Has your shite ever left you in the shite?

[Station]

As in, has your car stopped dead in the middle of the busiest junction in the world during rush hour. On xmas eve?I'm starting to remember why I eagerly bought a car with electronic ignition for the first time, all the memories of owning a fucking carburettor'd car are coming flooding back.My car gets a lot of attention because it looks like a toy car, and after doing the 'big shop' yesterday at Tescos, I pack the car up, and amidst people passing by I'm sitting there, cranking the engine over for the twentieth time. It's getting ready to go, and I touch the accelerator and it's dead again. Everybody's looking, and I find the only way to fix a carb is to swear like a sailor after the parrot's just nipped your testicles.Earlier today, the car decided to stall at a busy junction, and decide to not start. Green light on for 5 seconds, and you get the horns going from the impatient cunts who seriously must'nt be able to see the fuming dickhead pushing his car out of the way, by which point it's gone to red and the car finally starts, at which point I floor it and get the fook out of there (the puny engine not even spinning the wheels, sadly).Now I remember what I hate about the incoming frosty winter mornings.

[Negative Creep]

See my thread and you'll know I'm in the same boat with random stalling. Being run by devil juice, you can't use the momentum to bump it either. Worst one I had was in a not really shite MX5 when the clutch cylinder went at the lights, leaving me stranded. The taxi driver behind got round this by driving along the pavement, giving me the finger as he went, even though by that point I had the bonnet up. Or the time the carb froze on my AX in the outside lane of the M20 - now that was interesting getting onto the hard shoulder with no power. After standing in the snow for 45 minutes the AA arrived - by which time the carb had warmed so it started first time

[pompei]

The Fiat 500could never have been called an embodiment of reliability (although it did go to Italy and back only needing the brakes rebuilt).I was using it once for work (the Alfasud Sprint which was my daily had developed one of its weekly faults) and it kept cutting out. This was before I put electronic ignition on it - the condenser used to cook being sensibly sited 6" above the exhaust - and I was running a couple of hours late. Last call done and the friggin starter wouldn't engage. Had to go and get the disgruntled punter to give me a push start How we laughed

[Guest]

Before my Amazon had some work done, I foolishly elected to drive it from where it lived at the time over to Fallowfield to go the local FOOKING STUDENT comedy night at Remedy (nee XS Malarky)It was pissing down by the time it had all finished, and I drove back down Wilbraham Road. Just as I got past Morrisons the clutch slave cylinder and the center of the exhaust decided to let go. At 1 am in the morning the local residents were treated a cacaphony of furious revving and crash shifting so I could get back to my lock up.As I got into the compound the car died, and then the starter decided it was going to have a good old skrike as well. I eventually got it into the garage after a combination of pushing, kangarooing and chronic swearing. As I was tiptoeing back to my C4 that I'd parked up the road several irate residents appeared, accusing me of being a fucking prick and they had my registration plate and they were going to pull the car out of the garage and torch it.I laid low for a bit after that. I went and recovered it to my local garage with the aid of a mate's beavertail transporter and a big Alsatian \ lard crossbreed called Harold.

[M'coli]

My second Metro: clutch release bearing retaining spring fell off when re-assembling in the dark; it found its way between starter motor and ring gear at Knightswood Cross lights in Glasgow (I was a student and switched off to save petrol). Even the downhill bump didn't work, you can imagine the reaction to maximum braking but no brake light... Same car: clutch slave cylinder gave out in the west end of Glasgow. It's all traffic lights there, so stop-start etc.. Drove it on the starter motor until that gave out too. So, forgetting that the clutch wasn't working, I tried to bump start it - good job 2nd gear synchro was buggered, as it crashed in and started the engine...

[Owain-328i]

I dont miss the old carb fed CVH engines on cold winter mornings. Complete bastards to drive on choke, and INCREDIBLY thirsty. Had carbs freeze a few times aswell, only allowing for about 20 mph on the motorway.

[Maltelec]

The only time my land rover(s) have failed in the middle of the road is when I was indicating to turn right into the petrol station and some complete cunt takes up the gap at the traffic lights 3 cars after me, meaning I couldn't turn in and had to go straight on.Put it in 1st gear, set off and BANG followed by much crunching. Overdrive input input splines stripped.Fortunately I was able to crunch it round the corner (slightly downhill too) and into a corner and waited for the AA man.Unfortunately after I had repaired it, I then had no petrol to get from my workshop.

[Rusty Pelican]

Total brake fail on my old Sunbeam Imp resulting in me crashing though someones hedge and parking in their rose bushes , Same car , throttle cable decided to unwind the odd strand and jammed solid on the A56 ( i think ) , going into Llandudno at three in the morning , never heard an engine rev quite so much as this when i dipped the clutch to change ear , connected choke cable to throttle and drove on using the lever as a throttle , just try changing gear like that Total brake loss again going down portland hill , cakky pants time Bonnet opening up on my Marina just as i was about to overtake , more cakky pants Exhaust falling off just as i pulled into Studland car park , thought a Hairy Davidson had pulled up beside me , open headers all the way home

[Father Ted]

Only two really - both not that old at the time:1) Twatting 1.9CDTi Zafira which suffered total collapse of the DPF at 18 months old causing it to cease to drive in the middle of the universes busyest roundabout during morning rush hour.2) Bollocking 1.1 Vallencia engined Fiesta that used to soak its plugs and die horribly when cold that let me down on the morning of the wifes grandfathers funeral again at a set of lights not 200 yards from my drive. New plugs saw it repeat its trick 10 minutes later - this time I got very mad and twatted it one denting the wing. It got chopped for the laguna 24 hours later.

[M'coli]

Ah yes, Imp stuff! Mine had a pinion that suddenly didn't turn the steering rack left but brought the steering wheel closer to you!

[wuvvum]

Probably the worst I've had was while driving back from my parents' place in south east France in my first Saab 9000 (2.0 turbo SE automatic, D541CDU - now deceased, unfortunately) - I lost the brakes completely on the autoroute just south of Paris. I have very little memory of what actually happened after that, but I do know that I drove from Paris to Norwich with no brakes (handbrake was useless) and didn't hit anything, although I did have to go up on the grass a couple of times at roundabouts. The worst bit was negotiating the off-ramp from the ferry - steep downward slope with a sharp 90 degree bend at the bottom. I just waited until there was nothing in the way, locked the transmission in first, yanked the handbrake on hard and hoped for the best. Fortunately it was a late ferry so there was relatively little traffic on the roads.Toyota Celica cooked a big end bearing in the fast lane of the M11 on my way home from picking it up - fortunately managed to coast onto the hard shoulder and got dragged home by the AA.Renault Novaquatre - overheated so I had to pull over into a field entrance and let it cool. Twat in an Audi A4 was right up my chuff (I'd been doing 60 but as the car was 68 years old at the time his two-year-old Audi had a God-given right to be going faster) - he obviously didn't see the indicator up on the C-pillar and, unbeknown to me at the time, my brake light (singular) was stuck on so he didn't work out that I was stopping and went into the back of me - only a nudge and didn't do any damage, but could easily have been nasty.Fiat Ducato van - threw a driveshaft on the A1M near Scotch Corner - I was on my way to pick up a Saab 900 so had a transporter trailer on the back. Didn't have AA relay cover at the time so decided to head back south and see how far I got before the driveshaft came out competely - the further I got under my own steam the less it'd cost to get towed. I found that if I stayed below 35mph the van actually drove quite smoothly, so I set off south at that heady speed, only to get thrown off the A1M by the old bill somewhere in north Lincolnshire for going too slowly. Had no idea where I was, didn't have satnav back then, picking my way down crappy Lincolnshire back roads in a knackered van with a bloody great trailer on the back, heading in what I thought was the right direction. After about 45 minutes of this I saw a sign to the A1, so rejoined it and (eventually) made it home fine.Toyota Hiace campervan (1974 vintage) - bought this from north Oxfordshire and decided in my wisdom to drive it 150 miles home, despite it not having moved from the seller's driveway in three years. The clutch was slipping like an absolute arse, and by Luton it was so bad that if I took my foot off the throttle with the van in gear the revs would drop to idle. Trying to pull uphill onto a roundabout was fun - sat there in first with the engine at about 7,000rpm for what seemed like hours as the van gradually inched its way forwards. Once I was onto the A11 the clutch settled down a bit and I was able to bowl along at 55-60, but then it started to rain and the driver's side wiper arm came loose so I had to lean over to the passenger side in order to see where I was going - back was in agony for two days after that. Then it got dark and I discovered I had no dipped beam, so had to switch on main beam and then pull into a layby and heave on the bottom edge of the headlights to try and make them point downwards. Still made it home though.Fun times...

[pogweasel]

You know, in all my time piloting old bilge, I have never had any problems caused by anything other than my own ineptitude (like neglecting to ensure adequate fuel levels).... the only 'embarassing' breakdown perhaps was with my Humber Sceptre, which ground to a halt for no good reason on the way to a local 'meet'. Turned out my idiot friend had activated a previously unknown 'kill switch' immobilser under the passenger seat carpet. However, I have had nothing but arseache with new "quality" vehicles... with the exception of the current and previous focii, I think everything newish (or brand new in the case of fleet stuff) has left me high and dry at some point. Sitting on the hard shoulder in the rain is no fricking fun!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Toyota Celica cooked a big end bearing in the fast lane of the M11 on my way home from picking it up - fortunately managed to coast onto the hard shoulder and got dragged home by the AA.

My only catastrophic breakdown was quite a classy breakdown - everything was fine at the 300yrd marker for a services turnoff, by 200yrds there was a nasty rattle, by the 100yrd marker it was very loud. Just as I turned onto the sliproad, the engine was stuttering. As I turned into the services car park, it cut out completely and I coasted into a parking space. It was a beautiful day to eat a big end bearing - I sat on a bench and had a drink while waiting for the RAC.That one didn't cause any hassle for other drivers, but my Fiesta did when the servo vacuum pipe worked loose.

[STUNO]

In my Herald estate.I entered the motorway and felt a fairly severe wobble in the steering for an instant, just as I got onto the main lanes. I thought nothing of it as everything seemed fine, traffic was very light. About 10 miles later on the sharp turn on an exit road the rh front wheel flipped on to full lock, completely disconnected from the steering. No problem as I was going fairly slowly then. I'm fairly sure the initial wobble was when the tie rod broke. 60 mph with one wheel disconnected is scary in retrospect.

[Father Ted]

Forgot about the (other) Mk 3 Fiesta I had stolen by a patient - recovered and then subsequently grenaded its engine a week later on the M55 - phoned the wife who arrived with the Laguna and a tow rope and pulled me off (much to the amusement of the plod in the range rover who ignored this blatant disregard for motorway regs). Dumped it just off the end of the M55 and called the scrap man.I could still see the oil trail from lane 3 to the hard shoulder for about a year!

[Cavcraft]

Ace question, ace thread.Ford Fiesta Mk1: on the Northwich bypass December 27th, freezing cold. Fuel pump or something went. Not in emergency services and AA bloke keeps driving past. I'm panicking, but call mate and eventually get through. Meantime I keep trying to wave AA man down but he ignores me. He's taking the piss I'm sure of it and when my mate arrives to tow me home the AA fella pulls up looking all smug. I very quickly told him where to get off. Twat.Recovery truck (of all things): A41 near Bromoborough about 4.00pm on a Friday. What a fucking nightmare, the road is pretty bad at the best of times but at that hour it was a nightmare. Transpired the little pre-filter had jumped ship and (very) luckily a couple of top lads I know who run an HGV repair place came to my rescue.Transit van: giving it full tilt round some very tight bends on the way to Dolgellau. Steering feels a bit tight and as pure luck would have it I got to the place I was going to and the steering went just as I rolled into the car park. The mechanic there said he couldn't believe how lucky I was.

[Albert Ross]

Not really a let down, but when the bonnet on my old DS flipped over the screen on the M1, I had the presence of mind to duck and look through the large gap left at the bottom of the screen. I pulled onto the hard shoulder, followed by a twat in a Golf. As I was stood on the engine, kicking the bonnet back into a rough shape, he came up screaming that "A bit of my old heap had flown off and hit his car and what was I going to do about it".............I think the beard, shaved head, leather jacket, ripped jeans, and Motorhead pumping out of the windows was the answer he never expected.............strangely I never heard anything more...............The screen never cracked by the way............An hour later one of the rear wings fell off in Melton Mowbray, just as I was passing a Traffic car...............He helped me refit it with tie wraps IIRC, telling me to get out of his area ASAP..........Which I dutifully did.

[Mr Lobster]

Too many times.Alfa 145 Cloverleaf. Engine management light came on on M6 Toll. Late home and everything seemed ok so I carried on. M60 closed so diverted onto M61 and planning on using A666 to get to M65.Horses escaped on A666 so traffic really bad. Stationery in lane three a new warning light comes on - fuel injection or something. Then idle speed starts fluctuating wildly. Then cuts out and won't restart. And I'm in the third lane. Oh fucking joy. Powered solely by the starter motor make it to the hard shoulder. RAC turned up after only three hours waiting. GR8. Left London at 2.00. Got home at midnight. Not a result. Cost me fortunes to fix.Alfa 145 Cloverleaf (yes, again). Gear linkage gives up in Manchester city centre leaving me with 3rd & 4th gear to get to Didsbury in rush hour. Not gr8 at all.Renault 4CV. Had to drive it from St Neots back to Lancashire (which seems really really stupid now I think about it). Noticed a small 10p sized puddle of coolant in teh engine bay during my pre flight checks but didn't think much of it. Twenty miles later noticed the inside of the car steaming up. Five miles later cooling system grenaded somehere south of Grantham. Was a long way home in a breakdown truck.Daihatsu Charade. Was brand new. Didn't like towing an R5 Auto with a dead engine up steep hills though I could go on for a while here...

[155V6]

Metro GTI-The middle of the cluth plate detatched itself at 6.00 AM on the way to work.A couple of months later,the gearbox self-destructed on the way home,destroying the new clutch in the process Alfa 155(only 5 or 6 years old),the diff fell to pieces one day with absolutely no warning.Cortina MK 3 Estate-a front wheel fell off while I was being towed due to the engine not running,we had to climb down an embankment & get it from out of some bushes.We didn't break the rope though Rover 214 SEi-the day after driving over 200 miles to look at the MG I've got now,all the oil came out of the gearbox.I think the Rover was sulking

[Guest]

Taking wife to station to catch an intercity with a booked ticket and seat.2.0i Sierra suddenly loses power on dual carriadgeway, rev counter drops to zero. My moderate knowledge of cars indicates that this must be an ignition/fuel injection fault. Limped to a layby, abandoned the car and hitched to the station, a very nice old man took us. Wife got next train but lost her reserved seat and was grumpy, hitched back to the car, called AA, the bastard thing started, but AA man followed me, dies again after 2 miles, AA man was brilliant, enthusiastic in the older cars, but couldn't diagnose, he towed me home.I'd just bought an E30 and was about to sell the sierra too so couldn't have it fixed by a specialist as that would cost the £300 the car was worth so HAD to dignose and fix myself.Eventually traced to a faulty distributor, £55 ebay, fixed, sold car for £560!I now own a modernish diseasel, am sure I won't be able to fix that if it dies......

[scruff]

What has electronic ignition got to do with carbs??I've had a few but most memorable was in the middle of London at traffic lights losing ALL electrics; engine, lights, everything. An earth cable had snapped and in the dark with a mounting queue of traffic behind it was highly embarassing

[CortinaDave]

Damn, always liked the look of your Sierra georgezippybungle.. wish I'd known it was for sale!SD1 has left me walking on two occasions this weekend, it has a comedy fuel gauge which says you have a half tank, then decides you have hee haw, then quarter tank.. etc etc.Upshot is.. saturday night, heading to edinburgh for a night out.. run out of juice near dunfermline.. cue 5 mile walk along the pitch black dual carriageway to get petrol.Once i got it started, drove it to the petrol station and stuck another 20 notes in it, went on my night out, drove home and came out the next day, got 2 miles from my house, ran out.. walking again.It did about 60 miles on 25 quid! vicious! (in fairness I was giving it a bit of welly)

[Richard]

That works out at about 11mpg I ran out of fuel on that road a couple of weeks ago. Just after I left Kirkcaldy the fuel light came on on the Volvosaurus. I expected it to make it to Inverkeithing but it ran out just before Cowdenbeath. I coasted it up the Cowdenbeath slip road and wound it out of the junction on the starter. Once it was on the level it found a little more fuel so I got it up to speed and coasted it into Morrisons car park. A quick dash into Morrisons for 9 litres of vegetable oil and I was on my way again.

[Rusty Pelican]

The only time my Commer Imp gave up was a couple of months ago , just spluttered and died , managed to roll into the " out " exit of a national trust house , leccy fuel pump seems to have died , nothing else to do but have a look , took it off and the points inside were non existant ( SU pump ) , filed the contacts flat on the kirbstone , bent them so they touched again , refiitted and voila off we go , new electronic SU pump cost nearly a ton , worth it though , no more points

[Station]

Ran out of petrol two or three times when I had the Porsche. It took over 1 hour to start up after refilling due to a knackered pump and air in the system.When I sold it, two days after, the bloke told me the pump went kaput and had to get towed home.Dial was a lying pogoing bastard. And hard to judge because of OK economy on motorways and horrid economy on normal roads.

[pompei]

My first car (Mini) let itself down badly along a potholed Scotswood Road in Newcastle when the rear subframe fell apart, cue hydrolastic fluid all over the road

[CIH]

Clutch Cable on my Manta snapped literllay as I pulled up outside the house. Same Manta, just passed through the unlit bit of motorway between Preston and (eventually) Manchester and noticed my bonnet "vibrating". The bugger was on the latch but had stayed put phew!

[maximalist]

Fiat 128: knackered driveshaft, limped home.Austin Allegro: starter motor unscrew itself every two weeks, faulty balljoint made the front end collapse last day of ownership, i was giving away the car to a mate, and on the road home the car died spectaculary.Ford Cortina Mk 2, gearstick unscrewed itself in rush hour traffic, lost windshield wiper during heavy rain.Skoda Estelle, loss of brakes on the motorway.Skoda Rapid, fuel pump broke and sprayed engine with fuel which led to engine fire.Citroen 2cv, faulty condensor.

[Station]

Missus' MGF. Not old, but should be treated like a freshly dug up ww2 bomb.Some are fine, but some aren't. The amount of times it's thrown it's toys out of the pram, fortunately, most around the corner from the house!The gear selector cable broke round the corner, jumped out of the car with missus' driving, pushed it and hung on til we got home. All the cars passing by could see my hanging onto the top of the car and must've thought I was insane.It's overheated so many times now. I am currently finishing a total replacement of the cooling system (bending a valve in the process ).

[mnde]

BX:Lost all power and died going uphill trying to overtake a bus on the A3. Managed to coast off the carriageway and into a fortuitously placed side-road where it restarted first time. Turned out to be a sticking linkage in the autochoke mechanism. Didn't do much for my girlfriend's confidence in the car...Red STOP light came on while queuing to come off the A3 at Painshill. Eventually got it to a service station to find LHM pissing out from under front subframe. The "Octopus" had gone. Had it recovered to local Citroen dealership and then got a lift home.Conked out in Pease Pottage Services carpark during a low speed manoeuvre. I thought I'd stalled it. Restarted and died several times. Pushed it back into a space. Then it refused to start at all. AA couldn't diagnose what was wrong so I had to sign up to their Relay service (c.£80!) and wait ages for a flat-bed truck to collect me and deposit me home. Eventually diagnosed as a dead ignition module.GSA:Conked out while pulling out left onto a busy road. Managed to start it and get it half onto the verge but it wouldn't idle, the engine would only keep going if I pumped the accelerator constantly. AA man arrived, found the carb preheater pipe had holed through rust fatigue and flakes had obviously been sucked into the carb. He applied putty over the hole as a quick fix and cleaned out the carb jets to get me running again.Conked out while on a large roundabout turning right - wouldn't restart. This had previously happened in safer areas, usually while executing a right turn, and I'd found it would only start using the STARTING HANDLE. So anyway, I coasted it to stop as close to the roundabout as I could, got the bonnet up, engaged the handle, cranked, vroooom. I must have looked a right lunatic! Turned out to be dirty and loose contacts on the coil.Red STOP light came on while in heavy traffic in Guildford. Eventually started to get that "sinking feeling"... Oh noes.... I pulled into a handily placed auto spares place with a carpark out the back. Stupidly bought 2 bottles of LHM to refill the hydraulics.... which promptly pissed out again when I started the engine, leaving a HUGE pool Called the AA and had it dragged onto a flat bed truck etc. To cut a long story short, one of the rear suspension cylinder boots had failed, but I found out it would have been okay if I'd selected and driven in "intermediate" height. I later drove it all the way from Woking to Arlesey in Bedfordshire (Chevronics) like this and it hardly lost any fluid Great thread BTW!Mark.