fraser.innes.3 Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 Alfa Romeo Alfasud - Was driving down Church Lane in Chislehurst, Kent. Had to take avoiding action as a bus pulled out from behind a parked car coming the other way. This involved banging the car up a kerb to avoid the idiot. 2 days later I drove to Edinburgh. My dad noticed that the NSF wheel was down to the wire. Closer inspection showed the inner wing had a 2 inch gap along the width of it. The solution was to take the wing off, jack the car up on the suspension until the gap closed, then weld plates across it. That was when we discovered the inner wing was more rust than metal, and it was almost impossible to find metal to weld to! Drove it about for another 5 months until the MOT ran out, then abandoned it on a street in Catford.Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk michael t and Vince70 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sutty2006 Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 I don’t think I’ve ever driven with a bad enough fault known or unknown. But I do remember in 2008 on the Scally Rally through Ireland one team had a Rav 4, oldish pair of blokes. Found them broke down at the side of a road with a flat tyre. They’d had a flat a mile before, hurriedly changed it and continued only for the spare to blow too. A rear coil spring had snapped and punctured a hole right round the inner sidewall. They hadn’t noticed it when they changed the wheel so did the same to the spare. Luckily they were waiting for a local farmer to bring them a spare and a hacksaw! michael t and Shirley Knott 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobblers Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 I swapped my Mk2 golf GTI for a VW t25 about ten years ago. I was young and not insured to drive "other vehicles" but my mate had a trade policy, so I drove us from Rotherham to Liverpool to do the deal, and he drove us back. The T25 had been stood for 5 years in an industrial unit, and the current owner had sort of "won" it when he moved in as the previous owner of the unit had just left it there when he disappeared without paying his rent. He drove it to an MOT center 500 yards away, it passed and he drove it back and put it straight up for sale. It drove back fairly uneventfully - My friend is a bit of a maniac and was absolutely flying over the woodhead pass in it - he drove the road 4 times a day for years so he knew all the overtaking places, and used them all. 90mph+ in quite few spots, he's a fanny TBH and telling him to slow down would only make him go faster. We get home and I notice that the tyres are very very old and cracked. "that was a lucky escape" I think, as I pop the hub caps off in order to swap on some spare alloys I had kicking around. Then I find both front wheels were held on with just two bolts. timolloyd, Shirley Knott, HarmonicCheeseburger and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sutty2006 Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 I bought a Peugeot 307sw off and old work colleague 4/5 years ago for £100 needing a clutch and an MOT. Right front wheel was missing 1x wheel stud, said it had snapped off 2 years previous and he’d just siliconed it back in place. Dodgy bugger did 50 mile a day 6 days a week on that! Tyre was almost bald. I drilled it out and went the scrap yard for another stud. Took 30 minutes to fix. Shirley Knott 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catsinthewelder Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 There was the fact that the NSF wheel on a certain Dacia rusted through. The tyre went flat on the ferry to England after a few thousand km of all sorts of roads. Shirley Knott 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorRetro Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 Speaking of driving with faults, this is a neighbour's car they are still driving daily. The yellow chalk makes it worse, as they obviously know about it! Shirley Knott, FakeConcern, michael t and 8 others 1 8 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leyland Worldmaster Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 1 minute ago, DoctorRetro said: Speaking of driving with faults, this is a neighbour's car they are still driving daily. The yellow chalk makes it worse, as they obviously know about it! Fucking hell! 😱 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 I see barnacles like that now and again in car parks. Last one I spotted I chased the car and told the owner as it was on the inside, I happened to notice as they were driving towards me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sutty2006 Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 4 hours ago, DoctorRetro said: Speaking of driving with faults, this is a neighbour's car they are still driving daily. The yellow chalk makes it worse, as they obviously know about it! Can afford to lease a Mercedes. Can’t afford to drive it safely. Years and years ago if you had a merc you were well up in the world. Now they are just another Ford escort! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 4 hours ago, DoctorRetro said: Speaking of driving with faults, this is a neighbour's car they are still driving daily. The yellow chalk makes it worse, as they obviously know about it! It would be a real shame* if that bit of the tyre were to fail* one night, thus forcing them to put a new tyre on. I know I do some questionable things when it comes to tyres, but that is taking the piss. Angrydicky, Leyland Worldmaster and timolloyd 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St.Jude Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 9 minutes ago, sutty2006 said: Can afford to lease a Mercedes. Can’t afford to drive it safely. Years and years ago if you had a merc you were well up in the world. Now they are just another Ford escort! God bless the try-hard's that think they're Bertie Big Biscuits because they can spunk £300 a month on a Renault Megane with a Merc badge on it. All they're doing is giving me a reason to drive older vehicles. Supernaut, big_al_granvia, Shite Ron and 5 others 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stanky Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 5 hours ago, DoctorRetro said: Speaking of driving with faults, this is a neighbour's car they are still driving daily. The yellow chalk makes it worse, as they obviously know about it! Its things like that which 'rubber mallets' were invented for. The clue's even in the name FFS. Just hammer the bulge back in and it'll be fine Talbot, Fumbler, Leyland Worldmaster and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goosey Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 13 minutes ago, sutty2006 said: Can afford to lease a Mercedes. Can’t afford to drive it safely. Years and years ago if you had a merc you were well up in the world. Now they are just another Ford escort! In-laws have one of these, first time me father in law drove it he shifted into reverse using the column shifter (got confused with indicator stalk) while exiting left off a roundabout. luckily for him it dropped into neutral and he just rolled to a stop while revving the nuts off it. Shirley Knott 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leyland Worldmaster Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 (edited) 10 minutes ago, St.Jude said: God bless the try-hard's that think they're Bertie Big Biscuits because they can spunk £300 a month on a Renault Megane with a Merc badge on it. All they're doing is giving me a reason to drive older vehicles. Yes; exactly that. People sometimes laugh at my old car. They ask me why I don't upgrade. I then tell them I can still get 60+mpg. I then look at their car; normally a Premium* marque and see shitty ditch finder tyres... Back to topic; yes and no it wasn't a vehicle I own... Too scary to talk about! Edited March 22, 2021 by Leyland Worldmaster Remembered topic! 👍 Shirley Knott and Chris2cv 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxxo Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 5 hours ago, DoctorRetro said: Speaking of driving with faults, this is a neighbour's car they are still driving daily. The yellow chalk makes it worse, as they obviously know about it! state of that wheel too....... being honest i'd slash it, done it to a family members car before when they were ignoring several bulges literally a linglong ditchfinder will be much safer Shirley Knott and Talbot 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 Given the loss of control when the driver, doing 40mph in a 30 limit while cocking about on their phone, doesn't react in time to the fact that the car is being dragged up onto the pavement and is heading for pedestrians, I'd say putting a knife through the bulge is the socially responsible thing to do. Not unlike removing all 4 valve cores from a certain tosser's car when he was blind drunk and clearly going to drive it home. Leaving them sellotaped to the windscreen right in the driver's view might* have made the point. Next morning "Oh dear, what a shame. Would you like to borrow my valve core tool and a foot pump?" St.Jude, Shirley Knott, mitsisigma01 and 3 others 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pieman Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 Late summer last year I went from the Midlands to Snetterton race circuit to do a job, noticed that my Focus's handling felt a bit off but put it down the it being on worn tyres. Got home and noticed that it looked low at the front, our local mobile mechanic was booked to service another of our cars a couple of days later so got him to have a look. Imagine my surprise when I see him holding a coil from the left front spring in his hand, and the right front one had the same thing but it was jammed in at the top of the shock.😳 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St.Jude Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 This is fairly recent with the RAV4. Failed the MOT on subframe corrosion and more rot on the sills. When I took the subframe off, well when I took the one bolt off of the subframe, the leg came off in my hand. Then at the weekend as I removed the fuel tank, I had wondered why I got a stench of petrol when I filled it up to the brim. Turned out the fuel filler pipe and vapour pipe were corroded, to the point where when I was undoing the jubilee clip the vapour line just broke in half. My wife has gone from liking this car to hating it. So normality has been restored and I am no longer living an internet lie. BlankFrank, Shirley Knott and michael t 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlered Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 I was driving my 60s beetle when the horn started going. I'd assumed that the button on the aftermarket steering wheel had failed so I pulled the fuse and carried on driving. I was investigating something else around the front end at a later date and noticed that the rubber connector on the steering column had split and the upper and lower column were only connected by a sliver of rubber. The rubber was twisting the column off centre when steering, making the inner column touch the outer sleeve and grounding it, causing the horn to go. I drove it for several weeks with no horn and divine intervention controlling the front wheels! BlankFrank, St.Jude, bunglebus and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 1 hour ago, St.Jude said: Failed the MOT on subframe corrosion I'd say that was a reasonable assessment by the MOT inspector! That's bin fodder. The general rule-of-thumb is that howevermuch rot you think there is in a car, when you start cutting into it to repair, if you don't find at least double that amount, you've just not looked hard enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FakeConcern Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 Mrs Concern and I took my Mini 1000 on holiday near Royan in France doing loads of miles driving around as we visited Paris and went back to Royan. The week after we got home I thought the back of the car looked a bit low on one side, looked underneath and the rear subframe was sort of curving down on one side! When I took the subframe off it just collapsed into rust when put down! After that my dad decided he'd better do the subframe on his similar age Mini and that was the same. Quite a few years later I bought my mate's Golf GTI Mk3 company car off him and it sometimes made a sort of squishy noise when turning. He had told the VW dealer where he had it serviced in Canterbury a couple of weeks before I bought it and they could find nothing wrong. One day when putting it in the garage, I happened to have the window open and could hear it really clearly so stopped and had a good look all over the car. The inside of the f/n/s tyre was bulging in several places! I had four new tyres put on the next day and completely cured it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris2cv Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 16 hours ago, twosmoke300 said: You do know that MOT testers aren’t allowed to remove wheels ( and ive never known one that does ) or are they allowed to remove any wheel trims or hub caps to check wheel security either . To be fair, I don't think that the thing with the wheel nuts was caused during the MOT. It was caused during the welding that the garage did directly before the MOT. So no, not the testers fault, but it was the fault of the garage that he worked for. Also, it didn't have any wheel trims at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twosmoke300 Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 Fair enough ! I had a mobile welder leave the rear wheel nuts loose on a customers tranny once . Put the plastic caps back on and everything 🙄. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 You should always check your nuts regularly St.Jude 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince70 Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 Back in about 1996 I had a very tidy looking Red Astra MK1 GTE which I got through a friend of a friend but it only came with a logbook and a single MOT that looked like it had been through a washing machine and when taxing it the first post office refused as the MOT certificate was in such bad condition. I drove it around for about 8 months and fitted a better stereo to cover up the rattles and was in the car with my Brother (who’s not a car person in the slightest) going off to work and doing about a ton down the long duel carriageway as you do and my brother was saying the car make creaking noises from the front which never really bothered me and put it down to old car issues lol. The following day I put the car through an MOT and the MOT tester I knew was a great guy and quite lenient but when he looked at the car he said don’t drive away whatsoever as it’s a death trap.. What I hadn’t noticed was when steering the car the front wings would move with the wheels as the bulkhead had cracked all the way down both sides and he said it was an engine out job to repair so it’s only option was the scrapyard. I actually got it repaired as I knew a guy who was a genius with a welder and he managed to get to it by taking the head off a working on it underneath and after he finished with it looked as good as the day it came out the factory and a lot stronger. I then proceeded to spend £1500 on it and got it absolutely immaculate only to sell it for £800 which is what I normally do lol. FakeConcern, Shirley Knott and bunglebus 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motorpunk Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 I did three lairy laps of the Nurburgring in an old a car which, I later found, had seats retained by finger tight bolts. Really shit me up. timolloyd, Shirley Knott and St.Jude 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St.Jude Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 23 minutes ago, motorpunk said: I did three lairy laps of the Nurburgring in an old a car which, I later found, had seats retained by finger tight bolts. Really shit me up. Stirling Moss did the Nurburgring without seat belts, so at least you got close to that authentic 60's racing experience! timolloyd, Vince70 and motorpunk 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris2cv Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 Just remembered, that my Uncle drove down from Sutton to see me when I was living in Bournemouth (100+ miles). He thought that one of his rear tyres felt soft so I said that I'd have a look. Pressure was fine, but there was something caught in the wheel trim. Popped it off to have a look - it was THREE of the wheel bolts! It had been serviced a few days before! Talbot 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 I had a couple of guys do stuff like that when I was in the trade, customer complaint of odd noises which turned out to be wheel nuts in the trim rather than on the wheel. Had one guy slap a wheel back on an Alfa (I think) without noticing there's a locating peg on the hub, so the wheel was running out of true rather a lot. You'd think they'd know better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorRetro Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 Neighbour still driving on the egg'd tyre. Leyland Worldmaster and Talbot 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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