Funny or scary motoring breakdowns!

brownie4583

Having once owned an old Mini i have a few of these stories!!
I was turning the corner at the bottom of our road when my Mini just stopped,the ball joint had broken and the wheel was underneath the car!A car pulled up and the driver asked if i needed a push,it was Gary Megson,the current manager of Sheffield Wednesday & ex Bolton manager,who lived our our road in Sheffield,he had a look at the wheel and then drove off laughing!!:)

TrickyWicky

You couldn't make this up but I bought a car a while back that had been sat a while. The battery was duff but the sales guy jumped it for me on his forecourt. Snow everywhere, the forecourt was on a hill and the gate for the forecourt was narrow. Having narrowly avoided hitting the gatepost on the way out (thanks to the OH for pushing it UP the hill on snow with brute force) I noticed the fuel gauge was on empty. Went to the nearest petrol station, put in some juice and realised the car wouldn't start - not enough charge.

Now at this point I was under the belief that with an engine turned off, you couldn't get an automatic out of park. It's sat there right next to a petrol pump on a 12 pump forecourt. I spoke to the people behind the counter who said "Push it over there and jump start it - you'll be fine". The moment I mentioned it was an automatic and in park: "Ok mate, let us turn off all the pumps and you can jump start it once the forecourt is empty along with the shop". They meant every word.. we waited for the forecourt to empty, I looked around, got the thumbs up, and the blokes behind the counter vanished down below the brickwork below the glass window :eek:

Car started fine and despite the odd sparks from the battery, no petrol pumps went up in flames, no explosions happened and most importantly no-one got hurt. Still ****ing scary though.

Mankysteve

There should be no sparks if you jump a car properly.

brownie4583

I also had my brakes fail coming down a hill and i managed to stop it when i came to the flat road.
A hole had worn into the front brake pipe and everytime i pressed the brake pedal the fluid was shooting out,until the level went too low and the brakes failed!
Pretty scary!!

TrickyWicky

Mankysteve wrote: »

There should be no sparks if you jump a car properly.

When you hook up the jump leads they nearly always spark. Where I used to work we had a very good anti-spark set for jump starting cars. We never had a spark once.

There is also a reason why you're told not to turn anything on or off if you have a gas leak - small switches create tiny sparks too.

Still, if you know something I don't..

Mankysteve

TrickyWicky wrote: »

When you hook up the jump leads they nearly always spark. Where I used to work we had a very good anti-spark set for jump starting cars. We never had a spark once.

There is also a reason why you're told not to turn anything on or off if you have a gas leak - small switches create tiny sparks too.

Still, if you know something I don't..

Positive leads first then negative leads works a treat.

elsien

Scary one was breaking down on the motorway with no time to get over onto the hard shoulder.
Sitting on the inside lane in rush hour unable to leave the car because the idiots coming up behind were shooting up the hard shoulder to get past me was a tad concerning.
With profound thanks to the lorry driver who blocked the hard shoulder and got the car pushed to safety.

TrickyWicky

Mankysteve wrote: »

Positive leads first then negative leads works a treat.

Jeez like I've not tried that. When you connect them (in either order) you are completing a circuit. As mentioned above, even tiny switches can create sparks.

Weird_Nev

A couple spring to mind:
Brake failure on the BMW. Nursed it home 30 miles without braking. Never again, worst decision of my life, although I made it home unscathed. I was scraping swearwords off of the inside of the windscreen for weeks!
Catastrophic turbo failure at about 130 Mph, this time in a BMW530d. Rear view mirror filled with white smoke, the world went on fast rewind, and we had to call off the pursuit.:eek:

andrew-the-cat

Not mine personally but a friend has his clutch cable snap while driving, I drove it 2 miles back to his house without using the clutch!

amandada

There was that day a month ago when husband's car died on the way to the garage to be traded in....