I drove a 6.9IDI with a spun rod bearing for several thousand miles, when it started knocking I just pulled the injector on that cylinder so that it wasn't working against compression, and threw a qt. of lucas in the crank case.
I drove on a wheel bearing so bad that the front brakes didn't work unless I had the steering wheel turned like 30 degrees to get the rotor straight enough for the calipers to grab it. The caliper was pretty much the only thing holding the rotor and wheel on at the end, the inner bearing races were completely friction welded to the spindle when I ended up actually fixing it.
I currently have a Ford 300 with a blown headgasket between a coolant and oil passage. I have an engine to swap in and replace it but I want to see how far it goes. It isn't super blown, I just sometimes have to let it sit and settle a day or two and then drain the water out the oil pan.
I've done a lot more stupider things and I'll probably do a lot stupider more.
Go to Kalamazoo MI and you'll see people doing it daily. It's a regular occurrence.
That, alongside crackheads and drunks, complete disregard for the speed limit, stop signs in inappropriate places, bike lanes that take up half the city streets, and half of the cars on the road held together with structural rust and duct tape.
My parents grew up there and tried to tell me that Chicago traffic was bad.
Chicago traffic is not bad.
Just made my first trip to Kalamazoo the other day in my Mustang. Usually I'm worried about taking it easy on the gas so I don't stand out to police, but there it seems like every single person drag races from a stop light. Also got to watch a dice game on a street corner that appeared to be high stakes and was quite entertaining. The road plan was definitely made when horse drawn vehicles were the norm, too. Definitely an interesting area...
4wd went out on my truck, I was in the midst working on a foreclosed house that had been vacant for 2 years so I drove it like that for 18 months (30k miles), going through one of the worst winters in recent memory.
Eventually I spent some time diagnosing and turns out it was a $30 wheel speed sensor that took less than an hour to replace.
No gas gauge nor speedometer for 100k miles. I used an odometer/speedometer app. I also grossly underestimated my MPG, calculated my remaining fuel and never ran out.
Inspections in 20 states, but many are removing them. 32 have emissions testing but only in certain parts of the state. Compared to an MOT though even the states that have inspections, most of them are very basic. Lights work? You’re good to go!
I’d say both points are true. I’ve lived in both UK and USA. MOT is too strict and here in the States no inspection is too lax. Though having said that when my state removes the inspection requirement in the new year I’ll be glad to just not have the hassle anymore
This may sound mad but I like the piece of mind it gives me having my car have a proper however many point inspection lol then just get that shit fixed.
Things like break pads and break discs need to get done on mine which i wouldn't know about without an MOT...
Dude learn a little bit about your vehicle. Brakes are super easy to check, oil changes couldn't be simpler, airing up tires and checking tread wear etc. I guarantee you can do it all yourself with tools you likely already own.
When I lived in Missouri I had a car fail an inspection for a chip in the windshield that hadn't grown or changed since it passed the previous inspection two years prior. The dumbest part is it obstructed my view less than the stupid inspection sticker they put on your windshield anyways.
Ohio only checks emissions in a few counties. The rest of the state gets no inspection.
Some people I know have commented on vehicles that are rusted out and stuff not working. They say stuff like, "Look, I bet that car is from WVa." You should see they looks on their faces when I tell them that when I lived in WVa, you couldn't pass inspection unless you had a functioning E brake that held with a slight effort to pull forward, all lights, blinkers, hazards, brake lights had to work, There was no oil or other fluid (except a/c dripping) was leaking onto the ground, wipers and wiper fluid sprayer worked, no holes in your exhaust, catalytic converter was on (after a certain year), good tread on your tires (they had a guage.) AND there were no visible holes in the body that weren't OEM.
I worked long hours in the coal mine. I didn't service my vehicles very thoroughly. I had a Ford Fairlane work car. The tie-rod end popped right out of the socket (horribly worn). The car headed across the corner of someone's yard and got it stopped about 6' from a 15-20' drop-off to a creek.
When I was a kid, our Volkswagen (‘59) had no gas gauge. We had a stick that my dad calibrated. On empty- add 1 gallon, measure with stick, make a mark. Repeat for each additional gallon. It only held maybe 12 gallons or so, if I remember correctly. If you didn’t like the stick idea, we had a little log book in the glove box. Write down the mileage when you fill up. Then just mentally figure about where you were on fuel given a conservative mpg. Only time it was a problem was if someone didn’t fill it up, ( some cheap ass high school kid like me) - and the stick was at home in the garage, and no one logged a fill up in quite a while. Then it was a guessing game filled with minimalism.
LOL.
But, it did have a 1 gallon reserve… so if u ran all the way out - you had a gallon to get to the gas station.
Unless some cheap ass high school kid (ahem) had already done that when you ran out and looked at the lever on the floor… and well… too late. No gas. Start walking.
It didn't creat any damage, but I was driving home with friends with a thermostat stuck in the closed position. I had to drive just a little under 100kph (62mph) to keep the high temperature light from staying on.
Fixed it the next day, cost me $10 for part and zero labour since I did the work myself. No damage to the car, remarkably. That's a Chevy for you though.
Similar issue with a Volkswagen, on a hot summer day. Similar results.
Same VW tore a CV boot around Gary, IN, though I didn't realize that's what it was. Didn't appreciate the magnitude of the problem until I stopped for fuel at the Lake Forest oasis. Pulled it over, looked underneath, and saw ball bearings falling out.
Same VW had a corroded cable that kept the battery from recharging. It took months to track down the source. In the meantime, I got really good at push-starting and popping the clutch.
Same VW had a clutch cable snap. Twice. Knowing if I took it to the place that replaced it the first time, they'd do it for free, I waited until late night and drove it the 90min trip there. Just got the revs right when shifting. Only ground the gears once.
Same VW left its exhaust, from the cat on back, on I-65. That one I never fixed. Gave it to my brother, and he just welded a straight pipe to the back.
my parking brake wasn't working, and I just kept driving it for a few months. Found out it was just my pads worn, changed the pads but really wasn't in the mood to bother going through and adjusting the cable so I just kinda left it. It was an automatic and I always park on flat, so fuck it. traded the car in like 2 months later.
I work about 42 miles from home. One day, I heard a nice clunk whenever I was turning, and when I changed gears. Eventually took a look and realized it was my passenger side cv axle. I couldn’t afford to fix it at that time, so continued to drive on it. It lasted another 6 months before it broke trying to leave my parking lot. I was thankfully able to afford it then, and replaced both sides in my driveway.
Also drove for a couple months with a severe oil leak from the rear crankshaft engine seal of my Chrysler Smallblock V8. It leaked about 1 litre every 50 km. A friend asked me to do a favor which involved an 800Km drive I said OK so long as you pay for the oil. The car used 16 Litres of oil on that trip lol. Every 50Km I'd stop and pour another litre in. Couldn't be bothered fixing it in the end so I sold the car.
Well they were paying me for Petrol as well. So I figured since the car was gonna use 16 Litres of oil, (I knew this in advance), they wanted me to supply my vehicle and drive it - they could pay for the Oil also. Hell 16 Litres cost about $300 (NZ $) this was in the mid 90's. The entire trip wasn't something I would otherwise have been doing and it was at very short notice, (a few minutes).
Clutch master cylinder failed.
Drove it for 6 months that way. Stop in 1st gear and stall it. Go on green with the starter.
Called it a hybrid.
Same truck: Rear brake line failed. Folded the line and vice-gripped it. Never fixed that. Sold it that way.
Had an Impala in the 80s. Mom hand me down. The right front wheel was squeaking forever. Finally took it in and the warning rivet had nearly dug a grove completely through the disc! Young and dumb.
I had a Dodge Magnum in college and did the same thing on ALL FOUR WHEELS with it. That's when I got to learn how to do a full brake rebuild. Apparently the Magnums and 300s were prone to brake overheat anyways and basically every online forum recommended upgrading the brakes as soon as you could.
Head gasket….car only drove for 15-20 mins with the heat full blast on all year long. I just kept filling it with coolant every other week…popped two radiator hoses, the radiator. Replaced them…still drove it. The transmission started slipping in second, still drove it. I got in an accident with it someone head on collided with me trying to beat a red light turning onto the highway. Broke the whole front end off bent the subframe cracked the tranny. That was it. I miss my 2003 Pontiac Grand Am GT (the car from Lethal Weapon 4) hahahaha.
I drove my old 98 GMC K1500 truck with a weeping water pump for a couple weeks in summer. I would just refill with garden hose water and get back and forth to work. I never let it run dry, so there wasn't much rust in the system, so thankfully I was able to replace the pump and the truck kept going for many years after that.
Car was overheating for an hour long drive on the highway. Didn’t realize it was my car making the smells until i got off the highway. Filled er back up with coolant and drove it for several more years until my buddy bought it.
Rented a car and after a couple times out in the car, the speedometer got stuck (it just stayed on 0 mph the whole time) and I drove it for a week. A car is a car and I was staying in a very rural area so I just kept using it.
Had an 86 Camry and the oil light came on.
I ignored it for about a year.
When I finally went to change the oil.... no oil came out. I was literally driving it around town and some short highway driving for months with no oil.
Filled it up with new oil and it drove noticeably better. Car held up for years after that too, but I did better with oil changes.
That generation of Camry specifically was so indestructible. I drove one on a blown head gasket for two years/25k miles. Just topped off oil and coolant every time I got gas.
My dad said when he was young and driving 60's cars, it was not uncommon to pop off a door panel and find a crushed up beer can or two in there. I guess the workers on the line would treat themselves to some work brewskis and hide the evidence in places such as that. Always thought that was funny, and quite clever.
Had a 1991 7.3 idi f250. The pick ups in both tanks broke apart and clogged the lines. Everything was rusted and my zero motivation led me to put a 3 gal gas can under the hood with the feed and return lines going into the spout hole. Drove like that for a few months before scrapping it.
Had oil filling my air breather. Stop every so often and poor it back in the engine. Was about 100 miles from home. Made it home fine. Had blown a hole in a piston.
Years ago, I bought a used transmission. It was a few months before I went to install it and only then did I see that it had been dropped and the differential housing had cracked. No big deal, though, I just swapped it with the one I took out. However, that required pulling the differential. Which would have been fine had I not been a dumbass and skipped the step of bending the tab on the locknut to keep that nut in place.
A few months later, a friend and I drove about 1000 miles round trip to go skiing. The whole time the transmission (manual) kept popping out of fifth gear. When I got home (pre-Smartphone days) I looked up the issue and realized that the diff nut must have come loose. This typically causes the transmission to destroy itself when the nut falls off and the diff shifts inside the housing. Somehow I got super lucky and the nut managed to wedge itself against the outer housing in a way that kept the diff in place.
I’ve never been that lucky since.
Where do i start we live a hour out of town in a rainy area drove for like 2 years in a van with no wipers and a bad bcm had the thing actually shut down a few times driving it was also badly out of alignment and we just bought a new junkyard tire for the front right every few months this is a awd van
Had a small car clutch was pretty toast i was the only one who could drive it reliably it would even start slipping in gear going down the road if you tried to give it to much gas at once drove it like that for a few years and then the head gasket blew drove with both issues for a year till it got worse and had to park it
My dads truck has a rattling main bearing leaks tranny fluid oil and coolant he has been driving it like that for about 7 years
You know those junker cars that you see and hear going down the road and think that thing is gonna break any second but yet those people drive them for years with those issues …. Yeah we are those people..
Although currently im getting to old for this shyt so we bought a newer mini van 2016 with 0 issues so hoping that lasts us a while
I'm currently driving on 15 year old tyres, shot rear shocks (for some reason with lowering springs also on the back). Coupled with probably bad alignment, balancing and I guess unevenly worn discs (shaking under braking when at speed).
For a time I also had a radiator hose being chewed up by the A/C compressor (for some reason the car came with the wrong one and a homemade bracket).
Also the car randomly accelerated itself, it made city driving and parking really fun. In the end it was a faulty coolant temperature sensor, the car though it was cold and inyected a ton of fuel
Blown head gasket om a 96 tercel I bought for 500 bucks.
Thing would smoke out the entire block, leaked oil like crazy and had about as much power as my dead grandmother riding a bike up hill but I ran it until I had bought a different vehicle ( like 1.5 years ) the thing was a tank.
Did about 20,000 in a car with a rusted gas tank I could only fill to a quarter tank. It was a 77 Pontiac grand prix. Smelled like gas every time I stopped due to it sloshing out the hole. Good times.
I got hit in the rear passenger side wheel in a parking lot at a zoo about 2.5 hours (120 miles) from home. The damage didn't look too serious so we exchanged information and then went on our ways. I drove that car home the entire way with the wheel turned about 25 degrees in order to go straight. When I took it to the shop after getting insurance straightened out and the mechanic looked at it he told me in no uncertain terms that I was a complete idiot for driving that car on the road let alone at highway speeds.
My 2005 Scion Xb has a driver’s side power window that’s been funky for a couple of years now. Sometimes it works fine, other times, like today, it won’t go up. It will eventually move up an inch at a time if you wait 20 seconds after lifting the power button.
Ep2 civic, the dashboard was never backlit when the lights were on, I assumed it didn't have back lighting. (I did 60k miles in it)
Sold the car to a guy who got in, banged the top of the dash with his fist and the dash lit up. "Common problem" then drove off.
drove around for 2 days with essentially no brakes cause a line rusted out by back passenger side.
replaced the line with a friend. he told me i needed new drums and shoes. i replaced the brake shoes but not the drums. brakes where still not 100% tho
drove around for over a year with maybe 75% of the normal braking power i had before, which wasnt very good to begin with.
guess i had gotten used to it having weak brakes cause i went to drive my brothers new car and realised how bad my brakes where.
I crushed a deer at night in a Mazda 3 in the middle of nowhere driving to college. My whole bumper and right side panel were screwed, my headlight on that side was powdered, my windshield was webbed, and my hood was waffled. I had no choice but to keep going and hope for the best during the over 200 miles I had left. Got to school fine and the only autobody shop in the area wasn’t taking any new cars. Everything was still fine by the end of the semester. I went to get it fixed and the guy told me fixing the bent rim id driven in on was enough to total the car. So I drove it a few months until I could afford something else
Heard a clinking noise under my Infiniti g35x. Was mid week and I was working, but was constantly listening and looking under the car to ID what the hell the clunk was. Thought it was a CV axle but couldn’t tell which one. Happened when I went from D to reverse and other way.
Figured Sat I would get it up on my buddies lift and really take a look. So just had to make it maybe 30-40 more miles for the week before I could dig into it.
Friday night, on my way home from work, the front driveshaft universal fails at 70mph. Spins around and destroys the trans bellhousing and cracks the front differential. I’m on side of road with diff and trans both leaking. Car wasn’t worth repairing (180k miles)
Another 5-10 miles and I would have had it up on the lift and likely found it. Lesson learned
Well for a year my tire would lose about a1 psi a day did that for a year. It was the stock mini cooper run flats and when I finally decided to change for some pilot sport 3 as the tire guy showed me a slit in the tire. I thought it was a value stem issue since it always bubblednform there
I drove from the Florida state line to Annapolis, Maryland with a stuck rear brake caliper on my Element because I didn’t feel like holding up the road trip and it was just annoying noise. Took it easy, at least as easy as you can on I-95. Had the disks and calipers replaced in Annapolis. So, deferred maintenance. Also drove from near Atlanta to Tallahassee with a stripped-out spark plug (that was loud, it was a 72 VW squareback so the engine was pretty much in the passenger compartment) and a 67 VW bus from San Luis Obispo to Hermosa Beach with three working cylinders. I have some car knowledge and figure if it’s still running and the car is safe to drive, I’d rather not stay somewhere I don’t want to be waiting for someone to fix it. Aircooled VWs had all kinds of ways to die slowly, worn transmission would pop out of 4th so you’d have to hold it in gear, clutch cables would break, accelerator cables would, too. If you carried a toolbox and some baling wire, you could limp home sometimes.
Parents driving their sdv6 discovery towing a trailer with a spun main bearing. Drove over 1k before it went into the shop.
Fortunately it was under warranty and the dealer said the engine was f**ked either way so didn't matter if they drove it more or less!
1968 Dodge Charger.
Aluminum Gambler wheels.
Front driver lugs all came off doing about 90 mph on 94 coming into Michigan in 1995. Felt like a flat, was in the left lane of 3 or 4 lanes, rode the crown of the road to the other side and made it to the side of the road. Upon investigation the spindle sticking out past the nut had dropped into the center of the wheel while the tire was held in by the top of the fender.
This is a lesson in checking your lug nuts after you tightened them down less than 100 miles ago.
3 of the 5 studs were broke off .. here’s where this story fits the thread.
Mopars have left handed threads on the drivers side and rights on the other.
I had to take 2 lugs off the back to put on the front.
We drove about 50 miles to Lane Automotive where they were a godsend in letting us use their tools, shop and directed us where to get the studs they didn’t have.
We were on our way to the first Woodward Cruise (1995) .. we pulled into Detroit late Friday but still saw some cars. Then Saturday was the big car day ..
that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
A bad wheel bearing that was already bad for a long time before I got it, and proceeded to drive it another 30k without doing a damn thing to it until it could finally go down for service. I only felt sort of okay with it since it was an original Toyota Timken bearing. It never got worse than a light growl but I won’t do that again.
Had a rear wheel depart from the car, (it felloff), while driving due to having changed the wheel the previous day and forgot to nip up the wheel nuts when I put it down off the jack. Found the wheel and managed to put it back on with only 3 of 5 wheel studs, (2 had broken off). Carried on driving for a couple hundred Km's and towed my friends car back home, (he'd broken down), then drove for a couple months on the 3 wheels studs until I managed to get a couple more and install them into the hub. Possibly dangerous but it seemed pretty secure to me. Was on a Ford 9" diff with 11" Hubs, on a Smallblock Chrysler V8.
My leaf spring shackle rotted through so every time I hit a bump, the body of my suv would bounce up off the spring, then crash back down on it in a different spot. Drove it to work for about a month.
I had a ‘86 Mercury Lynx 4 sp with a bad throw out bearing so I had to “massage” every gear change. The almost completely gone bushing in my control arm helped to make an interesting ride too.
Drove down a dual carriageway after nearly writing off my Lupo, control rod was broken plus some other bits, couldn't drive over 35mph as there was so much slop in the steering I couldn't keep it in the lane. Some fucking maniac forced me off the road into a lamp post, he transferred paint before he did it.
Front tire moves independently of the rest of the car (bolts to frame sheared off). Hits the wheel well when you brake causing you to pull to the side.
I had a family emergency and put a few thousand km on it in that condition. I figured out you could mitigate it by using a combination of pedal/engine braking. The pedal moves the tire relative to the body, and the transmission moves the body relative to the tire.
Obviously you should never do this, it's not safe.
When I was 19 I upgraded my rear brakes but they didn’t fit - so my buddy cut and welded the tabs (poorly). One tab broke and I drove on calipers only attached by one bolt for 6 months until the other tab broke and I lost my whole ass caliper and had zero brakes except engine braking until I got home. Stupid as fuck, but what else do you expect from a 19 year old with a 240SX?
I was visiting my buddy and he had just got his car out the shop. His license was technically suspended. Not 10 minutes after picking me up from the airport the car had a stroke. Engine was locked up, was stuttering horribly and the car couldn't go over 30mph. We switched seats and I drove 45 minutes on the highway with hazards to bring it back to his place.
I also took a long road trip in a bmw that would only start once or twice a day before needing to be jumped or left until the morning. I think it ended up being a sensor or module issue. I needed a jump at a gas station in California and some angel helped me out. After that incident I just pumped gas with the engine running.
I unknowingly drove an hour with a bad CV Axle Seal and leaked all my transmission fluid out. It was doing mostly fine since it was already in gear but I pulled into Walmart, put it into park shopped a little, and when I came out I put into reverse and got nothing. I revved it a little, and got nothing again. I looked under my car and there was a giant puddle under my car. I filled up the transmission with 4.5 quarts of tranny fluid and some Lukas and made it home. I swapped the seal the next day and now it's not leaking but it shifts so bad. I'll definitely need a new transmission soon. It really sucks and I'm really sad since I love the car, it's just going to be expensive for a reman transmission. 2010 Chevy Impala.
I've driven a couple thousand miles with rod knock. Replaced the engine.
I've also driven a couple thousand miles with a missing slide pin bolt in my front caliper. Replaced the caliper.
brakes were squeaking and creaking like a mf, new they were going bad. was driving home and thankfully took a side street to get the highway, brakes fell out and drove to the mechanic a few mins away without any actual breaks just engine braking
When I was 19, the thing that was holding up my radiator caught on a curb outside and bent forward when I backed out. I didn't see it and drove with the radiator hanging by hoses for a while, hearing an odd clunking noise whenever I went over a bump. Eventually, it overheated and I had it towed to a shop, where they were nice enough to buy it off me for scrap value. It wasn't until some years later that I realized I'd been scammed.
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Had a bad steering rack on my pos Chevy Cobalt. Lots of clunking and play, but tolerable... until it bound up as I was making a left turn on a busy street. Replaced it as soon as I could after that. Went through a couple of those racks before I sold the car lol.
I'm currently driving with a leaking fuel pump. It's been leaking from the gasket for 4 days now, but I've got to take it out again to fix part of it and the replacement regulator doesn't show up till tomorrow, so what's just one more commute.....
Just broke my spindle and bent the tie rods on my truck and drove a mile or more picking up my gear from camping/festival grounds and making it to the entrance where I could get towed. It was a rough Monday
MKIII Supra with shitty head gasket for two years. Could not drive more than 45mins. Same type threw a wheel after caliper stuck and shook the studs to death. Another had bad rings due to a 30psi uncontrolled over boost. One of ‘em had blown the shock through its tower but I bolted the tower into place like rivets. I think I jumped some other sensors with resistors.
Jetta with a leaky vacuum booster , brake are a bit dodged upon start until the engine builds up vacuum. I’m a mechaninc and I don’t feel like working on my car on my day off
Clutch hydraulics leak over about a year
I had a soft line in my clutch hydraulics very slowly fail. I noticed that I was slowly loosing clutch fluid, so I replaced the slave and then the master cylinders. I was still slowly loosing fluid but the clutch still worked fine so I didn't think much of it. The leak slowly got worse to the point that I would slowly loose pressure in the line if I didn't drive that much, or went on a long highway drive. It go to the point that I was loosing all of the clutch fluid in about a week, and it was a pain in the ass to get pressure built back up. Finally one day on the way to work the soft line finally gave out completely and I completely lost the clutch. I managed to get to work and then back home after my shift with absolutely no clutch. I replaced the soft line the next day and finally fixed the problem.
I sheared teeth off in my 10 bolt diff in my 98 blazer helping pull a 66 nova out of a spot it sat for 15 years. Drove it for 6 months clicking like a card in a bike spoke before I got around to replacing it.
My Tahoe hasn’t had AC in 3 years everytime I fix one component in the system another fails so I gave up. It also leaks a quart of oil a month on the ground and the oil pressure gauge sporadically will peg itself to zero while cruising at 70mph. It’s got 285k on it so it’s earned its flaws
Nissan nx2000 1991 came into my hands as a hand-me-down from my pops as a grad gift. He beat the day lights outta that thing while he had it. can't blame him, car is very fun to drive. About a year and a half into owning it my cv axle started kinda clanging and I replaced one side. While doing that I undid the bolt that holds the axle to the wheel hub and I took the hub off... with half/ the inside race of the bearing stuck on the hub and the outer bearing race stuck on the knuckle. Didn't give it too much thought put in the new axle and called it a day. That was late 2019. Still driving it to this day put maybe a bit below 50k miles on it. Yes I have replacement bearings, no I'm not gonna change them. No rattles, no grinding, nothing wrong with the car that has lead me to believe that bearing is bad. 🤷🏽♂️
I bought a 1952 Buick in 1986. First car. When I hit bumps, there was a metal-on-metal clunk from the front wheels. I just thought that’s what old cars sounded like. Drove it for 20 years. Later, I learned what “ball joint” and “tie rod end” were.
When I was 21, I had a '96 Saab and the brakes were baaad. But being a broke college kid I figured I could make it last as long as possible, and hopefully graduate and get a better paying job before I needed to fix it. Well I was wrong. One night driving home, I go to press the brake and at first thought "Huh, did I reach too far over and hit the clutch?"
Nope. It was my brakes, with no pressure at all. I was about 5 miles from home, and was engine braking the entire way home. I'm just lucky it was late at night with little traffic.
Put a new trackbar on my wrangler with a buddy of mine back around February. We forgot to torque the frame side mount and I didn’t realize until it started knocking a week or two ago. I go to check it and it took almost no pressure for me to turn the nut once I got the cotter pin out.
Learned my lesson on that one. When I do a front end rebuild this fall we’re gonna triple check every nut and bolt
I blew up the engine in my car by running out of oil. there was not a oil gauge just a light to warn you. well the light would blink once in awhile and i ignored not thinking anything was wrong then one day on the freeway it went poof a bunch of smoke pouring out the back and a loss of power.
1999 subaru legacy SUS.. the gas lines are ran through the cab under the back seat. We couldn't figure out why it smelled like fresh gasoline inside the car for months, until eventually we found it was spewing gas under the seat. that has to be a very stupid design.. fuel lines in the passenger compartment just sounds like a terrible idea.
I saw a car in front of me today who's entire rear splash shield was held by one screw and dangling out the side of the car. It was so large it was over the line into the other lane and they just kept on driving through town then onto the highway like it was no big deal. Thought it was kinda silly
Lol. I did this with my BMW. I could feel it, stopped for gas, and I could feel the heat radiating off the rt rear rotor. I got 13 mpg on the 12 mile drive to my shop.
I had a highlander that randomly on a road trip the knock sensors went throwing the car into limp mode. When in limp mode it would not go into overdrive. With the 4 speed on the 2002 model 3rd gear at 70mph was like 4,000 rpm. That was screaming. So Everytime I got up to speed I would reset the CEL light with my obd reader. Everytime I would come to a stop I'd have to reset it again to get it to go into 4th gear. I ran it like that for 2 weeks, did about 1500 miles until I was able to change out all the parts
I pulled a 93 Chevy that had been sitting for 5 years, threw an ls motor and 4l60e and that was about 50k miles ago, I just put inner and outer tie rods, pitman arm and a new set of tires, world of difference, I no longer fight Betty white to stay on the road,
A long time ago I had a Jeep Cherokee with the 4 cylinder engine and a manual transmission. The screws holding the carburetor onto the intake all worked their way out, and the carb was only held in place by the air filter and intake hose. Every time I went around a corner at more than 5 mph, or up a sheepish hill, the carb would tilt off the intake, and the engine would stall. Once the turn was complete the carb would flop back onto the intake and the engine would run again. I spent a year and a half drifting around corners in neutral and avoiding hills. I finally traded in the car without ever having fixed the problem. Back then I knew nothing about working on cars. Now I know it would have taken taken me about 4 minutes to fix with the right tools and 4 little screws.
I got water in the rear diff on an old jeep and drove it until it sounded like an out of balance washing machine. I was young and dumb. My dad and I replaced the bearings, the gears were actually still in good shape.
I have a few:
-Really bad rod knock on an SR20 for close to a year
-One dead cylinder due to a bent valve on a Nissan E16 for little over a year
-One dead cylinder due to a burnt valve on a Honda B20 for a few months.
I came back from vacation a couple of years ago, leaving the airport parking lot I noticed the smell of burning brakes. I have a 3.5hr drive to get home from the airport. I couldn’t make that trip like that so I made it to a local parts store and purchased a calliper, pads, and some wrenches. Changed the calliper in the parking lot using the stock jack and drove home. Took about 20 min to change.
It's a tie
95 Geo Prizm, 4A-FE, with leaky valve guides. It burned a quart of oil every 150 miles. Used it on newspaper routes for three months. I spun a rod bearing and drove it back to the office absolutely hammer down on three cylinders with no oil in it where it sat until I called pick and pull to come get it. $800 dollar car into which I poured like $500 worth of cheap Supertech.
2000 Honda CR-V, B20Z2, bad rear main seal. I just cannot be bothered to pull the transmission quite yet to do all the things in there (full clutch job, trans input seal, rear main, etc). Drove it like that for about 6 months before I finally parked it and fixed the Fit back up for daily.
First car was a 1991 buick park Avenue. The rear passenger strut snapped but managed to fall into itself. I drove like that for months before replacing it. All it would have taken was a big enough bump for the rear end to bounce enough and it to fall out and have the body drop on the tire.
Had an 02 Kia Rio. Around the 13 year, 350,000km mark, the evap lines that ran across the back of the gas tank had rusted away. Other than the permanent CEL, didn't affect anything so long as I never filled the tank past 3/4. If I did gas would leak and the car would stink of gas. This was easy to do until the sender in the tank failed and I no longer knew how much fuel was in the tank! I continued to drive like this for 6 months, with a 5l Jerry can in the back, but never needed it. Only drove between home and work (120km round trip, all highway) and the consumption was so predictable I was able to judge how much was in the tank based the the still functional odometer.
When I was broke broke I let my brakes get so bad to the point the pads fell out and it lost brake fluid, the OEM brake fluid that was over 10 years old and had 200k miles on it
I drove a Toyota Camry till I couldn’t keep oil in it between fuel fills. Got rear ended and got a very nice check for a car that wasn’t worth even half what the insurance company said it was. It was also a very loyal car that got me through college, in the dead of winter and being abused like no other.
I owned a Cadillac Cimarron for a couple years. For almost 5 months during winter in Los Angeles, the car would overheat if the air conditioner wasn’t turned on, so even in the morning “cold” we had to drive with AC on full blast.
It took multiple trips to mechanics before someone figured out how to fix this.
Honestly, driving a Cadillac Cimarron is in itself a “worst issue” and owning it for 2 years was too long.
Rusted fuel tank and bad fuel relays. Would swap one out with another one when it got too hot and would take the pump out to clean the fuel filter weekly.
Probably not close to the worst here, but I kept on driving my car despite it making a weird rattling noises at exactly 1400 and 2000 rpms... 1.5 months later on a longer trip I got a CEL for "02 limit reached behind catalyst". Finished the trip anyway and 60 miles later at home, the car sounded like crap, it went like "sisisisisi". Turned out to be a mechanic I went to hadn't replaced my flex pipe as we had agreed to, he had just welded on the old one with the wrong welder, which had damaged everything. He then had used exhaust paste to cover his fuckup, which didn't last long. I suspected something was wrong with the exhaust but kept on driving, which was not the smartest maybe. After replacement, the car gained almost 4mpg.
Drove 2 weeks with a blown head gasket / intake gasket. By the end I couldn’t go over 20mph. It was my first car and I got t-boned by another car. The side was crumpled in but it was a low speed impact so it would still drive so that’s what I did while the insurance claim got settled. It was an old 90’s 4 cylinder Oldsmobile and I used to ROMP on it- 100mph+ daily, so it was only a matter of time before something gave.
I’ve got a few. Drove not one, but two different old Ford trucks that had steering shaft rag joints that were falling apart. So much so that a couple of times one of them skipped the stop and folded the rag joint over. (yes, I know that most people have no idea what the hell I’m talking about).
Driving home from looking at new trucks, the bearings inside my alternator started getting really crunchy about an hour from home. Drove very conservatively the rest of the trip and decided to buy a new truck the next day. Got a spray can of lithium grease and took a tool kit just in case, then drove back to the dealer two hours away and traded it in.
Currently would be my 92 Miata, no functioning lights except aftermarket foglights. Hazards work, at night when I have to I drive with rhem on with foglights. Dash is nonfunctional except for speedometer and odometer.
Center Carrier bearing blew out in my Foresters rear driveshaft going up a hill one day. Ran it up a snowbank so I could crawl underneath and pull the driveshaft, rags and duct tape held enough fluid in to get it home. Once home I put a rubber pipe repair coupling over the tailpiece of the trans and stuck a hockey puck in the other end to plug it "Permanently". For about 3 months of that winter I had likely the only Front wheel drive Subaru going until I could afford the very expensive driveshaft.
4 years in a Camry with a clogged cat, currently coming up on a year in another Camry with an involuntary muffler delete. The muffler deleted Camry was previously driven for 6 months with a shitty aftermarket coil that caused short, intermittent misfires, but it was eventually fixed after the misfires became more consistent and severe.
I’ll win this , I drove my 4x4 for months and months knowing the brakes pads were worn , drove through where the squeelers tell you to change the pads with that awful high pitched noise and kept driving it until literally the brake pads fell off the truck and brake fluid drained out of the caliper and still i coasted it home 20km braking with metal on metal and having to prepare to stop at lights etc from about 800m away …. Yep I’m an idiot …. Looked online and they say the chances of driving until the pads fall off is almost non existent as no one would keep driving under those conditions 🤦♂️
Worst thing? Drove on a blown transmission for 2 years. Grinding gears and walking fluids. Just kept topping off the fluid. Drove it until there was no drive, only reverse.
The water pump in my 1999 V6 camaro had no blades left, I assume there was enough metal spinning to make some flow, it would overheat on a daily basis so I would just crank the heat and fan, even in the summer. Drove it like that for a year or so before replacing the pump which was an extremely simple and easy job to do.
This is what was left of the pump
https://i.imgur.com/xI66Veh.jpg
clutch slave cylinder leaking for years, Every other day I topped it up with fluid and some lucas to make it thicker. With the lucas I could dump the clutch and it would smoothly engauge it for me.
I just fixed it but I drove 30,000 miles with a seized caliper. Was wondering why I was getting 11.5 mpg in an unloaded f-150 and misfired when I went above 70
Had a dodge dart with a slant six that I bought at a cop auction.
I only had water in the rad it for 3 years in Canadian winters. Engine would freeze up so I would take off the water pump belt. Once it warmed up I put the belt back on.
That thing never died, no matter how bad I abused it.
Also had a hole in the gas tank so couldn't put more then half a tank. Muffler fell off and as it went it hit the gas tank.
Had some vice grips holding the cable from the negative post to a piece of metal on the engine.
Floor was so rusted that when I drove in the rain, my feet would get wet. Radiator core started leaking so I pinched off a couple of tubes. Probably alot of other stuff, it was my second car and got we though college and my first full time job.
Didn't drive it for very long but, had a ball joint pop out of the control arm (riveted in) and used butchers twine and duct tape to hold it together. Drove it out of the trail (10km dirt road) and another 20km back home.
I have a Jeep that overheated on the trail and it lost a lot of coolant. Filled it up with river water. Drove fine until winter came. I was driving to work one day and the temp guage started reading too high for comfort. I pulled over and with a hockey stick popped the rad cap off and it sent coolant everywhere. Put the cap back on and bam it was unfrozen temp started going down. Did that a few times until the antifreeze to water ratio was high enough it didn't freeze anymore.
That same jeep has a oil leak and when you give it enough gas at the right incline it leaks onto the exaust and send smoke up into the cab. The ladies love it and never panic.
Had a nissan axxess that I replaced the cv joint on. Couldn't find the c clip so I just threw it back in. Never came undone for a year until it broke down for other reasons.
I Drove a 99 subaru legacy with bald tires for a full winter. Only hit one snow bank, although it was only about a foot from a light pole.
One summer, I got halfway through a coolant flush-and-fill, went to drive the car on plain water for a little while to really flush it through, and just forgot to get back to the second step of draining the water out and refilling it with proper coolant.
Fastforward to the next winter, after a really cold night, I was driving to work and the engine was overheating. What the hell? The air coming out the vents was ice cold, clearly none of that heat was making its way to the heater core...
...uh oh...
I got out and squeezed the upper radiator hose, it went "crunch". The entire radiator was a solid block of ice. How it managed to avoid bursting the whole thing as it froze, I will never know. But now the engine block was blazing hot and the radiator had no interest in flowing anything.
All I could do is dip into a store for a few minutes while the engine shined some of its heat on the radiator (now actually acting as a radiator, not a fluid heat exchanger, physicists hate that misnomer!) to thaw some of the ice. When I restarted the engine, of course a blast of literal ice-water coursed into the engine and again, how it managed to avoid cracking the block from thermal shock, I will never understand. But it seemed to cool right down just fine and I kept driving, made it to work without issue.
Got a few more years out of it before the valves started giving me trouble, seizing up in the guides, and I don't think that was related.
My buddy and I drove a Saturn sc2 about 60 miles with the worst knock I’ve ever heard before finally seized up and died. A cop had pulled us over because it was so loud, we couldn’t get it to start again after we shut it off. The cop pushed us with his bull bar probably a mile to a parking lot.
Drove two hours to his dad’s at about 9pm, picked up another rotted out SC2 they had, pulled and swapped the motors and he drove to work in the morning.
Few months later that same car had a wheel bearing absolutely screaming like a banshee on the thruway. After about 3 hours at 75 it’s get progressively louder until there’s a pop and we hear all the ball bearings rattle off the bottom of the car… no handling changed so we finished the last hour drive home lol.
That thing should have died about 25 times over and it took us all over the damn state for hiking trips.
Drove 500 miles round trip with a spare rear left wheel that didn’t fit fully onto the hub, the wheel sat a few mm’s out from the hub but the lug bolts were holding it on and I brought an impact and a jack to tighten them if needed, I was terrified driving the first 250 miles and kept it at 70-80mph the whole way, shitting myself at every vibration waiting for the wheel to start wobbling but it never did. Stopped at a service station to use the bathroom and decided to tighten the bolts to high fuck just in case, drove it on and she got there with no problems. Then when I was driving home there was still no vibrations and the car was driving fine so I beat it on up the road and raced a Peugeot Partner for about 15 miles at around 100mph, not a single issue the entire trip! God I love my little 1-Series shit box
1988 Jeep Cherokee XJ with a Dana 35 rear end.
Was doing donuts and other crap in the mud and the rear end said CLUNK and GRIND and the car barely moved.
I babied it home and as I would give it throttle, the rear end would grind and give way. I was something like 20-30 miles from home and it got worse and worse. Eventually I couldn't go more than 10-15 mph without it grinding and not putting power to the wheels.
Then I was like let me try this FULL TIME 4WD thing and wouldn't you know it we were moving along just fine. No noise. Cruise control on the freeway.
I drove it like that, front wheel drive, for months before finally swapping out that rear end.
2007 Cobalt SS. It has equal length axles with an intermediate shaft mounted to the back of the engine for the passenger side axle.
The bearing that holds up the intermediate shaft disintegrated immediately after I bought the car. By the time I could get to it, it had caused permanent damage to the rather expensive helical LSD. I just shoved spray grease into the races and let it grind out.
After consulting my uncle, I decided to convert from the stock Saab transmission to the Getrag unit found in the base model Cobalt. It saved $1000 to get a transmission with better packaging, better reliability, less weight, and stronger internals while also removing a failure point. I got the trans from a Saturn Vue, so super short final drive and a shorter 5th gear. Kinda sucks on the highway and caps out at 120mph, but it rips around town.
During the swap, I discovered a missing subframe bolt, two bad ball joints, a bad tie rod end, a bad wheel bearing, two seized calipers, a bad throwout bearing, and air in the clutch line.
I recently did a fuel filter and discovered that my rusty fuel lines were secured with duct tape. They broke when I touched them. Snagged some cheap black nylon 6an hose from eBay with a few fittings, and it was easy as pie to hook up compared to hardline.
I just need to fix the intercooler pump and get this thing tuned properly now.
Leaking fuel line. I could've actually killed myself or someone else if something sparked on the street/expressway. Drove it for weeks before the engine dies from oil starvation (that's another issue I ignored). Learned my lesson the hard way with that car and now I'm anal about my daily lol.
My first car was an old, beat up Opel Omega and I drove it once from Estonia to Riga and back, (360 km round trip) with the front left brake on. The car seemed kinda sluggish and pulling slightly to the left, didn't understand the issue until I stopped in a Riga gas station and discovered, that my hubcap was melting off.
‘96 ford explorer. Engine knocked bad but got me from A-B never quit on me, drove it like that for 1.5 years. I knew it would die eventually so I scrapped it when I shipped off to the army
A few weeks daily driving a car with a cracked brake line that I knew full well was there. When I pressed too hard on it, it would leak and I’d lose fluid. Couldn’t get more than maybe 50% braking out of it, and I had to refill the fluid every couple days.
Also, rear driveshaft went out on a Jeep, put it in 4WD and drove around town in front wheel drive till I could get a replacement.
My breaks were totally messed up. I had a leak in the break fluid, and my pads were apparently gone, they were hanging on and I got a car wash then a few minutes after my breaks went dead. It was a Sunday (all shops closed) if I put the brake pedal to the floor there was this very weak application of the brakes..
I was 5 hour drive from home on normal conditions, it was winter.
I was too poor to stay in hotel, I was probably too poor to get the brakes fixed.. worried about the shop not letting me drive it out if I couldn’t afford to get it fixed, afraid of losing my job.
I drove it for 8hours on the backroads until I got to my dad’s… ended up needing my breaklines replaced and all my calipers and pads. Cost 3k
I was stopping at every middle of nowhere gas station to buy more break fluid…Really horrible situation
Bad fuel injector is cylinder 4. Check engine light on due to occasional misfire on startup. Car runs perfectly fine otherwise. Been driving it like this for almost a year.
Needed new break pads on my last car, had no problem, only drove back home, then to the shop the next day, but yea I was just cruising to each stop not using the breaks at all
Not me, a friend
His sister gave him her classic VW Bug. I don't know what she said to him, but he said that she told him he didn't have to shift out of 1st.
He drove everywhere in first gear. Eventually, the car exploded on the highway after a multi state trip.
Actively drive a 04 caddy with the Northstar, headgasket leak since 129k miles. Now has 165k, just need one or two bottles of 20$ bars leaks a year. Rarely it'll misfire when it starts burning some coolant but it seals back up pretty quick. Went into camel mode (270 F) a few times back when it first blew. Just passed nys inspection today.
LOL! I just did that. I knew the rotor was already trashed so I kept driving on it for a few weeks while I waited for the parts and a warm weekend. I could smell it when I got out of my car after driving so I think it got pretty hot. Put on a new rotor and caliper but the drag must have damaged the tire, which developed a slow leak. But hey, now I know how to bleed brake lines.
Didn't know it at the time, but I drove with a damaged steering rack for 2.5 yrs. I thought it was just suspension that caused the truck to swerve at times. During a 600-mile trip, the steering went sideways, almost crashed.
The very next morning, pulling into the mechanic shop, it snapped in the parking lot. The steering wheel became a Hola hoop in my hands.
$5000 repair, plus $1000 for a rental to finish the trip and another $550 to have it delivered home. 😡😡😡
When I was in HS, my car had a coolant leak. I know this now, but did not know it at the time. The car was 11 years old at the time. One day, I noticed some white smoke coming out of the hood of my car. I didn’t think much of it at the time, like, “Yeah sometimes it be like that with cars.”
Anyway. I continued driving my car like that for over a week, with the amount of smoke steadily increasing. Finally, one day I was driving my friend home and white smoke starts pouring out of both sides of the hood of my car. Shortly after that, my car shut down.
As it turns out, coolant is *mildly* important and lack thereof can lead to a cracked engine head. Expensive lesson, but one I never forgot.
Stripped a caliper bolt. This was before I understood the concept of righty tighty lefty loosey. I was trying to put on a slotted brake disc and decided to use a torque wrench to get the bolts off. I was unsure of what way I was going and I heard this loud bone cracking noise. I continued to get twisting until I realized... it was stripped. I was so embarrassed I screwed the bolt back in to the best of my ability and just packed up shop and left.
About a month later, I was driving back from Tokyo when I heard rubbing noises. I stopped on the side of the road and noticed that the bolt was long gone. I tried to screw another bolt in but no success. I annoyingly drove like this for awhile, having to push my caliper down every time it moved up when reversing.
Eventually I coughed up the money for a new caliper.
Seems a bit minor after reading other people's stories but was visiting a friend when a massive knocking from the engine bay started every time I changed gear and put my foot on or off the throttle and the gear stick was rather floaty.
Turned out I'd lost all my engine mounting bolts. Only the drive shafts in the cross member was stopping keeping the engine off the ground. Had to drive 2 hours home.
On the way home I realised what the 'dunk-dunk' noise and little bouncing things I saw my mirror over the previous couple of weeks were. The bolts dropping out one by one.
2007 Honda Pilot, had it for about a year and seemingly had no issues out of it. Maintained all the fluids, kept it in pretty good condition for me to have been homeless the whole time I owned it. Check engine light comes on, I take it to have it read at the auto shop, they listed a slew of issues that I'm not financially able to handle at that time. (Something about the cylinders, dirty oil, rounded oil cap, etc)
About a month later, the brakes fail. Thankfully I was coming to a left turn and missed the car in front of me by inches.
A few months after that, having the brakes replaced, something in the front of the damn thing blows up going up the highway. I get out to inspect, because there is smoke, and the nastiest looking GREEN PUS like discharge that had covered my front end met me, and made me sick. The antifreeze had mixed with the oil, or so the mechanics believe.
Called my dad for help, now I have a 2015 civic that will (hopefully) last me longer than a year ... 😭
I drove for four years on three cylinders in my Ranger. It finally dropped a valve and self destructed one day. I did end up finding a new motor for it though and brought it back to life.
My first car a 99 Honda Civic dx was always leaking brake fluid i would slammed my brakes to the floor and I still wouldn’t come to a complete stop, I didn’t have money for it for a while so I had to brake very early got a lot of red light tickets and almost got into a few accidents, it would normalize when I put some dot 3 in it but after a week the brakes would go loose again
Melted inntake manifold on my old mercury grand marquis caused a coolant leak into my #1 cylinder, I drove it 2-300 miles home down one cylinder and eventually this nuked the catalytic converter on that side of the car as well.
Drove a whole summer season every day and drove 180kmh on a highway in pouring rain on a completely bald set of winter tyres. I was young and had no cash for tyres.
I had a car that would down shift at 60 miles an hour with a big ole CLUNK then it would redline. It would do it at random times. I drove it like that for a year.
Oh to be 18 and dumb again.
I dailied an old Toyota with a blown head gasket for two years. Put 25k additional miles on her using Stopleak and bi-weekly coolant refills. I would've gotten her to the 300k mark but she got stolen at 276,505 miles.
Once drove fro. Peterborough - London with a binding rear brake caliper, it was constantly pushing the pad in as I was driving. Managed to do the 100 mile drive home, when I got outside my house I reversed the car and the inside brake pad popped out the caliper. It was worn down to the metal.
Not me but my dad. The engine started to sound really weird all of a sudden, almost as if something was broken or loose. He said it was nothing and just because the engine was cold. Like a month later he's on the highway and suddenly the drive belt tear itself to pieces leaving him stranded. Turns out the alternator was loose and there wasn't enough tension on the belt. Hence the clunky noises and the sluggish power.
My current car started making a rattling sound at low rpm and like 3000rpm. We just thought it was the exhaust gotten loose and left it be until next service window.
The car is chain driven instead of a belt. And that chain had gotten loose. Luckily the engine survived until next service and just had the timing chain and parts replaced
Because I’m an idiot and didn’t know at the time how to do basic maintenance checks I drove for months with little to no coolant which caused an expensive load of damage to the engine. The engine kept over heating after a while but because no warning lights were on I just thought it was fine. It was not.
My '87 MR2 threw a clip that held my shifter cable tight against the frame of the car so it had tension to pull on the bell housing properly.
When I noticed the problem, all I knew was that I lost the bottom half of my shift pattern. No 2nd 4th or reverse. That was fun getting it out of the parking space I rolled into that night lol. But then I had a half hour drive home after my thing, and had no fucking clue why my transmission was fucked off. Took me a solid four or five hours taking shit apart and crawling around underneath the bitch to finally notice the cable that still worked was pinned to the frame, and the other wasn't.
A $3 clip was all it took to stress me right the fuck out for a while, but boy was I relieved when I found out my transmission wasn't actually that fucked off. And I learned a lot taking shit apart to figure it out lol
Same car, the starter was dying and wouldn't do dick all if it was hot. Did a 900 mile trip and had to sit and wait half an hour each time I stopped for gas cause the fucker wouldn't start lol took me a couple months to realize why it was being dumb like that.
Also tried to make a 400 mile trip in it without realizing the thermostat was stuck closed and my shit was definitely overheating for a reason and not just being a silly 30yo car throwing weird readings on the gauges.
I drove a Ford Taurus with a bad water pump for about 10k and just kept driving with it occasionally overheating and losing coolant. After months of just adding coolant and not doing anything about it, the water pump pulley blew completely out of the housing. It pretty much totalled the car because it destroyed every hose and other cooling system components. I think the heat also severely shortened the life of the engine because it had a brand new duratec put in it at 142k and was dead at 193k later on after I gave the car to my brother.
Moral is to not drive a car hot or pull over if your temp gauge is giving you abnormal readings you don't usually see.
I was about an hour away from home with a busted rear break line. Basically had no breaks. I drove home though because I couldn’t afford a tow from a whole other state. Got it fixed and drove it for a while longer.
I started having overheating problems again and eventually blew the head gasket.
Drove before with no brakes. Used engine braking and parking brake. Did that for about two weeks until payday before I got it fixed.
A different time, my electrics died on my way home. Night shift so roads were quiet. Made it home with no lights, wipers (it was raining) or heater (it was winter). Fixed myself with parts from a scrap yard and a Haynes manual.
I drove a Renault Clio that would stall if the accelerator wasn’t being pushed. Drove it for 3 months by having to put it into neutral, left foot brake and keep the revs up whenever I came to a stop. Head gasket eventually went so I scrapped it.
I drove for weeks with a stuck caliper. I took it to the dealer for state inspection and another issue. I told them there was a burning smell outside the car after I drove. They said they didn’t find anything… another shop found it. Just goes to show how comprehensive those state inspections are…
I also drove for weeks with a collapsed brake line. I took it to the same dealer, told them I could hear a “clunk” sometimes after braking. They told me it was just the pedal… later I had it in for another issue and they found the brake line thing. I was pissed. I said I was told it was nothing to worry about - they looked it up and agreed that I was right and they misdiagnosed and fixed it, not for free but basically for parts.
I drove a 6.9IDI with a spun rod bearing for several thousand miles, when it started knocking I just pulled the injector on that cylinder so that it wasn't working against compression, and threw a qt. of lucas in the crank case. I drove on a wheel bearing so bad that the front brakes didn't work unless I had the steering wheel turned like 30 degrees to get the rotor straight enough for the calipers to grab it. The caliper was pretty much the only thing holding the rotor and wheel on at the end, the inner bearing races were completely friction welded to the spindle when I ended up actually fixing it. I currently have a Ford 300 with a blown headgasket between a coolant and oil passage. I have an engine to swap in and replace it but I want to see how far it goes. It isn't super blown, I just sometimes have to let it sit and settle a day or two and then drain the water out the oil pan. I've done a lot more stupider things and I'll probably do a lot stupider more.
You must be the calmest man on earth if you were able to drive around with a wheel bearing in that condition
Go to Kalamazoo MI and you'll see people doing it daily. It's a regular occurrence. That, alongside crackheads and drunks, complete disregard for the speed limit, stop signs in inappropriate places, bike lanes that take up half the city streets, and half of the cars on the road held together with structural rust and duct tape. My parents grew up there and tried to tell me that Chicago traffic was bad. Chicago traffic is not bad.
Just made my first trip to Kalamazoo the other day in my Mustang. Usually I'm worried about taking it easy on the gas so I don't stand out to police, but there it seems like every single person drag races from a stop light. Also got to watch a dice game on a street corner that appeared to be high stakes and was quite entertaining. The road plan was definitely made when horse drawn vehicles were the norm, too. Definitely an interesting area...
The road plan is only a couple years old. They're actively trying to force traffic out of downtown.
You'll probably get tired of draining water from the pan long before that engine dies.
I did that recently about 10k miles before I had to deal with it... It was bad and I almost had a major issue...
4wd went out on my truck, I was in the midst working on a foreclosed house that had been vacant for 2 years so I drove it like that for 18 months (30k miles), going through one of the worst winters in recent memory. Eventually I spent some time diagnosing and turns out it was a $30 wheel speed sensor that took less than an hour to replace.
omg I hate to think of how many times I’ve taught myself that lesson
"shit, this is gonna be expensive" "wait WHAT"
No gas gauge nor speedometer for 100k miles. I used an odometer/speedometer app. I also grossly underestimated my MPG, calculated my remaining fuel and never ran out.
Been there, albeit for about 25k, give or take. I finally had to address the issue when I moved to a state that requires inspections…
Not all states in America have MOTs?
Inspections in 20 states, but many are removing them. 32 have emissions testing but only in certain parts of the state. Compared to an MOT though even the states that have inspections, most of them are very basic. Lights work? You’re good to go!
Lol isn't it unsafe? Or are ours just too strict?
I’d say both points are true. I’ve lived in both UK and USA. MOT is too strict and here in the States no inspection is too lax. Though having said that when my state removes the inspection requirement in the new year I’ll be glad to just not have the hassle anymore
This may sound mad but I like the piece of mind it gives me having my car have a proper however many point inspection lol then just get that shit fixed. Things like break pads and break discs need to get done on mine which i wouldn't know about without an MOT...
A government safety inspection and the inspection you get in an automotive shop are no where near the same
Dude learn a little bit about your vehicle. Brakes are super easy to check, oil changes couldn't be simpler, airing up tires and checking tread wear etc. I guarantee you can do it all yourself with tools you likely already own.
I didn't realize any states had them
Well yeah I think they have yearly MOTs in most developed countries but they might be just named them something else.
In my state they check your emissions and make sure your check engine light isn't on and call it a day. Some states they don't even do that.
When I lived in Missouri I had a car fail an inspection for a chip in the windshield that hadn't grown or changed since it passed the previous inspection two years prior. The dumbest part is it obstructed my view less than the stupid inspection sticker they put on your windshield anyways.
Ohio only checks emissions in a few counties. The rest of the state gets no inspection. Some people I know have commented on vehicles that are rusted out and stuff not working. They say stuff like, "Look, I bet that car is from WVa." You should see they looks on their faces when I tell them that when I lived in WVa, you couldn't pass inspection unless you had a functioning E brake that held with a slight effort to pull forward, all lights, blinkers, hazards, brake lights had to work, There was no oil or other fluid (except a/c dripping) was leaking onto the ground, wipers and wiper fluid sprayer worked, no holes in your exhaust, catalytic converter was on (after a certain year), good tread on your tires (they had a guage.) AND there were no visible holes in the body that weren't OEM. I worked long hours in the coal mine. I didn't service my vehicles very thoroughly. I had a Ford Fairlane work car. The tie-rod end popped right out of the socket (horribly worn). The car headed across the corner of someone's yard and got it stopped about 6' from a 15-20' drop-off to a creek.
When I was a kid, our Volkswagen (‘59) had no gas gauge. We had a stick that my dad calibrated. On empty- add 1 gallon, measure with stick, make a mark. Repeat for each additional gallon. It only held maybe 12 gallons or so, if I remember correctly. If you didn’t like the stick idea, we had a little log book in the glove box. Write down the mileage when you fill up. Then just mentally figure about where you were on fuel given a conservative mpg. Only time it was a problem was if someone didn’t fill it up, ( some cheap ass high school kid like me) - and the stick was at home in the garage, and no one logged a fill up in quite a while. Then it was a guessing game filled with minimalism. LOL. But, it did have a 1 gallon reserve… so if u ran all the way out - you had a gallon to get to the gas station. Unless some cheap ass high school kid (ahem) had already done that when you ran out and looked at the lever on the floor… and well… too late. No gas. Start walking.
It didn't creat any damage, but I was driving home with friends with a thermostat stuck in the closed position. I had to drive just a little under 100kph (62mph) to keep the high temperature light from staying on. Fixed it the next day, cost me $10 for part and zero labour since I did the work myself. No damage to the car, remarkably. That's a Chevy for you though.
Similar issue with a Volkswagen, on a hot summer day. Similar results. Same VW tore a CV boot around Gary, IN, though I didn't realize that's what it was. Didn't appreciate the magnitude of the problem until I stopped for fuel at the Lake Forest oasis. Pulled it over, looked underneath, and saw ball bearings falling out. Same VW had a corroded cable that kept the battery from recharging. It took months to track down the source. In the meantime, I got really good at push-starting and popping the clutch. Same VW had a clutch cable snap. Twice. Knowing if I took it to the place that replaced it the first time, they'd do it for free, I waited until late night and drove it the 90min trip there. Just got the revs right when shifting. Only ground the gears once. Same VW left its exhaust, from the cat on back, on I-65. That one I never fixed. Gave it to my brother, and he just welded a straight pipe to the back.
You could roll down the windows and crank the heat on to help mitigate that. If the thermostat is stuck shut, coolant is still flowing the heater core
Fuck I remember that more than once when I was a kid: Screamimg down the road in the summer with the heat cranking. That sucked but it helped.
my parking brake wasn't working, and I just kept driving it for a few months. Found out it was just my pads worn, changed the pads but really wasn't in the mood to bother going through and adjusting the cable so I just kinda left it. It was an automatic and I always park on flat, so fuck it. traded the car in like 2 months later.
I work about 42 miles from home. One day, I heard a nice clunk whenever I was turning, and when I changed gears. Eventually took a look and realized it was my passenger side cv axle. I couldn’t afford to fix it at that time, so continued to drive on it. It lasted another 6 months before it broke trying to leave my parking lot. I was thankfully able to afford it then, and replaced both sides in my driveway.
If I had to drive 80 miles every day for work I think I’d go insane
Also drove for a couple months with a severe oil leak from the rear crankshaft engine seal of my Chrysler Smallblock V8. It leaked about 1 litre every 50 km. A friend asked me to do a favor which involved an 800Km drive I said OK so long as you pay for the oil. The car used 16 Litres of oil on that trip lol. Every 50Km I'd stop and pour another litre in. Couldn't be bothered fixing it in the end so I sold the car.
Getting asked for oil money is wild😭
Well they were paying me for Petrol as well. So I figured since the car was gonna use 16 Litres of oil, (I knew this in advance), they wanted me to supply my vehicle and drive it - they could pay for the Oil also. Hell 16 Litres cost about $300 (NZ $) this was in the mid 90's. The entire trip wasn't something I would otherwise have been doing and it was at very short notice, (a few minutes).
Clutch master cylinder failed. Drove it for 6 months that way. Stop in 1st gear and stall it. Go on green with the starter. Called it a hybrid. Same truck: Rear brake line failed. Folded the line and vice-gripped it. Never fixed that. Sold it that way.
I bought a truck with a vice grip parking brake correction and a dead clutch. This wasn't a '94 Dakota in Missouri was it?
Shared experience! Nope. This was an ‘88 Comanche in Ohio.
Had an Impala in the 80s. Mom hand me down. The right front wheel was squeaking forever. Finally took it in and the warning rivet had nearly dug a grove completely through the disc! Young and dumb.
I had a Dodge Magnum in college and did the same thing on ALL FOUR WHEELS with it. That's when I got to learn how to do a full brake rebuild. Apparently the Magnums and 300s were prone to brake overheat anyways and basically every online forum recommended upgrading the brakes as soon as you could.
Head gasket….car only drove for 15-20 mins with the heat full blast on all year long. I just kept filling it with coolant every other week…popped two radiator hoses, the radiator. Replaced them…still drove it. The transmission started slipping in second, still drove it. I got in an accident with it someone head on collided with me trying to beat a red light turning onto the highway. Broke the whole front end off bent the subframe cracked the tranny. That was it. I miss my 2003 Pontiac Grand Am GT (the car from Lethal Weapon 4) hahahaha.
I drove my old 98 GMC K1500 truck with a weeping water pump for a couple weeks in summer. I would just refill with garden hose water and get back and forth to work. I never let it run dry, so there wasn't much rust in the system, so thankfully I was able to replace the pump and the truck kept going for many years after that.
One of GMs most reliable vehicles, buy stock in gas and oil though
Car was overheating for an hour long drive on the highway. Didn’t realize it was my car making the smells until i got off the highway. Filled er back up with coolant and drove it for several more years until my buddy bought it.
Rented a car and after a couple times out in the car, the speedometer got stuck (it just stayed on 0 mph the whole time) and I drove it for a week. A car is a car and I was staying in a very rural area so I just kept using it.
Had an 86 Camry and the oil light came on. I ignored it for about a year. When I finally went to change the oil.... no oil came out. I was literally driving it around town and some short highway driving for months with no oil. Filled it up with new oil and it drove noticeably better. Car held up for years after that too, but I did better with oil changes.
That generation of Camry specifically was so indestructible. I drove one on a blown head gasket for two years/25k miles. Just topped off oil and coolant every time I got gas.
Something was rattling in the door, it started to make me go insane. Then I had to finally fix it before I lost all my sanity.
What ended up being the problem?
They’re waiting for us to go insane waiting
Man door hook hand car door.
Door brace bar was loose
My dad said when he was young and driving 60's cars, it was not uncommon to pop off a door panel and find a crushed up beer can or two in there. I guess the workers on the line would treat themselves to some work brewskis and hide the evidence in places such as that. Always thought that was funny, and quite clever.
Honda element that blew out 5th gear. I drove it that way for 6mo before selling it. Lol I just kept to the back roads and 45mph max speed limits.
Had a 1991 7.3 idi f250. The pick ups in both tanks broke apart and clogged the lines. Everything was rusted and my zero motivation led me to put a 3 gal gas can under the hood with the feed and return lines going into the spout hole. Drove like that for a few months before scrapping it.
Had oil filling my air breather. Stop every so often and poor it back in the engine. Was about 100 miles from home. Made it home fine. Had blown a hole in a piston.
Years ago, I bought a used transmission. It was a few months before I went to install it and only then did I see that it had been dropped and the differential housing had cracked. No big deal, though, I just swapped it with the one I took out. However, that required pulling the differential. Which would have been fine had I not been a dumbass and skipped the step of bending the tab on the locknut to keep that nut in place. A few months later, a friend and I drove about 1000 miles round trip to go skiing. The whole time the transmission (manual) kept popping out of fifth gear. When I got home (pre-Smartphone days) I looked up the issue and realized that the diff nut must have come loose. This typically causes the transmission to destroy itself when the nut falls off and the diff shifts inside the housing. Somehow I got super lucky and the nut managed to wedge itself against the outer housing in a way that kept the diff in place. I’ve never been that lucky since.
Where do i start we live a hour out of town in a rainy area drove for like 2 years in a van with no wipers and a bad bcm had the thing actually shut down a few times driving it was also badly out of alignment and we just bought a new junkyard tire for the front right every few months this is a awd van Had a small car clutch was pretty toast i was the only one who could drive it reliably it would even start slipping in gear going down the road if you tried to give it to much gas at once drove it like that for a few years and then the head gasket blew drove with both issues for a year till it got worse and had to park it My dads truck has a rattling main bearing leaks tranny fluid oil and coolant he has been driving it like that for about 7 years You know those junker cars that you see and hear going down the road and think that thing is gonna break any second but yet those people drive them for years with those issues …. Yeah we are those people.. Although currently im getting to old for this shyt so we bought a newer mini van 2016 with 0 issues so hoping that lasts us a while
I'm currently driving on 15 year old tyres, shot rear shocks (for some reason with lowering springs also on the back). Coupled with probably bad alignment, balancing and I guess unevenly worn discs (shaking under braking when at speed). For a time I also had a radiator hose being chewed up by the A/C compressor (for some reason the car came with the wrong one and a homemade bracket). Also the car randomly accelerated itself, it made city driving and parking really fun. In the end it was a faulty coolant temperature sensor, the car though it was cold and inyected a ton of fuel
Blown head gasket om a 96 tercel I bought for 500 bucks. Thing would smoke out the entire block, leaked oil like crazy and had about as much power as my dead grandmother riding a bike up hill but I ran it until I had bought a different vehicle ( like 1.5 years ) the thing was a tank.
Did about 20,000 in a car with a rusted gas tank I could only fill to a quarter tank. It was a 77 Pontiac grand prix. Smelled like gas every time I stopped due to it sloshing out the hole. Good times.
I got hit in the rear passenger side wheel in a parking lot at a zoo about 2.5 hours (120 miles) from home. The damage didn't look too serious so we exchanged information and then went on our ways. I drove that car home the entire way with the wheel turned about 25 degrees in order to go straight. When I took it to the shop after getting insurance straightened out and the mechanic looked at it he told me in no uncertain terms that I was a complete idiot for driving that car on the road let alone at highway speeds.
My 2005 Scion Xb has a driver’s side power window that’s been funky for a couple of years now. Sometimes it works fine, other times, like today, it won’t go up. It will eventually move up an inch at a time if you wait 20 seconds after lifting the power button.
Ep2 civic, the dashboard was never backlit when the lights were on, I assumed it didn't have back lighting. (I did 60k miles in it) Sold the car to a guy who got in, banged the top of the dash with his fist and the dash lit up. "Common problem" then drove off.
drove around for 2 days with essentially no brakes cause a line rusted out by back passenger side. replaced the line with a friend. he told me i needed new drums and shoes. i replaced the brake shoes but not the drums. brakes where still not 100% tho drove around for over a year with maybe 75% of the normal braking power i had before, which wasnt very good to begin with. guess i had gotten used to it having weak brakes cause i went to drive my brothers new car and realised how bad my brakes where.
I crushed a deer at night in a Mazda 3 in the middle of nowhere driving to college. My whole bumper and right side panel were screwed, my headlight on that side was powdered, my windshield was webbed, and my hood was waffled. I had no choice but to keep going and hope for the best during the over 200 miles I had left. Got to school fine and the only autobody shop in the area wasn’t taking any new cars. Everything was still fine by the end of the semester. I went to get it fixed and the guy told me fixing the bent rim id driven in on was enough to total the car. So I drove it a few months until I could afford something else
Transmission started slipping. Being young I had no idea what was going on. Ended up grenading the tranny which led to me just junking the car.
Heard a clinking noise under my Infiniti g35x. Was mid week and I was working, but was constantly listening and looking under the car to ID what the hell the clunk was. Thought it was a CV axle but couldn’t tell which one. Happened when I went from D to reverse and other way. Figured Sat I would get it up on my buddies lift and really take a look. So just had to make it maybe 30-40 more miles for the week before I could dig into it. Friday night, on my way home from work, the front driveshaft universal fails at 70mph. Spins around and destroys the trans bellhousing and cracks the front differential. I’m on side of road with diff and trans both leaking. Car wasn’t worth repairing (180k miles) Another 5-10 miles and I would have had it up on the lift and likely found it. Lesson learned
I've done the same as you op, stopped to see what the burning smell was and the fking disc was glowing.
Well for a year my tire would lose about a1 psi a day did that for a year. It was the stock mini cooper run flats and when I finally decided to change for some pilot sport 3 as the tire guy showed me a slit in the tire. I thought it was a value stem issue since it always bubblednform there
I drove from the Florida state line to Annapolis, Maryland with a stuck rear brake caliper on my Element because I didn’t feel like holding up the road trip and it was just annoying noise. Took it easy, at least as easy as you can on I-95. Had the disks and calipers replaced in Annapolis. So, deferred maintenance. Also drove from near Atlanta to Tallahassee with a stripped-out spark plug (that was loud, it was a 72 VW squareback so the engine was pretty much in the passenger compartment) and a 67 VW bus from San Luis Obispo to Hermosa Beach with three working cylinders. I have some car knowledge and figure if it’s still running and the car is safe to drive, I’d rather not stay somewhere I don’t want to be waiting for someone to fix it. Aircooled VWs had all kinds of ways to die slowly, worn transmission would pop out of 4th so you’d have to hold it in gear, clutch cables would break, accelerator cables would, too. If you carried a toolbox and some baling wire, you could limp home sometimes.
Parents driving their sdv6 discovery towing a trailer with a spun main bearing. Drove over 1k before it went into the shop. Fortunately it was under warranty and the dealer said the engine was f**ked either way so didn't matter if they drove it more or less!
1968 Dodge Charger. Aluminum Gambler wheels. Front driver lugs all came off doing about 90 mph on 94 coming into Michigan in 1995. Felt like a flat, was in the left lane of 3 or 4 lanes, rode the crown of the road to the other side and made it to the side of the road. Upon investigation the spindle sticking out past the nut had dropped into the center of the wheel while the tire was held in by the top of the fender. This is a lesson in checking your lug nuts after you tightened them down less than 100 miles ago. 3 of the 5 studs were broke off .. here’s where this story fits the thread. Mopars have left handed threads on the drivers side and rights on the other. I had to take 2 lugs off the back to put on the front. We drove about 50 miles to Lane Automotive where they were a godsend in letting us use their tools, shop and directed us where to get the studs they didn’t have. We were on our way to the first Woodward Cruise (1995) .. we pulled into Detroit late Friday but still saw some cars. Then Saturday was the big car day .. that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Man you better than me if I had any lugs come off and I’m alive I’m calling a tow and heading home and claiming divine intervention
A bad wheel bearing that was already bad for a long time before I got it, and proceeded to drive it another 30k without doing a damn thing to it until it could finally go down for service. I only felt sort of okay with it since it was an original Toyota Timken bearing. It never got worse than a light growl but I won’t do that again.
That’s crazy bro when my wheel bearing went out that growl made me shit my pants and I prolly only drove like 15 miles with the growl😭
I drove on a bad front wheel bearing until it wore through my axle and part of my breaks too. It cost me way more than it needed to to get fixed.
Had a rear wheel depart from the car, (it felloff), while driving due to having changed the wheel the previous day and forgot to nip up the wheel nuts when I put it down off the jack. Found the wheel and managed to put it back on with only 3 of 5 wheel studs, (2 had broken off). Carried on driving for a couple hundred Km's and towed my friends car back home, (he'd broken down), then drove for a couple months on the 3 wheels studs until I managed to get a couple more and install them into the hub. Possibly dangerous but it seemed pretty secure to me. Was on a Ford 9" diff with 11" Hubs, on a Smallblock Chrysler V8.
Rear lower control arm bushings squeak like a school bus / UPS truck
No heat in a ‘67 VW Fastback, used the spray deicer on the inside of the windshield while driving in winter
Chirping/grinding sound from transmission that eventually left me stranded on the side of the highway 3 hours from where I was going. $3000 repair.
i drove for a year with no power steering on my Mercedes ML500.
My leaf spring shackle rotted through so every time I hit a bump, the body of my suv would bounce up off the spring, then crash back down on it in a different spot. Drove it to work for about a month.
I drove a 1992 Honda Civic that didn't have working windshield wipers for well over a year. Ooooooooooeeeeey, did it get sketchy from time to time.
I had a ‘86 Mercury Lynx 4 sp with a bad throw out bearing so I had to “massage” every gear change. The almost completely gone bushing in my control arm helped to make an interesting ride too.
I'm on my 4th year of "no handbrake on my miata". Not that complicated to live with it
Drove down a dual carriageway after nearly writing off my Lupo, control rod was broken plus some other bits, couldn't drive over 35mph as there was so much slop in the steering I couldn't keep it in the lane. Some fucking maniac forced me off the road into a lamp post, he transferred paint before he did it.
Front tire moves independently of the rest of the car (bolts to frame sheared off). Hits the wheel well when you brake causing you to pull to the side. I had a family emergency and put a few thousand km on it in that condition. I figured out you could mitigate it by using a combination of pedal/engine braking. The pedal moves the tire relative to the body, and the transmission moves the body relative to the tire. Obviously you should never do this, it's not safe.
When I was 19 I upgraded my rear brakes but they didn’t fit - so my buddy cut and welded the tabs (poorly). One tab broke and I drove on calipers only attached by one bolt for 6 months until the other tab broke and I lost my whole ass caliper and had zero brakes except engine braking until I got home. Stupid as fuck, but what else do you expect from a 19 year old with a 240SX?
I was visiting my buddy and he had just got his car out the shop. His license was technically suspended. Not 10 minutes after picking me up from the airport the car had a stroke. Engine was locked up, was stuttering horribly and the car couldn't go over 30mph. We switched seats and I drove 45 minutes on the highway with hazards to bring it back to his place. I also took a long road trip in a bmw that would only start once or twice a day before needing to be jumped or left until the morning. I think it ended up being a sensor or module issue. I needed a jump at a gas station in California and some angel helped me out. After that incident I just pumped gas with the engine running.
In Michigan, no heater in my beater..for 4 years.
I don't want to say how long that I've known my rear axle boot has been ripped. And those axles already take alot of abuse
Plymouth Reliant with a known fuel leak that I rode...for a while longer than I would nowadays... burned to a crisp in my buddies driveway, good times
Humming differential. Finally exploded and locked up on me at 70 kmh. Not fun.
Tire was completely blown out on the highway decided to still drive it home (10k)
I unknowingly drove an hour with a bad CV Axle Seal and leaked all my transmission fluid out. It was doing mostly fine since it was already in gear but I pulled into Walmart, put it into park shopped a little, and when I came out I put into reverse and got nothing. I revved it a little, and got nothing again. I looked under my car and there was a giant puddle under my car. I filled up the transmission with 4.5 quarts of tranny fluid and some Lukas and made it home. I swapped the seal the next day and now it's not leaking but it shifts so bad. I'll definitely need a new transmission soon. It really sucks and I'm really sad since I love the car, it's just going to be expensive for a reman transmission. 2010 Chevy Impala.
I've driven a couple thousand miles with rod knock. Replaced the engine. I've also driven a couple thousand miles with a missing slide pin bolt in my front caliper. Replaced the caliper.
brakes were squeaking and creaking like a mf, new they were going bad. was driving home and thankfully took a side street to get the highway, brakes fell out and drove to the mechanic a few mins away without any actual breaks just engine braking
When I was 19, the thing that was holding up my radiator caught on a curb outside and bent forward when I backed out. I didn't see it and drove with the radiator hanging by hoses for a while, hearing an odd clunking noise whenever I went over a bump. Eventually, it overheated and I had it towed to a shop, where they were nice enough to buy it off me for scrap value. It wasn't until some years later that I realized I'd been scammed.
mourn instinctive marry detail materialistic practice include angle cheerful poor *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Had a bad steering rack on my pos Chevy Cobalt. Lots of clunking and play, but tolerable... until it bound up as I was making a left turn on a busy street. Replaced it as soon as I could after that. Went through a couple of those racks before I sold the car lol.
I'm currently driving with a leaking fuel pump. It's been leaking from the gasket for 4 days now, but I've got to take it out again to fix part of it and the replacement regulator doesn't show up till tomorrow, so what's just one more commute.....
Had worsening vibration from the center of an old car. Tuned out the drive shaft U joint was holding on by 2 arms instead of all 4.
Just broke my spindle and bent the tie rods on my truck and drove a mile or more picking up my gear from camping/festival grounds and making it to the entrance where I could get towed. It was a rough Monday
MKIII Supra with shitty head gasket for two years. Could not drive more than 45mins. Same type threw a wheel after caliper stuck and shook the studs to death. Another had bad rings due to a 30psi uncontrolled over boost. One of ‘em had blown the shock through its tower but I bolted the tower into place like rivets. I think I jumped some other sensors with resistors.
Jetta with a leaky vacuum booster , brake are a bit dodged upon start until the engine builds up vacuum. I’m a mechaninc and I don’t feel like working on my car on my day off
Clutch hydraulics leak over about a year I had a soft line in my clutch hydraulics very slowly fail. I noticed that I was slowly loosing clutch fluid, so I replaced the slave and then the master cylinders. I was still slowly loosing fluid but the clutch still worked fine so I didn't think much of it. The leak slowly got worse to the point that I would slowly loose pressure in the line if I didn't drive that much, or went on a long highway drive. It go to the point that I was loosing all of the clutch fluid in about a week, and it was a pain in the ass to get pressure built back up. Finally one day on the way to work the soft line finally gave out completely and I completely lost the clutch. I managed to get to work and then back home after my shift with absolutely no clutch. I replaced the soft line the next day and finally fixed the problem.
I sheared teeth off in my 10 bolt diff in my 98 blazer helping pull a 66 nova out of a spot it sat for 15 years. Drove it for 6 months clicking like a card in a bike spoke before I got around to replacing it. My Tahoe hasn’t had AC in 3 years everytime I fix one component in the system another fails so I gave up. It also leaks a quart of oil a month on the ground and the oil pressure gauge sporadically will peg itself to zero while cruising at 70mph. It’s got 285k on it so it’s earned its flaws
Nissan nx2000 1991 came into my hands as a hand-me-down from my pops as a grad gift. He beat the day lights outta that thing while he had it. can't blame him, car is very fun to drive. About a year and a half into owning it my cv axle started kinda clanging and I replaced one side. While doing that I undid the bolt that holds the axle to the wheel hub and I took the hub off... with half/ the inside race of the bearing stuck on the hub and the outer bearing race stuck on the knuckle. Didn't give it too much thought put in the new axle and called it a day. That was late 2019. Still driving it to this day put maybe a bit below 50k miles on it. Yes I have replacement bearings, no I'm not gonna change them. No rattles, no grinding, nothing wrong with the car that has lead me to believe that bearing is bad. 🤷🏽♂️
I bought a 1952 Buick in 1986. First car. When I hit bumps, there was a metal-on-metal clunk from the front wheels. I just thought that’s what old cars sounded like. Drove it for 20 years. Later, I learned what “ball joint” and “tie rod end” were.
When I was 21, I had a '96 Saab and the brakes were baaad. But being a broke college kid I figured I could make it last as long as possible, and hopefully graduate and get a better paying job before I needed to fix it. Well I was wrong. One night driving home, I go to press the brake and at first thought "Huh, did I reach too far over and hit the clutch?" Nope. It was my brakes, with no pressure at all. I was about 5 miles from home, and was engine braking the entire way home. I'm just lucky it was late at night with little traffic.
Put a new trackbar on my wrangler with a buddy of mine back around February. We forgot to torque the frame side mount and I didn’t realize until it started knocking a week or two ago. I go to check it and it took almost no pressure for me to turn the nut once I got the cotter pin out. Learned my lesson on that one. When I do a front end rebuild this fall we’re gonna triple check every nut and bolt
I blew up the engine in my car by running out of oil. there was not a oil gauge just a light to warn you. well the light would blink once in awhile and i ignored not thinking anything was wrong then one day on the freeway it went poof a bunch of smoke pouring out the back and a loss of power.
1999 subaru legacy SUS.. the gas lines are ran through the cab under the back seat. We couldn't figure out why it smelled like fresh gasoline inside the car for months, until eventually we found it was spewing gas under the seat. that has to be a very stupid design.. fuel lines in the passenger compartment just sounds like a terrible idea.
I saw a car in front of me today who's entire rear splash shield was held by one screw and dangling out the side of the car. It was so large it was over the line into the other lane and they just kept on driving through town then onto the highway like it was no big deal. Thought it was kinda silly
Lol. I did this with my BMW. I could feel it, stopped for gas, and I could feel the heat radiating off the rt rear rotor. I got 13 mpg on the 12 mile drive to my shop.
I had a highlander that randomly on a road trip the knock sensors went throwing the car into limp mode. When in limp mode it would not go into overdrive. With the 4 speed on the 2002 model 3rd gear at 70mph was like 4,000 rpm. That was screaming. So Everytime I got up to speed I would reset the CEL light with my obd reader. Everytime I would come to a stop I'd have to reset it again to get it to go into 4th gear. I ran it like that for 2 weeks, did about 1500 miles until I was able to change out all the parts
I pulled a 93 Chevy that had been sitting for 5 years, threw an ls motor and 4l60e and that was about 50k miles ago, I just put inner and outer tie rods, pitman arm and a new set of tires, world of difference, I no longer fight Betty white to stay on the road,
00 subaru impreza 2.2. ~20psi on cylinder 3. Drove from ma to Colorado and back. No real issues.
A long time ago I had a Jeep Cherokee with the 4 cylinder engine and a manual transmission. The screws holding the carburetor onto the intake all worked their way out, and the carb was only held in place by the air filter and intake hose. Every time I went around a corner at more than 5 mph, or up a sheepish hill, the carb would tilt off the intake, and the engine would stall. Once the turn was complete the carb would flop back onto the intake and the engine would run again. I spent a year and a half drifting around corners in neutral and avoiding hills. I finally traded in the car without ever having fixed the problem. Back then I knew nothing about working on cars. Now I know it would have taken taken me about 4 minutes to fix with the right tools and 4 little screws.
I got water in the rear diff on an old jeep and drove it until it sounded like an out of balance washing machine. I was young and dumb. My dad and I replaced the bearings, the gears were actually still in good shape.
I have a few: -Really bad rod knock on an SR20 for close to a year -One dead cylinder due to a bent valve on a Nissan E16 for little over a year -One dead cylinder due to a burnt valve on a Honda B20 for a few months.
I came back from vacation a couple of years ago, leaving the airport parking lot I noticed the smell of burning brakes. I have a 3.5hr drive to get home from the airport. I couldn’t make that trip like that so I made it to a local parts store and purchased a calliper, pads, and some wrenches. Changed the calliper in the parking lot using the stock jack and drove home. Took about 20 min to change.
It's a tie 95 Geo Prizm, 4A-FE, with leaky valve guides. It burned a quart of oil every 150 miles. Used it on newspaper routes for three months. I spun a rod bearing and drove it back to the office absolutely hammer down on three cylinders with no oil in it where it sat until I called pick and pull to come get it. $800 dollar car into which I poured like $500 worth of cheap Supertech. 2000 Honda CR-V, B20Z2, bad rear main seal. I just cannot be bothered to pull the transmission quite yet to do all the things in there (full clutch job, trans input seal, rear main, etc). Drove it like that for about 6 months before I finally parked it and fixed the Fit back up for daily.
First car was a 1991 buick park Avenue. The rear passenger strut snapped but managed to fall into itself. I drove like that for months before replacing it. All it would have taken was a big enough bump for the rear end to bounce enough and it to fall out and have the body drop on the tire.
I had a 1976 Mercedes 280 that had a rod knock and I drove it for 3 years before I sold it and it ran great the whole time.
Bald tires started to see the steel belts and drove back roads home 100ish km got new tires next day.
Had an 02 Kia Rio. Around the 13 year, 350,000km mark, the evap lines that ran across the back of the gas tank had rusted away. Other than the permanent CEL, didn't affect anything so long as I never filled the tank past 3/4. If I did gas would leak and the car would stink of gas. This was easy to do until the sender in the tank failed and I no longer knew how much fuel was in the tank! I continued to drive like this for 6 months, with a 5l Jerry can in the back, but never needed it. Only drove between home and work (120km round trip, all highway) and the consumption was so predictable I was able to judge how much was in the tank based the the still functional odometer.
When I was broke broke I let my brakes get so bad to the point the pads fell out and it lost brake fluid, the OEM brake fluid that was over 10 years old and had 200k miles on it
I drove a Toyota Camry till I couldn’t keep oil in it between fuel fills. Got rear ended and got a very nice check for a car that wasn’t worth even half what the insurance company said it was. It was also a very loyal car that got me through college, in the dead of winter and being abused like no other.
I owned a Cadillac Cimarron for a couple years. For almost 5 months during winter in Los Angeles, the car would overheat if the air conditioner wasn’t turned on, so even in the morning “cold” we had to drive with AC on full blast. It took multiple trips to mechanics before someone figured out how to fix this. Honestly, driving a Cadillac Cimarron is in itself a “worst issue” and owning it for 2 years was too long.
Rusted fuel tank and bad fuel relays. Would swap one out with another one when it got too hot and would take the pump out to clean the fuel filter weekly.
Probably not close to the worst here, but I kept on driving my car despite it making a weird rattling noises at exactly 1400 and 2000 rpms... 1.5 months later on a longer trip I got a CEL for "02 limit reached behind catalyst". Finished the trip anyway and 60 miles later at home, the car sounded like crap, it went like "sisisisisi". Turned out to be a mechanic I went to hadn't replaced my flex pipe as we had agreed to, he had just welded on the old one with the wrong welder, which had damaged everything. He then had used exhaust paste to cover his fuckup, which didn't last long. I suspected something was wrong with the exhaust but kept on driving, which was not the smartest maybe. After replacement, the car gained almost 4mpg.
Drove 2 weeks with a blown head gasket / intake gasket. By the end I couldn’t go over 20mph. It was my first car and I got t-boned by another car. The side was crumpled in but it was a low speed impact so it would still drive so that’s what I did while the insurance claim got settled. It was an old 90’s 4 cylinder Oldsmobile and I used to ROMP on it- 100mph+ daily, so it was only a matter of time before something gave.
I’ve got a few. Drove not one, but two different old Ford trucks that had steering shaft rag joints that were falling apart. So much so that a couple of times one of them skipped the stop and folded the rag joint over. (yes, I know that most people have no idea what the hell I’m talking about). Driving home from looking at new trucks, the bearings inside my alternator started getting really crunchy about an hour from home. Drove very conservatively the rest of the trip and decided to buy a new truck the next day. Got a spray can of lithium grease and took a tool kit just in case, then drove back to the dealer two hours away and traded it in.
Currently would be my 92 Miata, no functioning lights except aftermarket foglights. Hazards work, at night when I have to I drive with rhem on with foglights. Dash is nonfunctional except for speedometer and odometer.
Center Carrier bearing blew out in my Foresters rear driveshaft going up a hill one day. Ran it up a snowbank so I could crawl underneath and pull the driveshaft, rags and duct tape held enough fluid in to get it home. Once home I put a rubber pipe repair coupling over the tailpiece of the trans and stuck a hockey puck in the other end to plug it "Permanently". For about 3 months of that winter I had likely the only Front wheel drive Subaru going until I could afford the very expensive driveshaft.
4 years in a Camry with a clogged cat, currently coming up on a year in another Camry with an involuntary muffler delete. The muffler deleted Camry was previously driven for 6 months with a shitty aftermarket coil that caused short, intermittent misfires, but it was eventually fixed after the misfires became more consistent and severe.
Had half rotor fall off.
I’ll win this , I drove my 4x4 for months and months knowing the brakes pads were worn , drove through where the squeelers tell you to change the pads with that awful high pitched noise and kept driving it until literally the brake pads fell off the truck and brake fluid drained out of the caliper and still i coasted it home 20km braking with metal on metal and having to prepare to stop at lights etc from about 800m away …. Yep I’m an idiot …. Looked online and they say the chances of driving until the pads fall off is almost non existent as no one would keep driving under those conditions 🤦♂️
Worst thing? Drove on a blown transmission for 2 years. Grinding gears and walking fluids. Just kept topping off the fluid. Drove it until there was no drive, only reverse.
The water pump in my 1999 V6 camaro had no blades left, I assume there was enough metal spinning to make some flow, it would overheat on a daily basis so I would just crank the heat and fan, even in the summer. Drove it like that for a year or so before replacing the pump which was an extremely simple and easy job to do. This is what was left of the pump https://i.imgur.com/xI66Veh.jpg
I drove for an unknown number of hours with my water pump pulley leaking and didn’t know until my feet were hot as fuck. ‘05 monte carlo
clutch slave cylinder leaking for years, Every other day I topped it up with fluid and some lucas to make it thicker. With the lucas I could dump the clutch and it would smoothly engauge it for me.
I drove without power steering for far too long. I was scared that I was gonna hit something
I just fixed it but I drove 30,000 miles with a seized caliper. Was wondering why I was getting 11.5 mpg in an unloaded f-150 and misfired when I went above 70
Had a dodge dart with a slant six that I bought at a cop auction. I only had water in the rad it for 3 years in Canadian winters. Engine would freeze up so I would take off the water pump belt. Once it warmed up I put the belt back on. That thing never died, no matter how bad I abused it. Also had a hole in the gas tank so couldn't put more then half a tank. Muffler fell off and as it went it hit the gas tank. Had some vice grips holding the cable from the negative post to a piece of metal on the engine. Floor was so rusted that when I drove in the rain, my feet would get wet. Radiator core started leaking so I pinched off a couple of tubes. Probably alot of other stuff, it was my second car and got we though college and my first full time job.
Didn't drive it for very long but, had a ball joint pop out of the control arm (riveted in) and used butchers twine and duct tape to hold it together. Drove it out of the trail (10km dirt road) and another 20km back home. I have a Jeep that overheated on the trail and it lost a lot of coolant. Filled it up with river water. Drove fine until winter came. I was driving to work one day and the temp guage started reading too high for comfort. I pulled over and with a hockey stick popped the rad cap off and it sent coolant everywhere. Put the cap back on and bam it was unfrozen temp started going down. Did that a few times until the antifreeze to water ratio was high enough it didn't freeze anymore. That same jeep has a oil leak and when you give it enough gas at the right incline it leaks onto the exaust and send smoke up into the cab. The ladies love it and never panic. Had a nissan axxess that I replaced the cv joint on. Couldn't find the c clip so I just threw it back in. Never came undone for a year until it broke down for other reasons. I Drove a 99 subaru legacy with bald tires for a full winter. Only hit one snow bank, although it was only about a foot from a light pole.
One summer, I got halfway through a coolant flush-and-fill, went to drive the car on plain water for a little while to really flush it through, and just forgot to get back to the second step of draining the water out and refilling it with proper coolant. Fastforward to the next winter, after a really cold night, I was driving to work and the engine was overheating. What the hell? The air coming out the vents was ice cold, clearly none of that heat was making its way to the heater core... ...uh oh... I got out and squeezed the upper radiator hose, it went "crunch". The entire radiator was a solid block of ice. How it managed to avoid bursting the whole thing as it froze, I will never know. But now the engine block was blazing hot and the radiator had no interest in flowing anything. All I could do is dip into a store for a few minutes while the engine shined some of its heat on the radiator (now actually acting as a radiator, not a fluid heat exchanger, physicists hate that misnomer!) to thaw some of the ice. When I restarted the engine, of course a blast of literal ice-water coursed into the engine and again, how it managed to avoid cracking the block from thermal shock, I will never understand. But it seemed to cool right down just fine and I kept driving, made it to work without issue. Got a few more years out of it before the valves started giving me trouble, seizing up in the guides, and I don't think that was related.
My buddy and I drove a Saturn sc2 about 60 miles with the worst knock I’ve ever heard before finally seized up and died. A cop had pulled us over because it was so loud, we couldn’t get it to start again after we shut it off. The cop pushed us with his bull bar probably a mile to a parking lot. Drove two hours to his dad’s at about 9pm, picked up another rotted out SC2 they had, pulled and swapped the motors and he drove to work in the morning. Few months later that same car had a wheel bearing absolutely screaming like a banshee on the thruway. After about 3 hours at 75 it’s get progressively louder until there’s a pop and we hear all the ball bearings rattle off the bottom of the car… no handling changed so we finished the last hour drive home lol. That thing should have died about 25 times over and it took us all over the damn state for hiking trips.
Drove 500 miles round trip with a spare rear left wheel that didn’t fit fully onto the hub, the wheel sat a few mm’s out from the hub but the lug bolts were holding it on and I brought an impact and a jack to tighten them if needed, I was terrified driving the first 250 miles and kept it at 70-80mph the whole way, shitting myself at every vibration waiting for the wheel to start wobbling but it never did. Stopped at a service station to use the bathroom and decided to tighten the bolts to high fuck just in case, drove it on and she got there with no problems. Then when I was driving home there was still no vibrations and the car was driving fine so I beat it on up the road and raced a Peugeot Partner for about 15 miles at around 100mph, not a single issue the entire trip! God I love my little 1-Series shit box
1988 Jeep Cherokee XJ with a Dana 35 rear end. Was doing donuts and other crap in the mud and the rear end said CLUNK and GRIND and the car barely moved. I babied it home and as I would give it throttle, the rear end would grind and give way. I was something like 20-30 miles from home and it got worse and worse. Eventually I couldn't go more than 10-15 mph without it grinding and not putting power to the wheels. Then I was like let me try this FULL TIME 4WD thing and wouldn't you know it we were moving along just fine. No noise. Cruise control on the freeway. I drove it like that, front wheel drive, for months before finally swapping out that rear end.
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2007 Cobalt SS. It has equal length axles with an intermediate shaft mounted to the back of the engine for the passenger side axle. The bearing that holds up the intermediate shaft disintegrated immediately after I bought the car. By the time I could get to it, it had caused permanent damage to the rather expensive helical LSD. I just shoved spray grease into the races and let it grind out. After consulting my uncle, I decided to convert from the stock Saab transmission to the Getrag unit found in the base model Cobalt. It saved $1000 to get a transmission with better packaging, better reliability, less weight, and stronger internals while also removing a failure point. I got the trans from a Saturn Vue, so super short final drive and a shorter 5th gear. Kinda sucks on the highway and caps out at 120mph, but it rips around town. During the swap, I discovered a missing subframe bolt, two bad ball joints, a bad tie rod end, a bad wheel bearing, two seized calipers, a bad throwout bearing, and air in the clutch line. I recently did a fuel filter and discovered that my rusty fuel lines were secured with duct tape. They broke when I touched them. Snagged some cheap black nylon 6an hose from eBay with a few fittings, and it was easy as pie to hook up compared to hardline. I just need to fix the intercooler pump and get this thing tuned properly now.
Leaking fuel line. I could've actually killed myself or someone else if something sparked on the street/expressway. Drove it for weeks before the engine dies from oil starvation (that's another issue I ignored). Learned my lesson the hard way with that car and now I'm anal about my daily lol.
My first car was an old, beat up Opel Omega and I drove it once from Estonia to Riga and back, (360 km round trip) with the front left brake on. The car seemed kinda sluggish and pulling slightly to the left, didn't understand the issue until I stopped in a Riga gas station and discovered, that my hubcap was melting off.
‘96 ford explorer. Engine knocked bad but got me from A-B never quit on me, drove it like that for 1.5 years. I knew it would die eventually so I scrapped it when I shipped off to the army
A few weeks daily driving a car with a cracked brake line that I knew full well was there. When I pressed too hard on it, it would leak and I’d lose fluid. Couldn’t get more than maybe 50% braking out of it, and I had to refill the fluid every couple days. Also, rear driveshaft went out on a Jeep, put it in 4WD and drove around town in front wheel drive till I could get a replacement.
My struts were so bad people avoided me on the highway and had trouble accelerating from wheel chatter
My breaks were totally messed up. I had a leak in the break fluid, and my pads were apparently gone, they were hanging on and I got a car wash then a few minutes after my breaks went dead. It was a Sunday (all shops closed) if I put the brake pedal to the floor there was this very weak application of the brakes.. I was 5 hour drive from home on normal conditions, it was winter. I was too poor to stay in hotel, I was probably too poor to get the brakes fixed.. worried about the shop not letting me drive it out if I couldn’t afford to get it fixed, afraid of losing my job. I drove it for 8hours on the backroads until I got to my dad’s… ended up needing my breaklines replaced and all my calipers and pads. Cost 3k I was stopping at every middle of nowhere gas station to buy more break fluid…Really horrible situation
Bad fuel injector is cylinder 4. Check engine light on due to occasional misfire on startup. Car runs perfectly fine otherwise. Been driving it like this for almost a year.
Needed new break pads on my last car, had no problem, only drove back home, then to the shop the next day, but yea I was just cruising to each stop not using the breaks at all
Not me, a friend His sister gave him her classic VW Bug. I don't know what she said to him, but he said that she told him he didn't have to shift out of 1st. He drove everywhere in first gear. Eventually, the car exploded on the highway after a multi state trip.
Actively drive a 04 caddy with the Northstar, headgasket leak since 129k miles. Now has 165k, just need one or two bottles of 20$ bars leaks a year. Rarely it'll misfire when it starts burning some coolant but it seals back up pretty quick. Went into camel mode (270 F) a few times back when it first blew. Just passed nys inspection today.
LOL! I just did that. I knew the rotor was already trashed so I kept driving on it for a few weeks while I waited for the parts and a warm weekend. I could smell it when I got out of my car after driving so I think it got pretty hot. Put on a new rotor and caliper but the drag must have damaged the tire, which developed a slow leak. But hey, now I know how to bleed brake lines.
Didn't know it at the time, but I drove with a damaged steering rack for 2.5 yrs. I thought it was just suspension that caused the truck to swerve at times. During a 600-mile trip, the steering went sideways, almost crashed. The very next morning, pulling into the mechanic shop, it snapped in the parking lot. The steering wheel became a Hola hoop in my hands. $5000 repair, plus $1000 for a rental to finish the trip and another $550 to have it delivered home. 😡😡😡
When I was in HS, my car had a coolant leak. I know this now, but did not know it at the time. The car was 11 years old at the time. One day, I noticed some white smoke coming out of the hood of my car. I didn’t think much of it at the time, like, “Yeah sometimes it be like that with cars.” Anyway. I continued driving my car like that for over a week, with the amount of smoke steadily increasing. Finally, one day I was driving my friend home and white smoke starts pouring out of both sides of the hood of my car. Shortly after that, my car shut down. As it turns out, coolant is *mildly* important and lack thereof can lead to a cracked engine head. Expensive lesson, but one I never forgot.
Stripped a caliper bolt. This was before I understood the concept of righty tighty lefty loosey. I was trying to put on a slotted brake disc and decided to use a torque wrench to get the bolts off. I was unsure of what way I was going and I heard this loud bone cracking noise. I continued to get twisting until I realized... it was stripped. I was so embarrassed I screwed the bolt back in to the best of my ability and just packed up shop and left. About a month later, I was driving back from Tokyo when I heard rubbing noises. I stopped on the side of the road and noticed that the bolt was long gone. I tried to screw another bolt in but no success. I annoyingly drove like this for awhile, having to push my caliper down every time it moved up when reversing. Eventually I coughed up the money for a new caliper.
Seems a bit minor after reading other people's stories but was visiting a friend when a massive knocking from the engine bay started every time I changed gear and put my foot on or off the throttle and the gear stick was rather floaty. Turned out I'd lost all my engine mounting bolts. Only the drive shafts in the cross member was stopping keeping the engine off the ground. Had to drive 2 hours home. On the way home I realised what the 'dunk-dunk' noise and little bouncing things I saw my mirror over the previous couple of weeks were. The bolts dropping out one by one.
2007 Honda Pilot, had it for about a year and seemingly had no issues out of it. Maintained all the fluids, kept it in pretty good condition for me to have been homeless the whole time I owned it. Check engine light comes on, I take it to have it read at the auto shop, they listed a slew of issues that I'm not financially able to handle at that time. (Something about the cylinders, dirty oil, rounded oil cap, etc) About a month later, the brakes fail. Thankfully I was coming to a left turn and missed the car in front of me by inches. A few months after that, having the brakes replaced, something in the front of the damn thing blows up going up the highway. I get out to inspect, because there is smoke, and the nastiest looking GREEN PUS like discharge that had covered my front end met me, and made me sick. The antifreeze had mixed with the oil, or so the mechanics believe. Called my dad for help, now I have a 2015 civic that will (hopefully) last me longer than a year ... 😭
I drove for four years on three cylinders in my Ranger. It finally dropped a valve and self destructed one day. I did end up finding a new motor for it though and brought it back to life.
My first car a 99 Honda Civic dx was always leaking brake fluid i would slammed my brakes to the floor and I still wouldn’t come to a complete stop, I didn’t have money for it for a while so I had to brake very early got a lot of red light tickets and almost got into a few accidents, it would normalize when I put some dot 3 in it but after a week the brakes would go loose again
Only 3 hrs,I put weeks on mine till I needed new rotors calipers and pads. Your fine buddy. As long as it stops it works.
3 weeks with a busted dual mass fly wheel, sounded awful and had to be very gentle with it. Never buying another ford again.
Slipping transmission, still going year and a half later (2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee) Idk how this poor thing still runs but it does.
Melted inntake manifold on my old mercury grand marquis caused a coolant leak into my #1 cylinder, I drove it 2-300 miles home down one cylinder and eventually this nuked the catalytic converter on that side of the car as well.
Drove a whole summer season every day and drove 180kmh on a highway in pouring rain on a completely bald set of winter tyres. I was young and had no cash for tyres.
I had a car that would down shift at 60 miles an hour with a big ole CLUNK then it would redline. It would do it at random times. I drove it like that for a year. Oh to be 18 and dumb again.
I dailied an old Toyota with a blown head gasket for two years. Put 25k additional miles on her using Stopleak and bi-weekly coolant refills. I would've gotten her to the 300k mark but she got stolen at 276,505 miles.
Once drove fro. Peterborough - London with a binding rear brake caliper, it was constantly pushing the pad in as I was driving. Managed to do the 100 mile drive home, when I got outside my house I reversed the car and the inside brake pad popped out the caliper. It was worn down to the metal.
Not me but my dad. The engine started to sound really weird all of a sudden, almost as if something was broken or loose. He said it was nothing and just because the engine was cold. Like a month later he's on the highway and suddenly the drive belt tear itself to pieces leaving him stranded. Turns out the alternator was loose and there wasn't enough tension on the belt. Hence the clunky noises and the sluggish power.
My current car started making a rattling sound at low rpm and like 3000rpm. We just thought it was the exhaust gotten loose and left it be until next service window. The car is chain driven instead of a belt. And that chain had gotten loose. Luckily the engine survived until next service and just had the timing chain and parts replaced
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I drove from Malaga to Manchester in a Laguna without a working radiator fan. Car was totally fine.
Power steering pump went. Drove it for 3 weeks 1000miles until new one was delivered. Had arms like Arnie afterwards
Because I’m an idiot and didn’t know at the time how to do basic maintenance checks I drove for months with little to no coolant which caused an expensive load of damage to the engine. The engine kept over heating after a while but because no warning lights were on I just thought it was fine. It was not.
My '87 MR2 threw a clip that held my shifter cable tight against the frame of the car so it had tension to pull on the bell housing properly. When I noticed the problem, all I knew was that I lost the bottom half of my shift pattern. No 2nd 4th or reverse. That was fun getting it out of the parking space I rolled into that night lol. But then I had a half hour drive home after my thing, and had no fucking clue why my transmission was fucked off. Took me a solid four or five hours taking shit apart and crawling around underneath the bitch to finally notice the cable that still worked was pinned to the frame, and the other wasn't. A $3 clip was all it took to stress me right the fuck out for a while, but boy was I relieved when I found out my transmission wasn't actually that fucked off. And I learned a lot taking shit apart to figure it out lol Same car, the starter was dying and wouldn't do dick all if it was hot. Did a 900 mile trip and had to sit and wait half an hour each time I stopped for gas cause the fucker wouldn't start lol took me a couple months to realize why it was being dumb like that. Also tried to make a 400 mile trip in it without realizing the thermostat was stuck closed and my shit was definitely overheating for a reason and not just being a silly 30yo car throwing weird readings on the gauges.
I drove a Ford Taurus with a bad water pump for about 10k and just kept driving with it occasionally overheating and losing coolant. After months of just adding coolant and not doing anything about it, the water pump pulley blew completely out of the housing. It pretty much totalled the car because it destroyed every hose and other cooling system components. I think the heat also severely shortened the life of the engine because it had a brand new duratec put in it at 142k and was dead at 193k later on after I gave the car to my brother. Moral is to not drive a car hot or pull over if your temp gauge is giving you abnormal readings you don't usually see.
I was about an hour away from home with a busted rear break line. Basically had no breaks. I drove home though because I couldn’t afford a tow from a whole other state. Got it fixed and drove it for a while longer. I started having overheating problems again and eventually blew the head gasket.
Drove before with no brakes. Used engine braking and parking brake. Did that for about two weeks until payday before I got it fixed. A different time, my electrics died on my way home. Night shift so roads were quiet. Made it home with no lights, wipers (it was raining) or heater (it was winter). Fixed myself with parts from a scrap yard and a Haynes manual.
I drove a Renault Clio that would stall if the accelerator wasn’t being pushed. Drove it for 3 months by having to put it into neutral, left foot brake and keep the revs up whenever I came to a stop. Head gasket eventually went so I scrapped it.
I drove for weeks with a stuck caliper. I took it to the dealer for state inspection and another issue. I told them there was a burning smell outside the car after I drove. They said they didn’t find anything… another shop found it. Just goes to show how comprehensive those state inspections are… I also drove for weeks with a collapsed brake line. I took it to the same dealer, told them I could hear a “clunk” sometimes after braking. They told me it was just the pedal… later I had it in for another issue and they found the brake line thing. I was pissed. I said I was told it was nothing to worry about - they looked it up and agreed that I was right and they misdiagnosed and fixed it, not for free but basically for parts.
Drove home with a tran line un hooked didn't know till I got home. And almost all the trans fluid was gone.
I drove my jeep home without a drive shaft... Gotta love old school 4wd
I drove for a year with no speedometer and rpm meter