FUCK YOU, CAR! FUCK YOU! >=(

We've all had those lovely little problems with cars. My uncle currently drives an ancient Ford Taurus with a broken CV axle (IIRC) that he got for $150. It makes this just fucking godawful noise that sounds like my 16-month-old nephew banging on pots and pans whenever he makes a turn. My OTHER uncle is driving a car he got for 1,500 that has fucked up electronics and a broken airbag.

Me? My '95 Civic is... MOSTLY reliable. The biggest problem right now is the fact that my brake pedal's really spongy, and I need to bleed the lines. Aside from that, the only other problems have been a broken brake light switch, a leak in the brake lines (which cause the spongy pedal) and the driver's side window going off its track.

What about everybody else? Regale us with your horror stories of cars just generally fucking up in any way possible.

Btw, my car has ABS brakes. I read a few DIY guides, and they mentioned some ABS systems needing a scanning tool while bleeding the lines and I was sorta wondering if that applied to me, too. I'd like to avoid having to take it in and pay 200 bucks on top of the 400 I'm gonna need to pay for replacing the timing belt if at all possible.

Well, I decided to drive my baby--> a 1990 Eagle Talon, from Nampa, ID to Vegas and back, a week later the transmission is completely shot. My husband bought this 1992 Dodge Daytona and it's manual transmission is stuck in 2nd or 3rd. We then had to borrow his mom's car that was already a little fucked up, the transmission of course, to get around the town. It was working fine in the winter but now that it's warm it jumps every time we try and go anywhere. We eventually had to buy a 2008 Doge Ram 1500 and it's working perfectly--> it better be!! We'll eventually fix the Talon and the Daytona when we get a little extra money but for now they sit in the garage...

I have a 1988 Ford Escort. One day I was driving home from work, as I approached the highway I pressed the brake. They didn't work at all so I just kept going 70 - 75 km/h across the highway, off the side of the road getting a few feet of air, and wedging myself between two trees. There was minimal damage, only a dent or two, and my headlights now point towards the sky. The back hatch now makes an aweful squeaking noise, and the muffler rattles. Brakes work fine though.

Originally Posted by scotty

Brakes work fine though.

Did you at least get them looked at after that incident? I hope you're not driving around with brakes that magically fixed themselves.

Heh, I just remembered the last car my parents owned.

It was a 2000 Chrystler Voyager minivan, bought brand new. Worst fucking thing ever.

-A/C broke at LEAST once a year. In Florida.
-Emergency brake release broke. 'Twas fun times watching a mechanic remove the shell below the steering wheel and poking around trying to find the line so he could release the e-brake.
-Computer error caused the bloody thing to just massively fuck itself up. It was shuddering, stalling, and eventually it got so bad that we drove it to the first auto repair shop we could find and had them fix it... only to be told that they couldn't do anything and that the dealership had to do it.

Ugh. Never buying another car from that company ever again. In the five years we owned that thing from brand-new, we had more problems with that car alone than we had with any other we'd bought in my lifetime, and all the other cars we used.

Originally Posted by Spike

Did you at least get them looked at after that incident? I hope you're not driving around with brakes that magically fixed themselves.

Yeah I had them checked out.

I forgot that about two months ago I was driving in town, and suddenly my car stopped running. I had to pull over, get a tow truck to take me to a mechanic, and pay $200 for a new fuel relay switch. I am working on getting a new car fairly soon.

My first car was a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Only problem I had was the "check oil" light would come on for no reason, but I don't remember getting stuck anywhere.

Four or five years later my dad traded in the Cutlass for his minivan, and gave me a 1991 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight. The alternator died on it once in traffic, and it had some other issues, but all in all, it served me well.

When I moved to Maryland in 2001, the Olds wouldn't pass the state inspection; Maryland has one of the strictest inspections in the country, but you only have to do it once. Part of the problem was that I didn't know any mechanics that wouldn't try to fleece me, so I decided it would be cheaper just to buy a newer car in MD. Enter the 1997 Chevy Malibu I bought at Carmax. I suppose I can't complain too much, but man, did that car have issues. It had a slow coolant leak which required me to add coolant every other month or so. The serpentine belt wore out twice, and I think I had to replace the alternator as well. The last straw was when the air conditioning died.

I waited until the following summer and bought my current car, a brand new 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid. So far I've had no problems with it, and no complaints. It'll be paid off in 2 more years, and then hopefully it will last a few years beyond that, so I can save some money on car payments.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

We've all had those lovely little problems with cars. My uncle currently drives an ancient Ford Taurus with a broken CV axle (IIRC) that he got for $150. It makes this just fucking godawful noise that sounds like my 16-month-old nephew banging on pots and pans whenever he makes a turn.

Ah, the sub-$500 market. Yes, I have a lot of experience with those.

That is why, as soon as I could afford it, I decided to lease.

but BEFORE that, I commuted three hours a day in a 1990 LeBaron. Its transmission is begging to die. Its brakes are good, and so is the fuel pump, since I had to replace it twice. It actually did pretty well all considered, even though the driver's window didn't roll down, the driver's seat didn't move forward (oh but it moved back), and you had to let it run for fifteen minutes before the damn thing would move.

Yeah. The best part is that my uncle has absolutely no intent of getting it fixed. His logic is "hey, when it brakes down, I'll just sell it for more money than I bought it for!"

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Btw, my car has ABS brakes. I read a few DIY guides, and they mentioned some ABS systems needing a scanning tool while bleeding the lines and I was sorta wondering if that applied to me, too. I'd like to avoid having to take it in and pay 200 bucks on top of the 400 I'm gonna need to pay for replacing the timing belt if at all possible.

Um, if you have spongy pedals, and a leak in the line, it's because everytime you step on the pedal, it loses fluid, and everytime you let up on the pedal, the line will then suck air in to replace the lost fluid, causing your spongy brakes. This is very dangerous, I might add. Get it fixed ASAP.

It has nothing to do with the ABS, but it will still probably run you 2 to 300 bucks.

I had a 1989 Pontiac Grand Am that I had transferred into my ownership after my mother was dumb enough to lose her driver's license. It served its purpose okay but toward the end of its life, it had developed some significant problems.

- The heater didn't work well so defrosting the car in winter was nigh impossible. I had to do a shitload of scraping. Some evenings, after exiting work, it was below 5 degrees Fahrenheit, so I had little option but to sit in the car for nearly thirty minutes until a small patch of window melted away, enough to see forward. I had to drive home with the side windows completely unrolled just so I could see behind.

- The water pump had a habit of breaking. I don't know why, since it was replaced twice (hay lurker~). I had two different garages inspect the lines and seals leading to and from the pump, thinking an indirect problem kept causing the malfunction, but nothing was ever found. But it was a damned annoyance. Without a working pump, the engine overheats and the steering column locks up. Try driving 5 mph to the garage, hoping you don't crack your engine block.

- The transmission was slippery. Actually, "slippery" is probably too kind. "Cerebral palsic" would be a better choice. While you were driving, you were okay. Anything above 25 mph was usually easygoing. But once the engine decelerated and the gearbox had to shift, the car would spasm and stall. My engine would die completely at random traffic lights. Usually I could wait a minute or two, restart and proceed with caution but occasionally the car would refuse to move again for nearly an hour. I learned to circumvent this issue by manually dropping into lower gears as I decelerated; switching into third or second usually kept the engine running. Eventually, though, this stopped working too. I'd stall out at every single red light.

I never did get the transmission issue fixed. Hell, I'm really just guessing that it was the transmission. The car never made it to the garage for me to find out. I was attempting to drive five blocks to pick up dry-cleaning when the water pump blew again. The car overheated, the steering locked up, the transmission threw a fit and the camel's back was broken. I wasn't even going to spend the money to fix the damned thing. I called a scrapyard, took my $50 and called it even.


I also had a 1994 Dodge Shadow. I assumed ownership when my mom died. She bought it from some shady dealership (they were later shut down by the Feds) and it had a ton of minor problems.

- The trunk latch would randomly come undone. This would cause my trunk to happily bounce behind me as I drove, blocking my rear view at times. I tried to fix it but couldn't quite determine why it was loosening itself in the first place. I eventually stretched a bungee cord from the base to the rear window. That worked okay.

- The muffler was a piece of garbage. But who expects them to last forever, honestly? Anyhow, the noise this thing made was excruciating, and at the time, I had absolutely no spare money for auto repairs. I had to turn up the radio and pretend I was listening to the "Best of GWAR Hour" or something. Eventually, the muffler's coupling rusted off and the damned thing dragged along the ground behind me, emitting sparks and an increasingly obnoxious din of metal against asphalt. This continued for about three weeks until I finally had enough money to get it replaced.
When the mechanic raised the car on the rack, I could see the severed portion of exhaust pipe; it had been ground into a very oblique point, looking much like an oversized hypodermic needle. I was genuinely impressed. That day I learned that new mufflers don't cost nearly as much as my friend insisted.

- The windshield wiper tab had this sneaky habit of coming off and rolling beneath the seats where I had no hope of finding it for a few days. This made it very difficult to activate/deactivate my wipers. I felt like a total retard driving down the highway on a sunny afternoon with my wipers rocking in full swing. Likewise, I was rendered immobile by anything heavier than a moderate sprinkle. I eventually solved the problem by jamming an eyeglass screwdriver in the slit, finding the notch and using that as my control switch.

- The gas line began to leak. At first, the trail was hard to determine. Any passing vehicle could've left some drops of gas. And it wouldn't leak when the car was off. But once the drips became a steadier dotted line, and a small pool amassed when I left the car in idle, I knew.
I took the car to the garage and asked for a repair. Two hours later, they called me and said it'd be kinda silly since they could never make the fix permanent, and repeated solderings would cost more than the car's overall value. They urged me to just go find a better vehicle.
Hurricane Katrina had swept through Louisiana a few months before, so the gas crunch has begun. I took the mechanic's advice and traded the Shadow in toward my current car.


I now drive a 2004 Suzuki Verona. It's been pretty good so far, save for one event.

- This past winter was rather harsh. The driveway where I used to park has a way of becoming very icy. Sometimes I would get snowed in or stuck along ice patches. One day, I couldn't build enough momentum or contact to move beyond an unusually large section of ice. I'd salted and sanded it over but was still stuck. I spent about thirty minutes rocking in and out of reverse, attempting to maneuver over the hump. I finally cleared the patch but heard an odd clunk in the process. As I drove along to work, I noticed that I had almost no momentum; depressing the accelerator did absolutely nothing. The transmission was completely shot.

Fortunately, it was fully covered by the warranty. Still, there was no way that should've blown out after only 4 years with less than 30,000 miles on the vehicle. I was quite upset about that.

Right now, I think the left CV joint is having an issue. I hear rhythmic squeaks/scraping noises when I move forward, and their oscillation increases with my speed. I can hear them coming from the wheel-well area but haven't isolated the cause. "CV Joint" is just my own guess. Sometimes this noise disappears completely. Then it randomly returns another day. I had it looked at once before but nothing was found. I'm kind of stumped.

Originally Posted by Zephyrin

Um, if you have spongy pedals, and a leak in the line, it's because everytime you step on the pedal, it loses fluid, and everytime you let up on the pedal, the line will then suck air in to replace the lost fluid, causing your spongy brakes. This is very dangerous, I might add. Get it fixed ASAP.

It has nothing to do with the ABS, but it will still probably run you 2 to 300 bucks.

Actually, the leak got fixed a while ago when I had maintenance done on my brakes, or so I've been told. The guy I took it to though got a big recommendation from my co-workers, though, and I more or less trust him (and besides, he reattached the door handles on my driver's side window while he was putting it back on its track).

You don't have to tell me that it's dangerous though. Nothing beats the "thrill" of sitting in the emergency lane on a somewhat busy 2-lane street, waiting for traffic to clear so you can merge, only to see your car starting to inch forward, despite the fact that the brake's on the fucking floor. Thankfully, that's only happened once, but even so, I'm wanting to get the lines bled ASAP. Money's pretty damn tight right now, though, hence the question.

I've owned five cars since I turned 18. Some were good, some were bad.

The worst one was probably the Chevy S-10 as far as repairs are concerned. It's no wonder; that truck was ancient (and I loved it so much).

I had the transmission blow on me TWICE within one year while I was on the highway. I'm not the sort of person who stays around my town very much - I'm perpetually truckin'. Every time something awful happens, it's when I'm away.

I've had tire blow outs with the truck on the highway and I've had engine troubles on the side of a mountain.

I was out in Worcester one summer night and all of a sudden, white smoke started pouring out from under the hood. I opened it up while Sarah cowered in the front seat and saw that the coolant hose somehow crossed paths with the alternator fan, and I had to MacGyver something to keep the hose out of the fan area while rigging a tourniquet for the hose (because it was GASHED from the fan).

When you have car troubles and you're alone in the middle of nowhere, you quickly learn how to fix shit.

I just wish I could learn MORE and have actual tools to be ablet o fix most things on my own. I really don't have the resources or anything, but around these parts, when a woman walks into an auto shop all alone and without a clue, she gets taken for a ride.

I don't EVER want that.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Money's pretty damn tight right now, though, hence the question.

Well, how long ago was this repair made? If he repaired the brake line and mucked it up, or didn't bleed the brakes properly, they SHOULD and in most cases absolutely would take it back and finish it up properly.

If it's been too long, they won't honor that, though. But if it's related to the previous repair (and assuming you don't have new problems with the brakes), it's got nothing at all to do with the ABS.

Maybe if you have an uncle or somebody who can help you bleed them, all you need is some garage type tools and brake fluid.

The repair was made... oh, I'd say a month or so ago. Maybe a little more. My memory loves to fuck with me, remembering completely trivial shit like something from an essay read in class that has absolutely jack-all to do with the actual CLASS, but won't remember important stuff like when shit got done.

Thanks for the help, though, Zeph. As soon as my parents get back this week, I'll drag one out to help me bleed the brake line.

I've had a few cars in my time, and they ran fine until old age caught up with them, and I didn't have the money to repair them.

But the worse thing that ever happened, and scared the hell out of me to boot, was the brakes failing in my 86 Nova. I was coming down a steep hill, and suddenly, I had no brakes and smoke was coming from my front driver's side tire.

Emergency brakes are wonderful.

That's how I stopped my car at the bottom. I just had my brakes worked on right before this. Well, I got that car back to the same mechanic, and he tells me the piston jammed, causing the brake fluid to leak out, and the brakes to fail. He asked me who worked on it last, I told him he had, and I got free repairs.

My brake fluid light never came on, so I never knew there was a problem.

That had to be the worse thing that ever happened to me.

Now I drive a 97 Chevy Lumina, and I love it.

I have only ever driven three cars since I turned 18 - two of which I owned, all of them Toyota's.

The 85 Cressida was my first. Seatbelts barely worked, always had issues with the transmission etc etc and surprisingly the fool thing still works.

The second car was a teal green Toyota Corrolla that was my baby - never had any problems with it. Unfortunately it got totalled in a car accident when I got sideswiped down in Savannah.

My current car is also a Toyota Corrolla (I was impressed with how I had no issues with the first one) and the only problem I have with it is a check engine light that never goes off. (My own fault given that I left the gas cap off one day and forgot to put it back on. Haven't gotten the silly thing fixed yet. :P)