dci. Of course it did what all good Renault dci's do and blew it's turbo after about 60 miles. Cue call to breakdown company and towed back home. My trip was pretty important so I grabbed the only other road legal car (1955 Renault Fregate) and set off again. The top speed of 65mph isn't best suited to motorways so I went A roads. After about 130 miles the bloody throttle cable snapped. As it was a diesel I wound the tick over right up and set off again. It was a bit scary and I only done about another 30 miles before giving up and calling the breakdown company. It was now about 7pm, I had been on the road more or less since 11 in the morning. 4 hours later the recovery truck arrives. He then tells me that he isn't there to recover me just to look and see if he can fix it. I was slightly annoyed by this point, he then used one of those wiring connector block thingy's to re-join the throttle cable. Which was a perfect bodge except for the fact that he pinched it off the cold start cable. Never mind it was soon up and running again with me finally getting to my destination at about 1 in the morning. It still had the bodge repair when I sold it a couple of thousand miles later and never gave a moments hassle after that. The same can't be said for the Megane.

[scooters]

A few years ago I set off on a 250 mile trip in my "modern" Megane dci. Of course it did what all good Renault dci's do and blew it's turbo after about 60 miles. Cue call to breakdown company and towed back home. My trip was pretty important so I grabbed the only other road legal car (1955 Renault Fregate) and set off again. The top speed of 65mph isn't best suited to motorways so I went A roads. After about 130 miles the bloody throttle cable snapped. As it was a diesel I wound the tick over right up and set off again. It was a bit scary and I only done about another 30 miles before giving up and calling the breakdown company. It was now about 7pm, I had been on the road more or less since 11 in the morning. 4 hours later the recovery truck arrives. He then tells me that he isn't there to recover me just to look and see if he can fix it. I was slightly annoyed by this point, he then used one of those wiring connector block thingy's to re-join the throttle cable. Which was a perfect bodge except for the fact that he pinched it off the cold start cable. Never mind it was soon up and running again with me finally getting to my destination at about 1 in the morning. It still had the bodge repair when I sold it a couple of thousand miles later and never gave a moments hassle after that. The same can't be said for the Megane.

Picture 115.jpg

 

 

your old renners always give me an ENORMOUS STIFFY panhard, That old fregate is AWSUM I wish I'd known when you sold it - ideal chod and an oil burner as well!

[jonny69]

I don't think I've ever saved my own ass with my chod because it's generally more broken. I find this MUCH FRUSTRATINGS. I have dug a few people out of holes though, much to their embarrassment. I used to like jump-starting people off my Pop because it did look like it was about to fall over and barely able to pull itself along under its own power most of the time. I jump-started a posh couple in an Aston Martin DB7 at a petrol station using my Anglia last year too which was hilarious* at the time, but then karma bit me back and I couldn't get my sodding flipfront to clip closed.

[dieselnutjob]

happened to me only a few weeks ago

The starter motor burned out on the 607.  I used the 604 for a couple of days including driving to GSF car parts to get a replacement.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Two years ago I had a job for an important client just before Christmas,to take him and his wife to a big function at The Grosvenor House. This I did in my nice shiny,financed past the bollocks Merc.

 

 

Dropped him off and did a job from Heathrow back to Milton Keynes, then it started to snow..............

The Merc could barely get off the drive and traffic reports were saying Central London was in blizzard conditions, so I went back and picked them up in my trusty(rusty) Disco,complete with damp smelly carpets and an exhaust that finished at the flexi.

 

Felt a bit incongruous picking up in Park Lane , but the guy loved it( not sure about his wife though) and we dropped another 2 couples off on the way home. He was so impressed (and pissed) he bunged me a couple of hundred tip.

I got rid of the Merc a couple months later (the lack of a centre rear seat,was a bigger issue than I thought ). The Disco outstayed it by two years, only lost £150 in 7 years and I miss it every day.

Anyone wondering about insurance and licensing issues should know the above is a work of fiction.

[mercrocker]

More than once I have suffered the rebuttals of those I have to endure at the workplace.   They find it snigger worthy that I have 5 taxed, MOTd and insured vehicles and had to ride my bicycle to work as it was  the only object  I owned whose wheels could  turn.    Most of 'em have got salary-sacrifice lease motors about which I derive far more mirth than they do about my occasional inability to drive to work.   I wish I could blame some modern shitbox for being unreliable but my newest motor is 24 years old.   ALLOLDKARZRSHITE....

[Spiny Norman]

In the winter of 2009 I owned three cars, a '69 Volvo Amazon, an '81 Vauxhall Royale and a '99 Rover 600 turbo.

 

The Rover had done the usual Rover thing and spaffed its coolant everywhere (I still drove it short distances but it couldn't be relied on for more than a few miles), the Vauxhall had a fuelling issue where it needed a splash* of fuel down the carb before it would start, but the Volvo just worked.

Through one of the coldest winters we've had recently I was tooling about in a 40 year old car and it never missed a beat.

[skattrd]

I don't really have anything particularly non-shite.There was an occasion when I had 7 cars, none working so I had to borrow the 750cc Fiat Panda from my brother in law. It's ace and goes quite well, but braking does takes quite a bit of advance planning.

[Split_Pin]

My modern is grand so far but my Corsa seems to be attractive to those needing a jump-start for some reason.

 

I helped out a stricken Renault Grand Scenic owner the other day in this way, but found it a MAJOR FAFF to actually find something metal on which to earth the lead.

[DVee8]

2 weeks ago i jump started an Audi RS4 Avant that belongs to a lad at work,he had left his interior light on.The irony was he only used that car that day due to not using it for 2 weeks

[Bucketeer]

A good few years ago I bought a £600 BMW 750i to replace my nearly dead 1.0 Metro.

 

Several months later, the BMW had managed about 20 miles whilst the Metro soldiered on, despite not idling, not starting without a bump and not possessing the full compliment of gears.

 

BMW was last seen in the rear view mirror of the Metro as I towed it down the road to go and live with some other sucker lucky purchaser.

I received numerous strange looks as I towed the V12 BMW with the Metro. Not sure why.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

More than once I have suffered the rebuttals of those I have to endure at the workplace.   They find it snigger worthy that I have 5 taxed, MOTd and insured vehicles and had to ride my bicycle to work as it was  the only object  I owned whose wheels could  turn.    Most of 'em have got salary-sacrifice lease motors about which I derive far more mirth than they do about my occasional inability to drive to work.   I wish I could blame some modern shitbox for being unreliable but my newest motor is 24 years old.   ALLOLDKARZRSHITE....

This reminds me of a conversation at the weekend with my brother , his daily driver, a lovely w124 cab is playing up and even though he has another 4 cars and 2 motorbikes, I have 6 cars and between our dad and another 2 brothers about another 11 cars,there wasn't a single spare,running,legal car- he cycled to work today,I think!

[eddyramrod]

40 year-old Granada jumps 10 year-old diesel pickup!  In fact this usually happened the other way round but there was this one occasion, and it was the one I happened to photograph.

 

Years ago my tiny Daihatsu Charade was often called upon to tug a neighbour's mk4 Cortina in the mornings...

 

Small point: if a car is going to let you down, be it new or old, it will always choose the worst possible time to do it.

[willswitchengage]

 

 

When battered old shite saved you because your newfangled tosh was broken

 

Flawless, never let me down. Low lubricant consumption, great in the corners, bit slow on the hills but the pistons are barely run in. Capable of 50 miles per half a gallon of water and a couple of Kit Kats.

 

[Sloth in a bowl]

 

 

That's a bleedin' rough neighbourhood, even Santa got lynched for... 'you're not from round ere, boy is you'.

[Sloth in a bowl]

Flawless, never let me down. Low lubricant consumption, great in the corners, bit slow on the hills but the pistons are barely run in. Capable of 50 miles per half a gallon of water and a couple of Kit Kats.

 

 

I wish I had one that ran on water, mine works on beer.

[chaseracer]

Last week, the day before it went in for a new clutch, the Blingo ate its starter motor.  

 

I would like to thank Mr D Wobbler of 'just outside Aberystwyth' for keeping me mobile by selling me an old Mercedes...