So my truck started to sputter and had zero power. Pulled the tank and hot wired the fuel pump. Black fuel came out. Pulled the whole fuel system out and replacing it with new lines, replacing all gaskets and flushing the injectors. Also putting in a proper check valve and an external pre fuel rail filter, since it’s an in tank filter, which is a horrible design.
@duodec i lol’d. first ford is my current car, that was unbeknownst to me left to me in my uncle’s will. it was either take this 2010 car with under 50k miles on it, or sell it and do major repairs on a 1999 camry with over 200k. tbh, driving the ford feels like rattling down the road in a tin can by comparison but, it was probably the right decision financially.
Hit a young deer on a county highway. Very sad. Fortunately got the blood off before the littles got off the school bus to see it. Getting van repaired Monday/Tuesday and theoretically getting it back Wednesday.
Previous owner spent $5 plus time on plugging the unused outlet on the incorrect coolant connector elbow because he didn’t want to spend $3 plus less time on the correct coolant connector elbow.
Someone came along and intentionally snapped off my side mirror, along with the side mirrors of the cars in front of and behind me. I had only had my car for two months.
The repair shop gave me a loner car, and I figured it couldn’t be any worse than my previous car, a well-maintained 17 year old car. I was wrong. The loner smelled like BO, it desperately needed an alignment/tire balance, and the stereo continually clicked because it was trying to spit out a CD that wasn’t there.
@jakeline I always wonder what the heck is wrong with people who deliberately do what happened to your car. A student once bashed holes in a bunch of faculty cars, including mine, finals week. At least that I could (sort of) understand but your random damage… sheesh.
@Kidsandliz During a long term loan the oil was never checked or changed. Result was a spun rod bearing when the engine ran dry. Never repaired or reimbursed. My truck was backed into a car and I had to pay over $2k out of pocket. My truck also came back with mysterious dents and new food stains on the seats. AC, cruise and stereo also all stopped working while on loan though those could just be age.
@tweezak Holy Crap!!! That is like a huge pile of big stuff!!! Makes what my kid did look trivial in comparison. I am so sorry!
All my kid did to the ghetto van make a big dent in the rear bumper by backing into a light pole in the empty shopping center parking lot teaching her how to back up using just mirrors after she had mastered it looking over her shoulder. She went really crooked and didn’t listen when I told her to stop the car. She ran an 18 wheeler off the road when she refused to change lanes when I told her to on the highway. After that I told her, “When I tell you to do something you do what I tell you first and argue second or you won’t ever be driving my car again”.
I also got the ignition kill fixed and it was a good thing I did (she had already taken it once after sneaking out the window - after that I hid the keys although I knew that wasn’t fool proof). The shop was laughing at me asking me who’d steal that wreck. I told them my kid. They said, “good point”. So one Saturday morning she says to me, “Mom the car’s broken”. I said to her, “And how would you know that?”. Oops told on herself.
And this is the kid who told me she’d never learn how to drive if she had to drive the ghetto van, she was going to run it into a tree so I’d have to buy a new one. I told her if she did that she better be prepared to ride her bike everywhere and that included the 8 miles to school if she missed the school bus. Good thing she knew/believed I meant what I said. LOL.
@cinoclav Hopefully you won’t also be doing windshields in that construction zone. I did two of them (along with a couple of rock ding repairs) in the one around here several years ago. I managed to get the construction company to pay for one of them seeing as one of their trucks was right in front of me blowing dirt and junk off the top of it (highway) and my passenger took some photos for me.
GMC truck has been in the dealership over a week waiting for a New back window because of a malfunctioning defroster. Diesel emissions already fixed. I’m very first driver in a brand new loaner Acadia, so I’m ok they haven’t called.
@Kidsandliz@Neech@Salanth it was and they usually targeted trucks/suvs cause you want a large one that you can get under without being noticed/jacking it up…
Some drug addicts will steal whatever they can think of and rehab and medical support in the US is… Questionable at best
@Kidsandliz@Salanth This happened at my work. The car sat there for about a week while I was using a company car. They had to jack it up and be pretty skinny. I put it in jack stands as high as they would go and I didn’t have much room under there.
@stolicat Oh my. Poor owl. I had a seagull fly into my windshield once. I am surprised more of us don’t hit birds seeing as some of them fly off awfully close to when we are nearly on top of them. Makes me sad when we accidentally hit animals.
@Kidsandliz@stolicat@shahnm I hit a bird with a Cessna 172. Fortunately (for me), the impact was on the wing, not the windscreen. Larger birds can be pretty ornery if they survive a trip into the cabin. I don’t think it was a very large one, though. The only result was a small flat spot on the leading edge of the right wing. I felt sorry for the bird.
@shahnm@stolicat@ThunderChicken I’d think hitting a bird with an airplane is potentially more dangerous that with a car, even on the highway. Gravity and all…
Wife’s 2000 Mercedes suddenly wouldn’t shift out of low gear; aka “limp mode”. Son and I replaced most everything in the shift tray (solenoids, valves, gaskets, transmission fluid, etc.) as well as brake sensor switch and kick down switch on gas pedal along with center console shifter. No joy. (He did the work; I observed, did the gofering, and paid the bills.)
Had to take it finally to a qualified shop. (Not easy to find a qualified shop, which is not a dealer, btw.) Shop agreed that his work was flawless. The TCM computer code was corrupted. (Go figure.) They reprogrammed it and now it runs better than ever. This adventure/misadventure cost me about $1500, before it was done.
Before that the brake rotor calipers in my F150 started to seize up, one by one. Twice while out on the road, and once in the driveway. My son can change one of these in about 15 minutes.
Hitting a bird in an airplane is no fun. Happened to my partner in our V35B Bonanza a number of years ago. Put a dent in the left wing leading edge and took out the pitot tube and generally made a mell of a hess with blood and feather bits everywhere. Stank to high heaven too.
One often gets warnings from ATC on T/O and landings of birds in the area, but that does little good as given the relative closing rates and lack of maneuverability of an airplane vs a bird.
On the other hand, I would like to have a $1 for every bug I have hit with an airplane! Cleaning the front surfaces after a flight (all front surfaces) of bug guts and detritus is a chore that most pilots hate.
I had bought a new battery about 18 months ago and at least one cell started to either leak or shorted out, so I’d have to jump start it almost every time. Thankfully Costco will take pretty much anything back you’ve ever bought there, so they just charged me the $5 difference in price from when I bought my old one to get a new interstate
Alternator brushes wore out somewhere along the interstate on the way out of town. Realized it pulling off the interstate in the town I had to work in. Tried to make it back home and got halfway.
In 2020 alternator brushes are no longer a stocked item at auto parts stores, so the fix to get it back on the road immediately was a $300 alternator instead of an $8 set of brushes.
Thinking I should order the brushes and fix and sell the alternator to recoup some of that investment instead of returning the alternator for the whole $25 core credit.
@djslack Yeah that is so much fun when cars get old enough that parts aren’t stocked, or in the case of my then died at just over 25 year old ghetto van, not even made any more. Sounds like you may be headed that direction too.
I once had to drive from in the middle of nowhere, tiny town that unbelievably had a dodge dealership that indicated it was there in rural Kansas to Bozeman, MT for the nearest radiator (was headed to ID pulling a small uhaul trailer). Stocked up on empty containers I filled with water and radiator fluid, left the radiator cap loose, and stopped a lot to top up the radiator… In another case (same vehicle) the mechanic hand made me a timing belt guide. Pull Apart was my best friend back then. Minivan died by engine bearing suicide not 3 miles from the shop immediately after I had about $120 of work done…
A couple years before that the gas line started leaking as I left the farm to go home (was a 7 hour drive). Happened 15 miles from the farm on Sunday July 3rd, rural area. Drove into town (another 15 miles), went into the gas station, yelled out if anyone knew a mechanic, kid said his uncle, uncle fixed it for cash (I doubt the owner of the shop knew, cash only, twice the rate), called his friend who owned a part shop out of a family picnic, and I was good to go. Incredible luck. Much better than sitting for 2 days stuck in a hotel waiting for Tuesday.
But keeping it running was cheaper than replacing it. So there was that. It was when it broke that was a pain. I kept a lot of “unexpected camping” supplies in there just in case. Had to use them more than once too… The above mentioned messes… also memorable was Saturday night at 11pm in rural KY (I forget what was wrong then), transmission (for the second time on the road like that - era of the bad transmissions, other time was epic but less so), with no warning, in northern ID with a 7 hour wait for a tow and only snacks in the car while on the way home from a soccer tournament (about 2.5 hours from home still), and while fixable on the spot memorable for different reasons - flat tire due to construction (in the end they paid for it) wearing white pants literally on my way to my first day on the job where there was an 8am meeting… are all notable memories… there are more but these stand out the most.
Had a fan motor go bad on a less than a year old Honda CRV. Also Hondas only have 36K mile warranties. I have an extended warranty so it didn’t cost me anything. For all the reputation of Hondas I have heard I am not impressed. I use my vehicle for work for I’ve bought several cars in my lifetime. I haven’t had something major go bad in a vehicle this early in its lifetime for around 2 decades.
@jaynedough I had a '98 CRV that I kept until 2013. The only thing that ever “broke” on it was the fans (both are electric, nothing attached to a vehicle shaft). At one point, the cruise control went out, but it started working again. Probably a vacuum hose that an oil change tech re-attached. The 100,000 mile service to change the timing belt and water pump was kind of expensive, but kept it going for my son’s high school years. Best car I ever had.
@jaynedough same experience with honda rep; when I worked at a foreign auto parts store (high school and into college) the only cars worse than hondas per our customers were fiats and renaults; once US emmisions standards got stupid and every maker had problems trying to get carburetors to do things they just couldn’t do, reliability went down across the board but hondas remained about the worst of the Japanese brands. Even Mitsubishi did better.
Then there were the late '70s - early '80s hondas that rusted out in a couple of years. In Las Vegas. In the desert. Far from the salty midwest or ocean coasts.
I bought my previously owned Tacoma in October 2018. It is a 2016. I’m in AZ. The vehicle registration continues to increase each year. First it was $418 and then $456 and now almost $500. Its a yearly fee, but it should be going down…not up!
@Colbyone21@katbyter Until Virginia I had never lived in a town/state that milked people for cash through tag “highway robbery”. I have read that in some states you have to practically be independently wealthy to even buy a new vehicle because of that. I was shocked to discover my tag in VA cost more than my annual insurance or sales tax combined (new vehicle after being totaled out in a 25 car pile up on the highway - this is the one that died at a bit over 25 mentioned up higher).
@edwardsm6@jcbeckman Yeah maybe that might be why the ghetto van (1990 I had 25 years) never chipped and I’ve had to replace 2 windshields since and fix chips several times a year, each year. I’d been trying to figure out what the issue was as it made no sense to me.
@romellex I recently had a similar experience. Since I started working from home, I now often go weeks without driving my car. After sitting in the garage for two weeks, I went to start it and it was completely dead. Turns out I had left the dashcam on (timely, given today’s deal, eh?). This is a new car, bought Dec 2019. On my previous car, the 12V outlet turned on and off with the ignition, but on the new car it is always powered. I have had a hard time remembering to manually turn the dashcam on/off. A warning label stuck on the ignition button helps.
@irishbyblood never owned a car with heated seats so I doubt I’ve seen your specific issue but. I have chased vacuum leaks if you care to be more specific.
My 1988 Suzuki Samurai won’t start. I think the float in the carburetor is stuck. The thing is 32 years old.
I have a Toyota carburetor with a conversion kit arriving in a couple of days.
@mikebrown2509 that is good luck. Those suckers are expensive. The ghetto van was from the era of bad transmissions. I went through 4 in 25 years. Only 1 was covered by the warranty. the 4th one was a rebuild of my third one, the earlier ones were just a drop in replacement. The rebuild fix held for 9 years until the entire vehicle bit the dust. Should have done it that way sooner.
My car’s very loud, vibrates, shakes, rattles, whenever I’m driving at speed and not turning right. A wheel was out of balance, got it balanced, but it’d worn kinda strangely. Might have a bearing going, not sure. And it’s gone into limp mode a couple times recently.
@InnocuousFarmer that’s not something you really want to ignore. And I love my old beaters. Both are over 20 years old. You could have a ball joint deteriorated in your tie rods or control arm and those can catastrophically fail eventually.
You can check by jacking it up and seeing if the tire rocks. I’d def have someone look at it or a friend if available.
@unksol Did that a while ago, tried to wiggle and kick the wheels, didn’t seem loose. I can’t wait to never drive this car again. It’s just that I’m busy with the not paying for its replacement.
@InnocuousFarmer they weren’t that expensive to replace on the Saturn… I tried wiggling it and it seemed fine. Which is mainly for tie rods. Once I got the control arms out… They were clearly shot. You could just flick them around . But they only have LCA bearings you could have upper control arm bearings too.
@InnocuousFarmer also it won’t show you if you don’t have it jacked up. If it’s on the ground the weight of the car will keep it stable. You really need to jack it on frame so the suspension components are free floating.
Less than three weeks after I bought my new Jetta, the clutch failed completely and had to be replaced. The dealership I got it towed to said they couldn’t find anything wrong that would have caused the failure and tried to blame me, but I’ve been driving stick for 30+ years, and I knew it wasn’t anything I did. In the end, VW paid for most of it, but it still cost me a bunch and made me wary of my own car.
@cinoclav I’ve had VWs for years, and this was the first one that I’ve had any trouble with. I only bought it because they gave me an incredible buyout offer for my emissions-scandal TDI, but in retrospect I wish I’d kept that one. It was a great car. Probably not going to buy a VW again.
@ahacksaw You’re one of the lucky ones. I don’t think I’ve ever known someone with a VW who hasn’t had issues. My neighbor also got a nice buyout for the same reason. He used the money to buy a Volvo. My sister bought an Eos a while back. I warned her and she swore up and down it was a great car. Until one day when she mysteriously traded it in for a Nissan Juke. Apparently she got tired of taking the Eos into the shop.
I bought a new Mazda last December. About 3 weeks in, I got the following display:
I took it in to the dealer, but they had no explanation. I’ve had it in three times, they updated the firmware, ran diagnostics and even had it connected remotely to the factory in Japan, but no luck. It happens occasionally and apparently randomly when I drive it - when it happens, I don’t detect any obvious failures - all systems seem to continue to work as expected. The dealership has never been able to reproduce the error display when they test drive it. The last time I took it in (and they were unsuccessful at diagnosing the problem), they told me they would continue to research the issue with the factory and get back to me if they figured something out. Then Covid hit, so nothing since then. Working from home, I don’t drive much now, but I have seen the error message a couple of time since.
The car still has over 2 years left on the bumper-to-bumper warranty, so I am about ready to start pressing the issue with the dealership again. I may have to explore the Lemon Law.
I’m driving a '16 CX-5 GT that I bought in '15. I have over 121k miles on it and haven’t had any issues outside of the driving lights which had a faulty board and were replaced under a recall. Just had it in for an oil change yesterday and I was talking about how Mazda may be the first brand I would go right back to. In the past I’ve always jumped around to different manufacturers with each new car purchase.
@cinoclav Thanks for the link - I searched extensively last January when I first got the error message and couldn’t find any mention then. That is what the dealership muttered, too - something about the GPS, but nothing conclusive and no fix proposed at the time.
Hmm, this is an interesting comment in that link: “The service person said this message showed because it had not received any satellite signal for over 31 miles.” When I was still driving to work, I noticed that I would most often see the error message at just over 30 miles into my morning commute.
This is my 4th Mazda - up until now, I’ve never had a single problem with any of them. I actually really like this latest one (2020 3 AWD sedan) but wish they could fix the annoying error display, even though I’ve never noticed it having any effect on the car’s performance. I’m most concerned about A.) how it might affect resale/trade-in value later, and B.) that it might lead to more serious symptoms later, after the warranty period.
@macromeh Now I’m curious to know what happens. I’d show them the page and see if they’ll replace the GPS unit. Seems to really fit the description considering your 30 mile message. You’ll have to keep me updated!
I’m probably going to wait for the next iteration CX-5 (or 50 if they’re calling it that) but I’m really intrigued with the turbo AWD 3 hatchback also. My gf has a 2015 3 and I really enjoy driving it but it’s not quite spunky enough. The turbo would make all the difference.
@ddbelyea Now that is too weird. Gives credence to “touch and go” credit card number theft by a passerby in a store and perhaps the value of an RF signal blocking credit card holder. I had read though that many of them sold don’t actually do what they say they do. You’d have a good way to tell if one actually worked.
The CUE (infotainment screen) on my wife’s car froze up. Called the dealer and asked how much would they charge to look at it. Told me those things couldn’t be repaired and it had to be replaced. Cost-$1,800.00.
Luckily it was covered under my GEICO mechanical breakdown policy so I only had to pay the $ 200 deductible.
@cinoclav Yes-I tried every reset suggestion I could find on the web and none of them worked. Had a CUE on both my 2013 and 2014 ATS and they were both POS (the CUE not the car). Each had very similar problems and so when the dealer tried to BS me I could always come back with that I had the same issue on CUE on same model in two different years. BTW-the newer system on my 2019 XT4 seems to work fine-maybe they got all the bugs out.
when the a/c stopped blowing cold air this summer when it was in the 90s with tropical levels of humidity. and then we took it to go get recharged, waited in line at jiffylube in the hot sweaty car for an eternity only for them to be like “oh yeah, that machine is still out for repair, a lot of people have been coming in for that.”
still, i’m grateful that the recharging worked and that my partner took the car himself the second time.
the brakes are getting a bit squeaky/squealy so they’ll be up next.
the last side of the road thing was a tire blowout awhile back…a previous car i think (& gave both of us a good scare because it was so loud!) but AAA to the rescue. spare was good and wait wasn’t bad and we were able to get to an area that was relatively safe so all things considered pretty ok. unlike the time years ago my car overheated and died in a tunnel in boston. first and only time i ever had a car become totally undriveable on the road. after that, driving was never a relaxing experience again.
@unksol we didn’t recharge it twice. we went the first time only to be turned away because they “forgot” they didn’t have the machine on hand to do it.
brakes aren’t a huge deal to get done, but will take longer than i want to sit in a mechanic’s waiting room. my partner and i share one car, and in The Before Times, he would take the car in to the shop which is walking distance-ish from his office, but usually a coworker would give him a ride back. however, it is definitely not walking distance from home, and neither of us really want to get into a stranger’s car or take public transit right now, so it’s on hold. thankfully we hardly put any miles on the car even when he was commuting so it’s not a big deal.
@jerk_nugget I meant brake aren’t that big a deal to do your self. I’ve never let a shop work on a car so sometimes I forget that normal people do l that. And the considerations that do with it. My bad
@unksol yeah, i don’t know anything about fixing cars, and both my partner and i have physical limitations that would likely make that knowledge somewhat of a moot point anyway. not to mention nowhere to work on a car where we live. would definitely be a great set of skills to have tho!
Actually I’d love it to be related to someone who knows how to fix cars. I know how to start one with a dead battery - both by jumping and when I had a clutch by a push start (or parking it on a hill)… I knew how to break into the ghetto van in under 30 seconds (kid would lock keys in), I can change tires, clean battery terminals, etc. but that is about it.
Ric Ocasek died.
@shahnm Though not the latest, Benjamin Orr’s passing is at least as significant.
No where to drive to.
So my truck started to sputter and had zero power. Pulled the tank and hot wired the fuel pump. Black fuel came out. Pulled the whole fuel system out and replacing it with new lines, replacing all gaskets and flushing the injectors. Also putting in a proper check valve and an external pre fuel rail filter, since it’s an in tank filter, which is a horrible design.
@someguynamedmat Impressive work. A lot of knowledge and a lot of tools!
Is missing an engine considered a “car-related issue”?
@narfcake As long as you aren’t “missing the car” too… then I believe you’d call it theft.
I somehow ended up with a Ford.
@duodec I did too, but it was a good economical decision. Android auto is supposed to work wirelessly now, but can’t get it to work. Have to do USB.
@duodec i lol’d. first ford is my current car, that was unbeknownst to me left to me in my uncle’s will. it was either take this 2010 car with under 50k miles on it, or sell it and do major repairs on a 1999 camry with over 200k. tbh, driving the ford feels like rattling down the road in a tin can by comparison but, it was probably the right decision financially.
I got married 20 years ago. All car related incidents I deal with seem to stem from that decision.
@edwardsm6 but it was worth it I hope?
@unksol not on the day of the stated car related incidents.
@edwardsm6 i read that as my wife is a bad driver. Which happens. But I’m sure even if that’s true. She has other redeeming qualities
Lost a side mirror.
Side-swiped by a garage door frame on the expressway.
Might have not been the expressway.
Hit a young deer on a county highway. Very sad. Fortunately got the blood off before the littles got off the school bus to see it. Getting van repaired Monday/Tuesday and theoretically getting it back Wednesday.
@Kidsandliz
@Kidsandliz “theoretically” …I like the realism, acceptance.
Previous owner spent $5 plus time on plugging the unused outlet on the incorrect coolant connector elbow because he didn’t want to spend $3 plus less time on the correct coolant connector elbow.
@yakkoTDI Sounds like you needed a different previous owner
Hope you don’t have more evidence later of ‘repairs’ like this.
Someone came along and intentionally snapped off my side mirror, along with the side mirrors of the cars in front of and behind me. I had only had my car for two months.
The repair shop gave me a loner car, and I figured it couldn’t be any worse than my previous car, a well-maintained 17 year old car. I was wrong. The loner smelled like BO, it desperately needed an alignment/tire balance, and the stereo continually clicked because it was trying to spit out a CD that wasn’t there.
@jakeline I always wonder what the heck is wrong with people who deliberately do what happened to your car. A student once bashed holes in a bunch of faculty cars, including mine, finals week. At least that I could (sort of) understand but your random damage… sheesh.
Suffice it to say, don’t loan your vehicle to your kids or grandkids. This generation does not value or care for things belonging to others.
@tweezak Sounds like an epic happened more than once… Inquiring minds want details… So did you give them coal for christmas?
@Kidsandliz During a long term loan the oil was never checked or changed. Result was a spun rod bearing when the engine ran dry. Never repaired or reimbursed. My truck was backed into a car and I had to pay over $2k out of pocket. My truck also came back with mysterious dents and new food stains on the seats. AC, cruise and stereo also all stopped working while on loan though those could just be age.
@tweezak Holy Crap!!! That is like a huge pile of big stuff!!! Makes what my kid did look trivial in comparison. I am so sorry!
All my kid did to the ghetto van make a big dent in the rear bumper by backing into a light pole in the empty shopping center parking lot teaching her how to back up using just mirrors after she had mastered it looking over her shoulder. She went really crooked and didn’t listen when I told her to stop the car. She ran an 18 wheeler off the road when she refused to change lanes when I told her to on the highway. After that I told her, “When I tell you to do something you do what I tell you first and argue second or you won’t ever be driving my car again”.
I also got the ignition kill fixed and it was a good thing I did (she had already taken it once after sneaking out the window - after that I hid the keys although I knew that wasn’t fool proof). The shop was laughing at me asking me who’d steal that wreck. I told them my kid. They said, “good point”. So one Saturday morning she says to me, “Mom the car’s broken”. I said to her, “And how would you know that?”. Oops told on herself.
And this is the kid who told me she’d never learn how to drive if she had to drive the ghetto van, she was going to run it into a tree so I’d have to buy a new one. I told her if she did that she better be prepared to ride her bike everywhere and that included the 8 miles to school if she missed the school bus. Good thing she knew/believed I meant what I said. LOL.
Had two flats in 3 weeks. Driving through a construction zone every day sucks. But I highly recommend the Stop & Go tire plug kit.
@cinoclav Hopefully you won’t also be doing windshields in that construction zone. I did two of them (along with a couple of rock ding repairs) in the one around here several years ago. I managed to get the construction company to pay for one of them seeing as one of their trucks was right in front of me blowing dirt and junk off the top of it (highway) and my passenger took some photos for me.
GMC truck has been in the dealership over a week waiting for a New back window because of a malfunctioning defroster. Diesel emissions already fixed. I’m very first driver in a brand new loaner Acadia, so I’m ok they haven’t called.
Someone stole the catalytic converter off my car. They probably sold it as scrap to buy meth.
@Neech Prius? Guessing 2005-2009.
@Neech Yikes. I mean I have heard this can happen but cripes that is low.
@Kidsandliz @Neech It was a plague in some commuter parking lots.
@Kidsandliz @Neech @Salanth it was and they usually targeted trucks/suvs cause you want a large one that you can get under without being noticed/jacking it up…
Some drug addicts will steal whatever they can think of and rehab and medical support in the US is… Questionable at best
@tweezak 2008 Prius
@Kidsandliz @Salanth This happened at my work. The car sat there for about a week while I was using a company car. They had to jack it up and be pretty skinny. I put it in jack stands as high as they would go and I didn’t have much room under there.
Going down the highway in the early morning dark, had an owl fly into the passenger side headlight.
@stolicat You know you’re having a rough day when nature flips you the bird.
@stolicat Oh my. Poor owl. I had a seagull fly into my windshield once. I am surprised more of us don’t hit birds seeing as some of them fly off awfully close to when we are nearly on top of them. Makes me sad when we accidentally hit animals.
@Kidsandliz @stolicat @shahnm I hit a bird with a Cessna 172. Fortunately (for me), the impact was on the wing, not the windscreen. Larger birds can be pretty ornery if they survive a trip into the cabin. I don’t think it was a very large one, though. The only result was a small flat spot on the leading edge of the right wing. I felt sorry for the bird.
@shahnm @stolicat @ThunderChicken I’d think hitting a bird with an airplane is potentially more dangerous that with a car, even on the highway. Gravity and all…
@Kidsandliz @shahnm @stolicat Yeah. Ask Captain Skully.
Wife’s 2000 Mercedes suddenly wouldn’t shift out of low gear; aka “limp mode”. Son and I replaced most everything in the shift tray (solenoids, valves, gaskets, transmission fluid, etc.) as well as brake sensor switch and kick down switch on gas pedal along with center console shifter. No joy. (He did the work; I observed, did the gofering, and paid the bills.)
Had to take it finally to a qualified shop. (Not easy to find a qualified shop, which is not a dealer, btw.) Shop agreed that his work was flawless. The TCM computer code was corrupted. (Go figure.) They reprogrammed it and now it runs better than ever. This adventure/misadventure cost me about $1500, before it was done.
Before that the brake rotor calipers in my F150 started to seize up, one by one. Twice while out on the road, and once in the driveway. My son can change one of these in about 15 minutes.
Hitting a bird in an airplane is no fun. Happened to my partner in our V35B Bonanza a number of years ago. Put a dent in the left wing leading edge and took out the pitot tube and generally made a mell of a hess with blood and feather bits everywhere. Stank to high heaven too.
One often gets warnings from ATC on T/O and landings of birds in the area, but that does little good as given the relative closing rates and lack of maneuverability of an airplane vs a bird.
On the other hand, I would like to have a $1 for every bug I have hit with an airplane! Cleaning the front surfaces after a flight (all front surfaces) of bug guts and detritus is a chore that most pilots hate.
I had bought a new battery about 18 months ago and at least one cell started to either leak or shorted out, so I’d have to jump start it almost every time. Thankfully Costco will take pretty much anything back you’ve ever bought there, so they just charged me the $5 difference in price from when I bought my old one to get a new interstate
Aren’t you in Texas? Where is overheating?
Alternator brushes wore out somewhere along the interstate on the way out of town. Realized it pulling off the interstate in the town I had to work in. Tried to make it back home and got halfway.
In 2020 alternator brushes are no longer a stocked item at auto parts stores, so the fix to get it back on the road immediately was a $300 alternator instead of an $8 set of brushes.
Thinking I should order the brushes and fix and sell the alternator to recoup some of that investment instead of returning the alternator for the whole $25 core credit.
@djslack Yeah that is so much fun when cars get old enough that parts aren’t stocked, or in the case of my then died at just over 25 year old ghetto van, not even made any more. Sounds like you may be headed that direction too.
I once had to drive from in the middle of nowhere, tiny town that unbelievably had a dodge dealership that indicated it was there in rural Kansas to Bozeman, MT for the nearest radiator (was headed to ID pulling a small uhaul trailer). Stocked up on empty containers I filled with water and radiator fluid, left the radiator cap loose, and stopped a lot to top up the radiator… In another case (same vehicle) the mechanic hand made me a timing belt guide. Pull Apart was my best friend back then. Minivan died by engine bearing suicide not 3 miles from the shop immediately after I had about $120 of work done…
A couple years before that the gas line started leaking as I left the farm to go home (was a 7 hour drive). Happened 15 miles from the farm on Sunday July 3rd, rural area. Drove into town (another 15 miles), went into the gas station, yelled out if anyone knew a mechanic, kid said his uncle, uncle fixed it for cash (I doubt the owner of the shop knew, cash only, twice the rate), called his friend who owned a part shop out of a family picnic, and I was good to go. Incredible luck. Much better than sitting for 2 days stuck in a hotel waiting for Tuesday.
But keeping it running was cheaper than replacing it. So there was that. It was when it broke that was a pain. I kept a lot of “unexpected camping” supplies in there just in case. Had to use them more than once too… The above mentioned messes… also memorable was Saturday night at 11pm in rural KY (I forget what was wrong then), transmission (for the second time on the road like that - era of the bad transmissions, other time was epic but less so), with no warning, in northern ID with a 7 hour wait for a tow and only snacks in the car while on the way home from a soccer tournament (about 2.5 hours from home still), and while fixable on the spot memorable for different reasons - flat tire due to construction (in the end they paid for it) wearing white pants literally on my way to my first day on the job where there was an 8am meeting… are all notable memories… there are more but these stand out the most.
Had a fan motor go bad on a less than a year old Honda CRV. Also Hondas only have 36K mile warranties. I have an extended warranty so it didn’t cost me anything. For all the reputation of Hondas I have heard I am not impressed. I use my vehicle for work for I’ve bought several cars in my lifetime. I haven’t had something major go bad in a vehicle this early in its lifetime for around 2 decades.
@jaynedough I had a '98 CRV that I kept until 2013. The only thing that ever “broke” on it was the fans (both are electric, nothing attached to a vehicle shaft). At one point, the cruise control went out, but it started working again. Probably a vacuum hose that an oil change tech re-attached. The 100,000 mile service to change the timing belt and water pump was kind of expensive, but kept it going for my son’s high school years. Best car I ever had.
@jaynedough same experience with honda rep; when I worked at a foreign auto parts store (high school and into college) the only cars worse than hondas per our customers were fiats and renaults; once US emmisions standards got stupid and every maker had problems trying to get carburetors to do things they just couldn’t do, reliability went down across the board but hondas remained about the worst of the Japanese brands. Even Mitsubishi did better.
Then there were the late '70s - early '80s hondas that rusted out in a couple of years. In Las Vegas. In the desert. Far from the salty midwest or ocean coasts.
Steaming piles of caca they were.
I bought my previously owned Tacoma in October 2018. It is a 2016. I’m in AZ. The vehicle registration continues to increase each year. First it was $418 and then $456 and now almost $500. Its a yearly fee, but it should be going down…not up!
@Colbyone21 ours in Michigan are supposed to go down too, but I’ve never seen it.
@Colbyone21 @katbyter Until Virginia I had never lived in a town/state that milked people for cash through tag “highway robbery”. I have read that in some states you have to practically be independently wealthy to even buy a new vehicle because of that. I was shocked to discover my tag in VA cost more than my annual insurance or sales tax combined (new vehicle after being totaled out in a 25 car pile up on the highway - this is the one that died at a bit over 25 mentioned up higher).
Stone chips in the windshield - within a week of owning the vehicles - on two different ones.
@jcbeckman new windshields in cars all seem to be softer these days and chip faster.
@edwardsm6 @jcbeckman Yeah maybe that might be why the ghetto van (1990 I had 25 years) never chipped and I’ve had to replace 2 windshields since and fix chips several times a year, each year. I’d been trying to figure out what the issue was as it made no sense to me.
Dead battery, but it had a little help from me by leaving a car door open.
@romellex I recently had a similar experience. Since I started working from home, I now often go weeks without driving my car. After sitting in the garage for two weeks, I went to start it and it was completely dead. Turns out I had left the dashcam on (timely, given today’s deal, eh?). This is a new car, bought Dec 2019. On my previous car, the 12V outlet turned on and off with the ignition, but on the new car it is always powered. I have had a hard time remembering to manually turn the dashcam on/off. A warning label stuck on the ignition button helps.
Car accident, followed by about nine months of physical therapy. Good times
@tinamarie1974 Yikes! Glad the “car related problems” were fixable (well presuming they are or you wouldn’t favor
stiltsspike heels.).@Kidsandliz ah but I haven’t worn them all year
@tinamarie1974 due to the accident or covid? I remember the photos of your impressive closet your dad helped you make - and all those boots and shoes.
/image Imelda Marcos shoe collection
(grin)
@Kidsandliz a little of both, more the accident, but covid played into it. No where to go…
@tinamarie1974 Will the accident reason ever finally disappear?
My car is incontinent and it doesn’t suck well, because there is a vacuum leak. But the AC and heated seats still work.
@irishbyblood never owned a car with heated seats so I doubt I’ve seen your specific issue but. I have chased vacuum leaks if you care to be more specific.
@irishbyblood
May I suggest Depends?
My Gerkoff Motors car need an AFM delete. other than that it’s a great veehickle.
My 1988 Suzuki Samurai won’t start. I think the float in the carburetor is stuck. The thing is 32 years old.
I have a Toyota carburetor with a conversion kit arriving in a couple of days.
Transmission in both of my cars but covered by warranty
@mikebrown2509 that is good luck. Those suckers are expensive. The ghetto van was from the era of bad transmissions. I went through 4 in 25 years. Only 1 was covered by the warranty. the 4th one was a rebuild of my third one, the earlier ones were just a drop in replacement. The rebuild fix held for 9 years until the entire vehicle bit the dust. Should have done it that way sooner.
My car’s very loud, vibrates, shakes, rattles, whenever I’m driving at speed and not turning right. A wheel was out of balance, got it balanced, but it’d worn kinda strangely. Might have a bearing going, not sure. And it’s gone into limp mode a couple times recently.
But it’s paid off and insurance is very cheap.
@InnocuousFarmer that’s not something you really want to ignore. And I love my old beaters. Both are over 20 years old. You could have a ball joint deteriorated in your tie rods or control arm and those can catastrophically fail eventually.
You can check by jacking it up and seeing if the tire rocks. I’d def have someone look at it or a friend if available.
@unksol Did that a while ago, tried to wiggle and kick the wheels, didn’t seem loose. I can’t wait to never drive this car again. It’s just that I’m busy with the not paying for its replacement.
@InnocuousFarmer they weren’t that expensive to replace on the Saturn… I tried wiggling it and it seemed fine. Which is mainly for tie rods. Once I got the control arms out… They were clearly shot. You could just flick them around . But they only have LCA bearings you could have upper control arm bearings too.
@InnocuousFarmer also it won’t show you if you don’t have it jacked up. If it’s on the ground the weight of the car will keep it stable. You really need to jack it on frame so the suspension components are free floating.
@unksol hmm. It was jacked up. I probably need to look more carefully.
@InnocuousFarmer might need to hit it harder. A good kick a gentle one doesn’t work.
HOWEVER it is just intended as a test… If your front end is a wobbling while driving I’d be pulling the suspension appart to check.
But it’s hard to know what you mean… Something that wore a tire though… Be careful
My multi function switch(turn signals and wipers) was misbehaving and you get to fiddle with it to get them to work.
I bought a new one and when I went to do it half the wires/plugs into the wiring block pulled straight out… I epoxied them back in seems fine
Less than three weeks after I bought my new Jetta, the clutch failed completely and had to be replaced. The dealership I got it towed to said they couldn’t find anything wrong that would have caused the failure and tried to blame me, but I’ve been driving stick for 30+ years, and I knew it wasn’t anything I did. In the end, VW paid for most of it, but it still cost me a bunch and made me wary of my own car.
@ahacksaw All I can say is Fuck VW. I would never buy one. Doing so for most people is just waiting to see what major problem you’re going to have.
@cinoclav I’ve had VWs for years, and this was the first one that I’ve had any trouble with. I only bought it because they gave me an incredible buyout offer for my emissions-scandal TDI, but in retrospect I wish I’d kept that one. It was a great car. Probably not going to buy a VW again.
@ahacksaw You’re one of the lucky ones. I don’t think I’ve ever known someone with a VW who hasn’t had issues. My neighbor also got a nice buyout for the same reason. He used the money to buy a Volvo. My sister bought an Eos a while back. I warned her and she swore up and down it was a great car. Until one day when she mysteriously traded it in for a Nissan Juke. Apparently she got tired of taking the Eos into the shop.
I bought a new Mazda last December. About 3 weeks in, I got the following display:
I took it in to the dealer, but they had no explanation. I’ve had it in three times, they updated the firmware, ran diagnostics and even had it connected remotely to the factory in Japan, but no luck. It happens occasionally and apparently randomly when I drive it - when it happens, I don’t detect any obvious failures - all systems seem to continue to work as expected. The dealership has never been able to reproduce the error display when they test drive it. The last time I took it in (and they were unsuccessful at diagnosing the problem), they told me they would continue to research the issue with the factory and get back to me if they figured something out. Then Covid hit, so nothing since then. Working from home, I don’t drive much now, but I have seen the error message a couple of time since.
The car still has over 2 years left on the bumper-to-bumper warranty, so I am about ready to start pressing the issue with the dealership again. I may have to explore the Lemon Law.
@macromeh Interesting comments here about that problem. Seems most point to an issue with the GPS antenna. https://www.cx30talk.com/threads/in-vehicle-network-malfunction-have-the-vehicle-inspected.133/
I’m driving a '16 CX-5 GT that I bought in '15. I have over 121k miles on it and haven’t had any issues outside of the driving lights which had a faulty board and were replaced under a recall. Just had it in for an oil change yesterday and I was talking about how Mazda may be the first brand I would go right back to. In the past I’ve always jumped around to different manufacturers with each new car purchase.
@cinoclav Thanks for the link - I searched extensively last January when I first got the error message and couldn’t find any mention then. That is what the dealership muttered, too - something about the GPS, but nothing conclusive and no fix proposed at the time.
Hmm, this is an interesting comment in that link: “The service person said this message showed because it had not received any satellite signal for over 31 miles.” When I was still driving to work, I noticed that I would most often see the error message at just over 30 miles into my morning commute.
This is my 4th Mazda - up until now, I’ve never had a single problem with any of them. I actually really like this latest one (2020 3 AWD sedan) but wish they could fix the annoying error display, even though I’ve never noticed it having any effect on the car’s performance. I’m most concerned about A.) how it might affect resale/trade-in value later, and B.) that it might lead to more serious symptoms later, after the warranty period.
@macromeh Now I’m curious to know what happens. I’d show them the page and see if they’ll replace the GPS unit. Seems to really fit the description considering your 30 mile message. You’ll have to keep me updated!
I’m probably going to wait for the next iteration CX-5 (or 50 if they’re calling it that) but I’m really intrigued with the turbo AWD 3 hatchback also. My gf has a 2015 3 and I really enjoy driving it but it’s not quite spunky enough. The turbo would make all the difference.
Thought something was wrong with the starter on my 2010 focus. Did a bunch of stuff trying to figure out what was wrong.
Turns out the RF chip in my American Express card was acting weird and interfering with the RF chip in the key…
@ddbelyea Now that is too weird. Gives credence to “touch and go” credit card number theft by a passerby in a store and perhaps the value of an RF signal blocking credit card holder. I had read though that many of them sold don’t actually do what they say they do. You’d have a good way to tell if one actually worked.
@ddbelyea @Kidsandliz I wouldn’t be surprised at false claims of RF blocking, but really aluminum foil will do it.
The CUE (infotainment screen) on my wife’s car froze up. Called the dealer and asked how much would they charge to look at it. Told me those things couldn’t be repaired and it had to be replaced. Cost-$1,800.00.
Luckily it was covered under my GEICO mechanical breakdown policy so I only had to pay the $ 200 deductible.
@Felton10 Did you try to reset it? Something like this: https://gmauthority.com/blog/2015/05/how-to-perform-a-hard-reset-on-cadillacs-with-cue-infotainment-system/
@cinoclav Yes-I tried every reset suggestion I could find on the web and none of them worked. Had a CUE on both my 2013 and 2014 ATS and they were both POS (the CUE not the car). Each had very similar problems and so when the dealer tried to BS me I could always come back with that I had the same issue on CUE on same model in two different years. BTW-the newer system on my 2019 XT4 seems to work fine-maybe they got all the bugs out.
@Felton10 Have you considered staying far away from GM?
when the a/c stopped blowing cold air this summer when it was in the 90s with tropical levels of humidity. and then we took it to go get recharged, waited in line at jiffylube in the hot sweaty car for an eternity only for them to be like “oh yeah, that machine is still out for repair, a lot of people have been coming in for that.”
still, i’m grateful that the recharging worked and that my partner took the car himself the second time.
the brakes are getting a bit squeaky/squealy so they’ll be up next.
the last side of the road thing was a tire blowout awhile back…a previous car i think (& gave both of us a good scare because it was so loud!) but AAA to the rescue. spare was good and wait wasn’t bad and we were able to get to an area that was relatively safe so all things considered pretty ok. unlike the time years ago my car overheated and died in a tunnel in boston. first and only time i ever had a car become totally undriveable on the road. after that, driving was never a relaxing experience again.
@jerk_nugget if you had to recharge the AC twice there must be a leak to address. 20 year old cars AC still work. Brakes are easy
@unksol we didn’t recharge it twice. we went the first time only to be turned away because they “forgot” they didn’t have the machine on hand to do it.
brakes aren’t a huge deal to get done, but will take longer than i want to sit in a mechanic’s waiting room. my partner and i share one car, and in The Before Times, he would take the car in to the shop which is walking distance-ish from his office, but usually a coworker would give him a ride back. however, it is definitely not walking distance from home, and neither of us really want to get into a stranger’s car or take public transit right now, so it’s on hold. thankfully we hardly put any miles on the car even when he was commuting so it’s not a big deal.
@jerk_nugget I meant brake aren’t that big a deal to do your self. I’ve never let a shop work on a car so sometimes I forget that normal people do l that. And the considerations that do with it. My bad
@unksol yeah, i don’t know anything about fixing cars, and both my partner and i have physical limitations that would likely make that knowledge somewhat of a moot point anyway. not to mention nowhere to work on a car where we live. would definitely be a great set of skills to have tho!
@jerk_nugget @unksol
You implying you are not “normal”?
Actually I’d love it to be related to someone who knows how to fix cars. I know how to start one with a dead battery - both by jumping and when I had a clutch by a push start (or parking it on a hill)… I knew how to break into the ghetto van in under 30 seconds (kid would lock keys in), I can change tires, clean battery terminals, etc. but that is about it.
2003 VW Passat Wagon.
Last visit was for a new cam chain tensioner. Nothing more expensive than a cheap German car.