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Car breakdowns : your stories .

marty21

marty21

One on one? You're crazy.
I was watching something 'smart' motorways last night , which got me into break downs.
I once broke down in a forest at night (near Dunwich, Suffolk) and it took a while for the AA to find me , several phone calls with AA man :mad: All he did was bang something with a hammer and the car started :confused:

Once on a motorway near Swinton, I was waiting in the sun for the AA , a car with a bunch of lads in it sped past , one of them yelled 'wanker' as they sped past #banter

AA towed me to the nearest garage ,I had basic cover, told me to leave the keys on a wheel .I had to get to a wedding in Clitheroe :facepalm: AA man said he'd drive me until he got a call, and then their systems crashed so he drove me to Clitheroe :thumbs:
 
Know someone (not me) that had a gearbox collapse while crossing a very busy junction in Newcastle upon Tyne, they hadn't had the car very long and it went back to the deal for an swop soon afterwards.

Another incident at that particular junction was back in the late 1970s - an almost brand new bus dropped the rear diff, which rather stuffed the morning rush hour. Not a popular place to have a breakdown.
 
My mum has always had shit cars so when I graduated she borrowed a mate's to drive from London to Bath. It broke down on at the top of one of those massive hills going into the city (luckily not actually on the hill but on a roundabout leading to it - she wasn't popular :D ) and the AA fucked about for so long she missed my whole graduation ceremony.

When my daughter was about 1.5, we went to see my granny near Leeds. On the way back to London the car broke down around Nottingham. Daughter developed the raging shits. AA sent someone after a couple of hours who sucked his teeth and said he couldn't help. A few hours later someone else turned up in a tow truck so we drove back to London from Nottingham at 55mph with a squirming shit machine child and a bag of festering nappies.
 
polly said:
My mum has always had shit cars so when I graduated she borrowed a mate's to drive from London to Bath. It broke down on at the top of one of those massive hills going into the city (luckily not actually on the hill but on a roundabout leading to it - she wasn't popular :D ) and the AA fucked about for so long she missed my whole graduation ceremony.

When my daughter was about 1.5, we went to see my granny near Leeds. On the way back to London the car broke down around Nottingham. Daughter developed the raging shits. AA sent someone after a couple of hours who sucked his teeth and said he couldn't help. A few hours later someone else turned up in a tow truck so we drove back to London from Nottingham at 55mph with a squirming shit machine child and a bag of festering nappies.
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I'm from Bath, but have no breakdown stories connected to it - :D although it does remind me of a mate (also from Bath) who one morning found a person sleeping in his car (he lived in Maida Vale at the time). He managed to tempt the lady out with car sweets , she claimed she was waiting for her son. When she got out , he realised she had soiled the passenger seat - he had to drive to the garage recommended by the insurers with all the windows open and his head as far away from the passenger seat as he could manage😀
 
marty21 said:
I'm from Bath, but have no breakdown stories connected to it - :D although it does remind me of a mate (also from Bath) who one morning found a person sleeping in his car (he lived in Maida Vale at the time). He managed to tempt the lady out with car sweets , she claimed she was waiting for her son. When she got out , he realised she had soiled the passenger seat - he had to drive to the garage recommended by the insurers with all the windows open and his head as far away from the passenger seat as he could manage😀
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The hills in Bath almost did us in a few times!

My neighbour in Cricklewood found out someone had been living in her car for weeks, once. She'd been using it too. I guess he'd only slept in it. At the time it was funny because she hadn't noticed, but looking back now it just seems sad :(
 
On a DUCK tour with some family that were visiting London for the weekend.
The DUKW decided to deposit a drive shaft on the road just in front of the MI6 building.
Whilst they waited for someone to fix it / bring a replacement, a number of well built looking men in suits suddenly appeared and insisted that it be moved immediately.
The driver pointed to the lump of ejected metal and explained that it was a bit of a heavy vehicle to push - so it was staying where it was for the moment.
There was a bit of a comical / tense standoff until rescue arrived
 
Coming home from gigs has been an absolute fucking NIGHTMARE for the last 3 years, thanks to the building of those 'smart' motorways and constant fucking closures. I am incensed that these problems have only just been identified.

Sorry, no torrid tales to tell about breakdowns, just wanted a moan.
 
When my son was about three months old we drove from London to Middlesbrough for Xmas. On the way it started snowing and that gradually became a blizzard. At which point the wire connecting my clutch to the gearbox suddenly became not connected.

So I was standing on the hard shoulder of the A1, in a blizzard, attempting to fix my car with the flashlight from my mobile lighting the way, while my three month old son screamed in the back seat and cars whizzed past (in a blizzard) feet away.

Anyway I did it cos I'm cool under pressure like somebody from the fucking SAS or something and we slid into Boro safe and sound.
 
Had an MG on the A1, pre mobile phone days, seized the gearbox about 10 metres from a phone box.

Blew the valves in a Rover 800. Got 85 in second, not for long though.

Had a mini steering pack up while trying get to turn left. It just drifted across the road and stopped. Same car broke the sufframe rallying it. Total brake failure in it too.

Had a grey Cortina which started running really roughly, a plug had come out and fallen off the HT lead. Easy fix.

Had a cambelt strip some teeth and lock up the cams smashing them into the cylinders.

Had a cambelt snap (at 40000 miles) Stuck in the hot Andalucía summer sun for 8 hours, no food, no water.

Most recently (last Saturday) car battery failed. But it was 5 or 6 years old. Took 3 hours to get a mechanic and battery sorted out.

There must be other things too but these are the ones that come to mind.
 
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I locked the key in the boot on Christmas Eve once, with the presents. It was snowing. AA came out and bent a door enough to get in. Nice.

Crankshaft sensor went so the car wouldn't start. RAC came out and it started fine so I looked like a bellend.

Voltage regulator went once and I had to drive 40 miles in the rain to the mechanic fast as possible, as little electrical stuff as possible before the fully charged battery ran out. Put Rainx on the windscreen to not need the wipers. Worked.

My wife's newish car broke down - spark plug failure so a serious misfire - and she limped it along the M60 before we gave up and pulled off at a junction. AA came and gave it a rigid tow to a dealer which involved me semi-passively steering with zero visibility at 50mph. Really, really weird experience. At one point some twat in an Audi - of course - attempted to merge into the gap between van and car before realising why they weren't going to be able to, the absolute tool.
 
Had a Golf cabby splutter to a stop on a roundabout, A3 junction for Cobham. Cliff Richard went past twice and looked down his nose at me. And he knew my mother! Bastard.

Had a cam break on a Lamorghini Espada.
 
Quite a few of these in assorted bangers :oops: lucky to be alive from more than one of them. Heres one:

Driving down to Devon in this shitty white escort, coming down off a hill on the motorway, M5 not far from Glastonbury I expect, fast lane, sun getting close to setting on the horizon, beautiful view then the loudest BANG! and everything had gone pitch black. Fuck we've just died. A couple of seconds later or so realised was still alive and still driving in the fast lane - the front bonnett hadnt closed properly, wind had got under it and had popped it right back, smashed the windscreen and so all i could see out the front window was shattered glass and the bonnett upright blocking all view.

Somehow managed to pull into the hard shoulder on a fairly busy motorway - even though i could see nothing infront of me.
The windscreen glass held together but was deeply fractured.
AA came, got the bonnet down and tied it closed, but could only offer a relay home to London. Fuck that, this was day one of what was meant to be a holiday!
So we drove on the last hour, windscreen splintering the last setting light into a kaleidoscope. So dangerous tbh.
Turned up at friends house to much lols.
Windscreen replaced next day.

About a month later I got an un-matching escort bonnet to replace it from a breakers.
Turned out the escort it had come off had a souped up engine so had foam on the underside of the bonnet to act as a muffler for the noise.
A subsequent trip out to the countryside a few weeks later, pulled into a petrol station, went to pay, looked out to see same escort on fire with flames licking out from under the bonnet where the stupid piece of foam had caught fire. Fire engine came quite quick but car burned out.
 
At a forest stage of the RAC rally in Scotland in 1988. The stage had finished and the next one was miles away the following day, so I decided I was going to have a bash at the stage in my Golf GTI. I was doing fine, until the sump hit a rock and the oil light came on. I'd bent the sump and put a hole in it, and the cast aluminium oil pickup pipe had snapped off in the sump.
I had to borrow a mate's car, drive 350 miles back to Manchester, take the sump and oil pump from an old engine, drive back to Scotland, and carry out an extremely cold and wet repair... Deep joy!
 
Saw this the other day. An automatic stuck in park blocking the local rat run putting an extra 10 minutes on journey times. Almost looks intentional. :hmm:

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Before the M25 was completed, the Surrey section ended at Reigate Hill, where I would turn right & head north to Sutton on my morning commute. The motorway wasn't that busy, but when I broke down in a brand new company car half way up the right-hand lane on the slip road, traffic started seriously stacking up. With no mobile phones, no emergency motorway phones installed yet, and no knowledge of where I could find a phone box, I was fucked.

I sat there for a few minutes wondering WTF to do, when by luck I spotted a police range rover slowly making its way up the slip road, they towed me off the motorway and got their control room to call the RAC for me. The only time I was ever pleased to see the cops. :D

Not one of mine, but one where 3 mates & I came to the rescue of an elderly couple broken down on a dual carriageway, I pulled over to see if we could help, it was just a flat tyre, he had a spare wheel, but no jack. "No, problem mate, we can lift & hold the car whilst you change the wheel', but fuck me was he panicking getting the replacement wheel on, because he was convinced we couldn't hold it, and was scared of us dropping it, he of little faith.
 
Slave cylinder went on van when I was doing a route in Amble (means that the clutch peddle doesn’t return up when depressed) :mad:

Recovery was pretty quick and work drove one of their fleet vans up to me to complete route.
 
When I was 18 drove up and down to Chippenham in Wiltshire every 2 weeks in my 950cc Ford Fiesta. On the way back to London it always rained. And the car always died, had to wait 20 minutes and it would start again, good for another 10 miles. And so on...


Frau Bahn locked my keys in the boot of a Golf at a rave once, got the RAC to come out, he tried for 2 hours, every trick in his book. Eventually he handed me a hammer, pointed at the rear quaterlight and said, "You do the honours."
 
Bahnhof Strasse said:
When I was 18 drove up and down to Chippenham in Wiltshire every 2 weeks in my 950cc Ford Fiesta. On the way back to London it always rained. And the car always died, had to wait 20 minutes and it would start again, good for another 10 miles. And so on...


Frau Bahn locked my keys in the boot of a Golf at a rave once, got the RAC to come out, he tried for 2 hours, every trick in his book. Eventually he handed me a hammer, pointed at the rear quaterlight and said, "You do the honours."
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My breakdown up north was in a Ford Fiesta , I think it was a 950cc one :D no wonder they yelled wanker at me tbf
 
marty21 said:
My breakdown up north was in a Ford Fiesta , I think it was a 950cc one :D no wonder they yelled wanker at me tbf
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I bought mine in 1989 and it was a Y reg, so 8 years old, or something like that. It didn't have a radio, had never had one, ever!
 
Many years ago. Had an entertaining trip back from Salisbury to Chippenham one Saturday, with me father driving. The gear stick snapped, below the gaiter, in second. Father and I left the car at the dealers (just outside Chippenham) and got the local taxi to come and collect us.
 
Power steering went on my Alfa 159.
Breakdown came 4 hrs later said they couldn't fix it and said tow would be another 4 hrs as they were busy. ( Green flag lol)Told car was unsafe to drive (big heavy car)
Fuck it drove home picking route with least sharp corners and lights. Rolled up slowly at lights and avoided stopping at all. Took a week for my arms to recover but made it.
Another time back wheels caved on my rusty camper on a speed bump in France, made it a mile to a hotel and got Eurostar on the insurance as we'd switched to a better company cos o previous experience.
 
The one time my car broke down it was as I was reaching over to turn off the engine anyway, having just arrived home after a five-hour drive. I resolved to do nothing and hope it started the next day, which it did.
 
Clutch went on the slip road of j6 of the m40 a couple of months ago. A recovery truck was sent by the AA as they had my location as actually on the motorway (so don't trust their shitty app). The recovery truck told me had been instructed to take me to the nearest services where an AA van would meet me. However, his controller had told him the next services were Warwick, not the much closer (and more convenient for me) Oxford services. So we wasted about an hour bumbling up and down the m40 to get to Oxford. Then the AA bloke turned up and told me it was fucked and I needed a tow home, which the recovery truck could have done hours ago.

That was Friday night after working away all week. Got home at midnight. Fucking bastards.
 
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