Automotive Myths

[ashmicro]

Dunno about sugar as a general rule, but it was sugar that royally fucked up my mate's VW Derby years ago (disgruntled ex-girlfriend)

[scaryoldcortina]

Mostly fuel filter.. a properly placed one will just gunk up and stop the crap (and fuel) getting any further but lift pumps don't like it either (jams the valves up so they stop pumping)

 

For true total engine destroying tampering you can't beat valve grinding paste in the oil.

[Richard]

Expanding foam in the front wings works nicely too. As does pouring some cherry in the fuel tank and phoning HMRC. Not that I've ever considered doing either of these things.

[scaryoldcortina]

That reminds me of a posssible myth...

 

Man has disagreement with builder, builder fills his BMW with readymix via the sunroof. Removal of 10 tonne BMW shaped brick costs as much as the car was worth.

 

No idea if it's true, but someone told me once.

[Lord Sterling]

I think this one might be true but - sawdust in the gearbox?

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

It was in the film version of Matilda with Danny DeVito as the dodgy car salesman so I reckon it might be true.

[Guest]

Sometimes I consider paying the £3 for Matilda just so I can watch the bits where Danny DeVito is hanging about at his crummy used car lot, winding back the miles with a power drill. He even sells the miserable headmistress a knackered Buick Electra with some sort of autobox problem.

[Des]

Sawdust in the gearbox is a desperate act to quieten a knackered one, tights or a nylon shirt also.

I've thought of a new one, a cd hanging from your mirror knobbles speedcameras, and if you flash your lamps twice at red traffic lights they'll change for you.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Sometimes I consider paying the £3 for Matilda just so I can watch the bits where Danny DeVito is hanging about at his crummy used car lot, winding back the miles with a power drill. He even sells the miserable headmistress a knackered Buick Electra with some sort of autobox problem.

 

I think that was the one with the sawdust.

[CreepingJesus]

Danny DiVito's dodgy dealer does indeed fill the Electra's gearbox with sawdust. Among a whole host of other legendary bodges; the film might as well be the eBay trader's handbook. I have it on VHS, so haven't watched it in a while.

The dangling cd doesn't work - they tried that one on Mythbusters a while back. The flashing of the cd's was distracting enough for me to temporarily not see Kari Byron, so I remember that one.

I don't know about all traffic lights, but the set that controls the narrow bridge before Cromdale, on the A95 seem to do that. I've pulled that trick off many a time.

An acquaintance of mine had a bike fucked up with sugar in the tank. To be fair, he deserved it, but maybe it was the gravity feed what made the difference. Fuel tank,tap and carbs needed stripped and cleaned, the fuel lines went too, just to be sure.

And lastly: I've never pulled the fuse or wire out of a speed limiter, but the old MAN 7.5 tonners had some weird vacuum activation thing on their limiters. There was a way round it, but unfortunately, the throttle had a habit of jamming open! It was a bugger to get back off the floor, as I found out down the A9 on a Sunday afternoon, after some doddery old git crawled out of that 'House of Bruar' horror show right in front of me. A cursory lesson well learned.

[rml2345]

I think this one might be true but - sawdust in the gearbox?

 

Dunno if this is true or not either, but on the Channel 4 Series "Motoring Memories" one of the guys interviewed said it was cork in the gearbox as it compresses?

Sadly the tape that its on needs to be fixed...

[retrogeezer]

and if you flash your lamps twice at red traffic lights they'll change for you.

 

Am I wrong in thinking this does or did work on certain lights?? I always thought it was for emergency vehicles to get the lights to change in their favour. It certainly used to work on sets of lights where I used to live and happened far too often to be coincidence.

[Station]

Traffic lights mostly have those magnetic strips along the road approach (those X/diamond shaped lines of tar in the road).

Some have that headlight activated thing though, esp temp ones.

 

How about poached egg in the radiator! I remember them doing that on Brookside in the 80's.

[ashmicro]

Egg in the rad worked for me one morning in the Crapi 1.6 I had. Those were the days - a brand new Serck Marston rad was £20!

[Tayne]

.

[Rod/b]

Sticking a black rat sticker in your windscreen will immunise you from all traffic related police interest.

[nigel bickle]

Eggs in the rad works.

I smashed a huge hole in my rad in Monte Carlo (-outside the Casino) about 25 years ago -Knackered engine mounts in my Midget caused it to move into the rad.

The kitchens round the back gave me a packet of porridge & 6 eggs -which held- in 80 degree heat back to our campsite in St Trop (60 miles? ). Isopon provided a permanent cure.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I've set up a few sets of temporary traffic lights, you either set them on a timer or use the motion detector if fitted.

I think the fixed traffic lights at Cromdale and further up the A95 are on a timer as they're extremely unresponsive.

The headlight flashing business is a load of shite.

[Waderider]

Re. traffic lights - I'm a civil engineer so allegedly know about such things; they work by timer, infra red beam, or a car detecting metal strip in the ground. Flashing your lights at traffic lights is one step away from talking to plants

[Negative Creep]

Another vote for the egg technique, helped me fix a leaky sierra

[ayd]

apparently there was a 'fuse' you could turn round in GTE 16v's to give an extra 15bhp

[richardthestag]

apparently there was a 'fuse' you could turn round in GTE 16v's to give an extra 15bhp

 

Oh goody even more useless power to help you wear down the front tyres getting away from the lights and looking like a complete twat.

 

Most Fuxalls I like but not the 16v GTE

[Station]

apparently there was a 'fuse' you could turn round in GTE 16v's to give an extra 15bhp

 

That is true, but not a fuse. It was a relay that you had to rotate in the engine bay which differed between economy and performance (labelled A and .

The other Astras had the same, but it was for octane settings (95/98) - the GTE/GSi had a knock sensor so had this wired into the ECU. I doubt it was 15bhp though, or altered the performance in any way!

 

 

Turning the hazard light switch around in a mk1 Corsa disables either the immobiliser or unlocks the doors, I can't remember which, but it does work.

 

Flashing headlights would work against traffic lights with motion sensors, surely?

[barefoot]

I'd not heard the one about flashing your lights at traffic lights, but I tried it this morning at 11 sets of lights.

I got straight through one of them & the other 10 that I had to stop at, I didn't have to stop for as long as normal.

 

I suspect that proves it, or not

[AnthonyG]

I remember being told (this was in the trade in about '97) that you could get into a car by pointing a 'One for all' or similar universal TV remote control at someone locking their car with an early remote locking fob. The TV remote 'captured' the lock /unlock signal and then by pressing the 'on' button it would open the car. Is this bollocks or does it have any basis in fact?

[Tayne]

.

[dollywobbler]

I always thought the headlamps thing was a myth. If you open your car door and then close it, and the lights change, would you believe that opening your door made a difference? Regardless of whether you're flashing your lights, the motion detection will detect that you're there in your car. It doesn't really care about the lights.

 

Most of them are obviously on a timer, especially when there are three or four different routes under control.

[CreepingJesus]

If you open your car door and then close it, and the lights change, would you believe that opening your door made a difference?

 

There's a motion detector controlled junction, just along the road from here, where a side road feeds into a main A-road. Understandably, the A-road flow gets top priority. The motion detector is either a bit flaky, or not aimed very well, 'cos if you don't sit exactly in the right place, it takes forever to turn. Rolling the car forward (it's a downhill entry) on the brakes seems to work. As I found out, in frustration one day, so does opening the door. So, yes.

 

As Tim's said, there used to be a code grabber available, if you asked the right peeps; but afaik only for radio fobs. IR ones are much harder to 'grab' as the beam's more directional than a radio transmission. 'All-for-one' type universal remotes need to have a code keyed in to suit the devices they're to be used with, don't they? At least the last one I bought did. So I wouldn't think they'd be any good at 'grabbing' codes.

I recall Piranha releasing a rolling code module for their remote alarms, in the early-ish 90's ('cos the garage I was in at the time fitted them instead of the occasionally misbehaving VX ones), and the chaos caused when a couple got 'misaligned' by accident!

And as for the XE fuel adjuster thing: it wouldn't fuck your engine up, but it didn't make any discernible difference either. If all the urban legends about those engines were stacked up, there'd be about 50-60 free bhp in there!

[ashmicro]

I remember being told (this was in the trade in about '97) that you could get into a car by pointing a 'One for all' or similar universal TV remote control at someone locking their car with an early remote locking fob. The TV remote 'captured' the lock /unlock signal and then by pressing the 'on' button it would open the car. Is this bollocks or does it have any basis in fact?

 

 

Worked on my 1994 R8 Rover, which had infrared fobs. I had one of those Casio calculator/TV remote watches, which could "learn" by pointing the fob at it. I could lock and unlock the car with my watch, very James Bond.

[CreepingJesus]

^ kwalitee.