So, how did your first car die?

[Felly Magic]

MG Metro 1300 in metallic green, dog ran out in front of me, slammed all on, car went sideways, clipped a kerb, went airborne and cleared an 18 insh high wall, landed in a garden, car had very minor damage to the suspension, but I didn't trust the car, so bridged it! Coppers attended the scene, and one handed a fiver to the other, and said 'told you it would be a Metro'. 

[fred]

1986 - Passed my test a week before , and I had the mighty 2300 Victor FE ........ Until I discovered in rush hour traffic in pouring rain the Brakes on a BMW 5 series were greatly better than mine as I rammed him and continued to push him into a Montego ..... Bummer

[MiniMort]

Ok, so I can’t drive yet but an interesting car death in my family was the 1959 BMW Isetta 300.

 

It was my great grandmothers first car but my grandad had limited use of it when he was fixing his 1950 Land Rover. Once, when travelling along the M1 a trucker signaled to him to pull over and upon doing so he noticed that the rear wheel had detached due to the speed. A paint job and eight years of ownership later my family sold it to then (around a year later) find it in the newspaper as it spontaneously caught fire... and that was the Isetta

[stuboy]

back in 1993 i bought fiat 128 cl SGU483X, 250 quid, jazzed up with spotlights and white weeler wheels, caned it everywhere, wouldnt die, changed engine and gearbox for a lower milage, i upgraded to a fso polonez, and kermit (it was green) was sold to grass track racer

[2MB]

A Rover 213S, one elderly owner from new, 50 odd thousand miles, £220 on eBay. It had been used to trundle to the shops a couple of times a week all its life and the first time it went on a motorway it just died. The engine had literally never been revved. It started back up and got the everloving fuck thrashed out of it for a year and about 12,000 miles. I leaned the basics working on it and went all over the place. It had lived in a garage all its life and the weather protection was similar to sitting under a tree in winter when it rained, which probably contributed to the increasing resemblance of the floorpan to a pile of bran flakes. Just about broke even when it went back on eBay, I think it was scrapped soon after.

[warren t claim]

I sold my first car on so I've no idea how it died but here's a pic of me doing my first ever engine swap on the first car I killed, a '68 Hillman Hunter.

 

I'm the one second from left looking like an Eros Centre rent boy back in 1987.

 

 

 

And how did I kill it? It punched a hole in the side of the block after I childishly played with the timing.

[Talbot]

It punched a hole in the side of the block after I childishly played with the timing.

"What happens if I just twist this..." "BANG" "Oh. That happens."

 

Not really on topic for this thread, but I've no idea where else to tell this story, and it relates to a first car, just not my first car:

 

I had a bit of a reputation as being "the one who can do mechanicy stuff" when I was in my late teen years, so everyone always used to come to me with their issues, faults and (more relevantly) their desires to fit fugging massive driving lamps, fugging massive wheels, or in this case, a NOS kit. To a MK2 Fezza XR2i.

 

I spent several hours fitting the kit that this "friend" supplied, did a fairly decent install: Fitted the NOS bottle in the boot, ran piping etc.etc. Once I'd got it installed, I set the little dial to the lowest setting and got the flows balanced correctly so the additional fuelling and NOS supply were about right. Even on that lowest setting it had a bit more urge and felt a bit quicker.

 

I gave the owner strict instructions to only turn it up in teeny tiny increments, and if he started to hear pinking, to back it off a bit again, then come back to me so I can re-balance it to see if that helps. "yeah, ok Dave, gotcha", and off he blats. Didn't see him again that day, or for a few days thereafter. Untill I pass his house, and see the XR on his parents' drive with an oil slick under it. Turns out he'd immediately wacked it straight up to maximum, because NOZZZZZ YO! it had dumped about +100BHP's worth of unbalanced NOS/Fuel in, and the engine had thrown a rod.

 

Twat.

 

He bridged it not long thereafter. Or rather he asked me to brige it, so I ripped the NOS kit back off it and flogged it to someone else before bridging it.

[gigglepin]

My first car..MK1 escort estate..left me one piece ..with  different colour tailgate . after i backed it into landrover and a decent engine,, after mine died on the way to hereford.. the yoof that bought it off me then blew the engine up whilst driving like  a twat

[motorpunk]

Drove through a flood and drowned it. RIP, Mazda. 

[Floatylight]

First car MK3 escort A plate, got it at 6 yrs old to the day, 99k miles, already been resprayed once and needed doing again. Ran it for almost 2 years and px for an Astra, when salesman asked me how much I wanted I told him £800 which was really cheeky as it had holes in the wings and the gearbox was knackered, salesman said in condescending manner "no need to through it away cos your bored of it sonny" and offered £1200, hands shaken, collected a couple of days later, as I was signing the paperwork the garage owner gave the keys to my escort to one of his staff to take home for the night, sitting there while he filled in the paperwork I could see the lad desperately trying to find first and keep reversing inch by inch towards the showroom window. Next morning got a call from the furious garage owner demanding I bring his car back as I had misled them over the condition of my p/x, my dad took the phone and told them to get bent... Was taxed for another 6 months then I assume it got bridged... Lol

 

Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

[red5]

Mk1 Cortina 1500 4dr HVJ669E

 

Aeroflow with a very breathed on pre-crossflow. In a rotten shell. 

 

Grimley Gravel pit (banger track) - the Lotus rims/fast bits lived on fitted to a Corsair,

[Andy F]

I bought my first car, an 1987 AX11RE for £50 in 2001 and another for £60 shortly after and made one good car between them before weighing the other one in.

 

I used it for about 4 years, up and down to Swansea from Gloucester and Bath to visit my then girlfriend (now wife). It was brilliant, with the carb set up properly it was really lively and weighed nothing. On OHs last day at uni I went down to move her back into her mums place back in Gloucester. Loaded up to the rafters on a swelteringly hot day (not just for Wales) and drove everything home. Still running brilliantly, journey completed successfully.

 

Next day, I set off for Bath from Gloucester to retrieve my belongings from uni and it made it 2 miles from home before the catastrophe light came on (no temperature gauge, just a light for when it's already too late) Oil everywhere, end of the road.

 

Sad times, I then bought a 1993 Rover 218SLD Turbo, but regret not repairing the AX and still miss it.

[HH-R]

I had a V reg K11 Micra in late 2006. The car was *just* 7 years old, the equivalent of having an 11 plate nowadays so it shouldn't have been shite... but what a POS it was!

 

It had already failed an MOT on brake pipes and excessive chassis corrosion at the front, it only lasted another MOT with me with welding needed to an area close to a rear seatbelt and to a suspension mount. The front crossmember was like Weetabix and pretty much gone on the road facing bit.

 

It drove weirdly, like there was a huge dead spot dead centre on the steering wheel and it would swing left or right by about ten degrees without changing course. Think that was related to the shock absorbers because I got it fixed.

 

It was absolutely boggo spec, basically a radio and PAS. 5 door and no cental locking, so passengers would leave at least one door unlocked all the time. No one nicked it though, sadly.

 

For some reason it popped brake bulbs on an almost daily basis and the front headlights would go all cyclops until you pulled up and pushed the connections back on.

 

Not really the car's fault, but it had had a tap up the bum and the painted tailgate had gone half Vauxhall pink, there was a swimming pool in the boot too.

 

By 67k miles the gearbox was absolutely shagged... first and second almost impossible to select and it whined like hell above about 20 MPH. I paid the then boyfriend of an aunty who worked in a scrapyard to supply and fit a second hand 'box, he claimed he did the work but the replacement gearbox had suspiciously identical issues to the one that came out... turned out he was the compulsive liar about not just that, the bastard.

 

I was a skint just out of time apprentice, so that was the death knell for the Micra and it was part exed against a Rover 45 which after breaking down and having HGF in the first fortnight, went on to serve me well.

 

I part exed it in 2008, amazingly it lasted another 5 years and to 114k+!

 

I do like a K11 though, they are enjoyable little things to drive. My Mother's W reg mk2 Punto felt like something designed ten years later (which it almost was), but wasn't anywhere near as fun to drive.

[adw1977]

The first car I actually owned was a knackered Peugeot 309 that overheated if driven at less than 40mph for more than five minutes.

 

With days left on the MOT it died on the way to the bridge. It appeared to sense that the end was nigh and blew its head gasket spectacularly while trying to drive up Westerham Hill to the scrapyard. AA membership came in useful, they towed it the rest of the way to the yard.

[Dan_ZTT]

I might've posted this photo before but this seems like the right place for it...

 

It was the car I passed my test in and although it was shared with my mum and insured in her name for money reasons, it was only me that ever drove it. Had over a year of trouble-free motoring (including a few months on L-plates) up until a spectacular blowout at 70-ish in the middle lane of the M4 on the way home from Reading Festival 2005... I held it on the road for a few seconds before it skidded sideways and rolled over into the greenery. Had two passengers, not a scratch on any of us, more by luck than Rover design I suspect. Still vividly remember opening the door and stepping out onto the windscreen.

 

 

Never thought about the car much at the time, I wasn't really 'into' cars as such at that age, I just loved it for the freedom of getting around and seeing my friends, but now I look back rather fondly on the thing. The succession of corsas and polos I shared with the family over the next few years certainly weren't a patch on it in terms of being interesting, they were merely functional. Here's a picture of it in happier times, I think probably the day we got it;

 

 

I'd quite like another at some point, when I've actually got room for a second car anyway.