Impressive (component) Fails

[richardthestag]

Ah I forgot this one

 

 

3 year old Range Rover N/S/R tyre let go at the beaded edge, no warning, no slow puncture

 

Just a fuck off great big bang like a shot gun going off right behind my head.

 

Was doing 70ish lane 3 M25 over taking a truck. Anyone driven a land rover on 3 wheels will know how much poo comes out on a moment like this.

 

 

loads of tread, no warning like I said

 

went to get it replaced, got tyre centre chap to check other rear tyre which we found had perished badly around the beaded edge.

 

 

 

[twosmoke300]

Had a few hilux s do this . Only at over 200 k and the inside of the wheel beads are like razors

[sierraman]

Father in laws timing belt snapped week before he was due to have it done. How's that for shit luck.

[83C]

A few from a professional* industry that has safety at the very core of its operation, apparently.

 

A few weeks prior to this incident, the firm I worked for had a set of mobile lifts that whilst the fitters were all on their lunch break, had wound themselves down on the nearside, writing off a Volvo B10B. Since that incident the management had ordered that all vehicles on lifts were to be lowered to ground level if being left unattended.

 

A few weeks later I was asked to take a Leyland Olympian into town to replace another vehicle. This Olympian had just come off the lifts from a fluid change and under frame pressure wash. I checked it all over, jumped in and drove off. I pulled over a couple of miles later and phoned in about the huge clouds of white/grey smoke coming from the rear axle area, only to be met with "it's fine, that's just water from the pressure wash boiling off". So I carried on, and about two miles later stopped again as the smoke was getting worse. Again, the same response about excess water from the chassis clean, and a request to get on with getting the bus into town.

 

So off I went until I reached Mile End roundabout on the A5. I came to a stop in a queue of cars, a cloud overtook me, and as the cars in front eased forward I released the handbrake, applied a little throttle and was rewarded with a soft 'whump' from the back of the bus. Realising very quickly I had no drive I put the handbrake and hazards on, jumped out and went around the back to see what was amiss. Lifting the engine cover revealed a propshaft still turning because I'd left it in gear, which meant something in the axle was fucked. The offside rear hub was absolutely boiling.

 

Half hour later the works van appeared with some tools, the fitter reckoned the diff had gone. I set to the halfshaft bolts on the offside and as they came out they were still glowing red. I then broke out the sledgehammer to shock the halfshaft out, and was rewarded with the drive flange of the halfshaft falling off leaving the sheared remnants of the shaft in place.

 

It transpired that the fitter who did the diff oil change had gone for a brew, but before doing so had stuck both plugs back in to prevent any foreign objects getting in before dropping the bus back to the floor before his break. When he came back he forgot to refill the axle with oil and pressure washed it before sending it back into service. The whole axle was scrap thanks to all the swarf created as it mashed itself into oblivion, with the halfshaft getting so hot that it sheared, which was the 'whump' that I felt as I tried to pull away.

 

I did once convert a Cummins B-series into scrap because the supervisor refused to see sense when I told him I was the only bus on my route and I was following a trail of oil and water around, and levels of both were very low in the bus itself. He refused to believe me, asking why a driver would know anything about that sort of stuff, and reminding me that I was employed as a driver, not a mechanic - all over the open channel radio that the firm used. After that, knowing what was going to happen I just kept going until the engine finally seized in a small village outside Cheltenham. He initially tried to claim that I'd never told him, until the boss of the firm told him he'd heard everything on the radio....