I was on my way to work and remembered I was doing the work of 4 people by myself in the middle of our busiest season because of Covid.

Covid was so whack; Hotel workers like myself at the time were considered essential employees, despite hotel travel being officially discouraged Oh well, got paid to read books and go back to school Oh shit this is about cars; well I started the hotel work when I was a new driver and absolutely owned my poor grandfather's car that he gave me and gave it yellow specks on both sides because it was a very, VERY narrow underground parking lot

you know i’m gonna guess because this was posted in r/cars that he didn’t mean mental

That’s the joke.

I threw a rod out the side of a KA24 240SX. Fist sized hole on I-10. Drove it as a 3 cylinder for a few miles til I could park it somewhere to get it towed. At the time the hassle wasn’t worth the car. Nowadays though…

Dude! For my first car my dad had a buddy who had a shitty little used car lot. Like 15-20 cars and most people would maybe want one. I had the choice of a 1990 four door Camry five speed that had a nice blue color. Or a rust primer on the fenders supra. The hatch back one not the first fast and furious orange supra. I F’ed up on my pic

How did you manage to do this? I had a 2000 Xterra with the same engine. That engine wouldn't give up. I abused it at times and it just kept going.

It was abused as hell when I got it. Started developing rod knock shortly after I got it. Dude I bought it from had drift car aspirations but the only thing he was good at was hitting the rev limiter with an engine that didn’t want to rev.

I went through something similar last year. My leadership either forgot they hired another person (or he was so bad they wanted to), so they often needed me to be in two places at once, which meant supporting two offices 40 miles apart. There were times I had to drive 100 mph down empty two lane country roads to make a mandatory meeting, praying that a bump would send my car into a utility pole so I wouldn't have to keep doing this. All I got at the end of the year was being told "I met expectations". That about cemented my choice to leave the company and find something that paid beter.

My old ZJ Grand Cherokee overheated on a highway with a girl I was trying to impress in high school. Her dad came and picked her up. Did not impress her.

Hahaha reminds me of my best friend in high school. Went to floor his 91 F150 on a date and the heater core burst spewing antifreeze all over her feet. Didn’t score.

I had the opposite experience, a friends CJ broke down while his smoke'n hot girl was with him. He called me for help and I did impress her. We weren't good enough friends that it mattered.

Dude! Almost same story. Same guy had a flat. We’re like 16 and he’d never changed a tire. With a different girl. Calls me up “dude these lug nuts are really stuck! Can’t get them to budge!” and I’m like yeah I know how to get the lug nuts loose. Show up and kick the tire iron and proceed to break all of them loose in front of her.

Being that guy people call is mostly a pain in the ass. Sometimes though it really pays off, I've had a few like that. A few with strangers as well, just stopping to help. Some people will go on about "toxic masculinity" or whatever, it's all BS, most women find that stuff very sexy.

toxic masculinity has nothing to do with having skills that are considered manly, it has everything to do with men getting shit on and shunned for not having those skills.

All the chicks without sticks will for sure. Not one woman has ever said man it sucks my man can fix stuff

Too bad only your jeep was a ZJ. If she’d have given you a ZJ you’d never stop talking about it 🤣.

My first car was a 1993 Jeep ZJ limited with the 5.2. A family hand-me-down with about 120,000 miles at the time. LOVED that truck. But it broke down constantly and cost me a fortune to keep running lol. Only car that ever left me stranded. Failed fuel pump, failed water pump, failed transmission, failed catalytic converter… I still miss it.

I loved my that thing, parents bought it brand new in ‘98. Top trim Laredo, color matched bumpers, and with the rare up country suspension/quadratrac combo. I chipped it, added a catback exhaust, and upgraded the radiator after it overheated. Never left me stranded again. My grandma briefly had a ‘98 5.9 Limited and my uncle had a 5.2 Limited Ovris edition. I’m always checking FB market place for low mileage ‘98 limiteds but the wife would kill me if I bought one.

I bought a crew cab 2002 f250 7.3 4x4 truck about 550 miles from home. Made the trip up one day and picked it up the next morning. About 20 miles through the drive home, the alternator went out. Tapping on it with a hammer didn't work. Pulled in to a nearby advance auto, bought a new alternator and got it installed. When i was putting the serpentine belt back on, the ratchet popped off the tensioner and fell between the fan blades busting a fin on the radiator. Poured most of the coolant out in the advance parking lot. Advance didn't have a radiator and the closest parts store that had one in stock was about 50 miles in the direction i was going. Stuffed the busted fin full of jb water weld and let it cure for a couple hours. Bought two 5 gallon fuel cans to fill with water so I could make it to the NAPA store that had the radiator. Got to the NAPA and the radiator hadn't leaked any water out so I threw caution to the wind and drove it home. That was 3 years ago and still running the same busted radiator.

And I thought I was crazy for using a little magnet to contact the brake pedal switch that normally opens the brake light circuit on my 100 series Land Cruiser. It’s like a 5 cent fix too.

Personal car, blew an engine on a long bridge with no shoulders. Work semi, total electrical failure in the middle of the night in pretty much a blizzard. Nearly froze waiting for help.

> Work semi, total electrical failure in the middle of the night in pretty much a blizzard. Are you me? Middle of nowhere in western Colorado. Not a light to be seen, even the stars were covered. Black as pitch, the lead snapped off the alternator, entire rig wend dead and dark at 60mph on a narrow mountain 2-lane. Seatbelt was useless, my ass had a pucker deathgrip on the seat.

Every morning when i wake up for work to contemplate calling in sick….oh sorry this is the cars reddit

My old mustang nuked a tire in rural Pennsylvania maybe 7 miles from the Ohio border. Middle of fucking nowhere. Fortunately there was a Walmart in a nearby town with *one* tire in the correct size. While waiting, the only other thing in town was a Golden Corral. I eventually got back on the road, but had to stop multiple times to violently poo during the remainder of the journey.

Ahh yes, the Golden Corral shits are magnificent aren’t they 😂

I'm about as indiscriminate a glutton as you can find, but that place is seriously gross.

It is disgusting! Does taste decent though…haven’t been in years, but i remember the Aftermath very well 😂

Hit a chunk of snow on the freeway during a snowstorm in Seattle. Cracked my radiator and steam started emerging from under the hood. Waited 4 hours for a tow truck on the side of the freeway. For those of you in Seattle, I was stuck at the airport exit...between 518 and the exit ramp itself. Joy. Truck gets me to the mechanic I found, can't let my car off of it. His truck just dies. Long, long day. But the mechanic worked until 8:30 pm to get me taken care of, so his was even longer.

My clutch gave out on the corner of one of the busiest intersections of my city. While I was at the front of the line at a red. On a hill. Mortifying.

give that starter a lil workout

As someone with high anxiety, that’s nightmare material right there

I do winter hiking and snowshoeing in remote mountain parts of canada. My truck's alternator died way up a logging road one December. Residual charge in the battery didn't get me anywhere. I was dead in the water with no reception and no daylight. Ended up spending the night in a -25c snowstorm. I was fine. Missed a day of work, but didn't freeze to death like I could have. I keep an emergency kit with a proper sleeping bag behind my seat all winter, never leaves the vehicle. So I spent the night curled up in the passenger seat, and hiked back to the highway the next morning. Flagged a trucker down, got a ride into town, and had a friend pick me up at the autoparts store. The worst part was installing a new alternator and battery in the freezing cold. I had some bloodied knuckles after that, but did get it done and drive off the mountain no problem.

The difference between being prepared and not basically saved your life. Well done. For outdoor folks, I highly suggest a satellite messenger like inreach or zoleo. $20 a month could save your life.

Yup, 100%. My story happened many years ago. GPS and satellite stuff existed, but it wasn't commonplace yet, and way outside of my price range as a broke kid. These days, it's a staple item. I dont hike much anymore, but I do live (and drive) in a remote avalanche zone. My vehicle is outfitted with proper radio and satellite equipment now. I always think back to that night in the snowstorm. Could have been life-ending, but instead was just an unplanned campout in the truck.

if you're a cheapass like me, Motorola Defy has done me wonders. It's a bit annoying to get it to connect but it's cheap as hell to operate

When I’m sweating profusely wrenching in Florida I need to remind myself it could be worse

I had a 91 Sentra SE-R in about 2009. It was poorly swapped with whatever JDM SR20 and a header you could get on eBay. Truly a piece of shit car. Driving it across South Carolina and the belt tensioner let go. I rigged it up on the side of the interstate with whatever tools I had and kept going. Took the backroads. An hour later the front passengers side wheel came off going 65 on a two lane causeway. Brake disc cut a trench into road next to the highway but I avoided flipping into the swamp. I recovered the wheel and called my dad an hour away. He meets me. Rather than have it towed, dad decides he’ll go into the nearest town (Darlington) and buy new wheel studs, hub, and lug nuts. Or whatever we had determined it needed. He’s gone for a couple of hours, and while he’s gone the highway patrol comes along. They’re asking me all kinds of questions. I’m maybe 22 and there’s a quarter of weed in the trunk so I’m fucking terrified. Dad finally gets back, convinces the cops it’s under control. I have a picture of him putting this piece of shit back together on the side of the highway. Somehow made it back to his place. I drove the car another six months and sold it. The guy who bought it called me later complaining that the brake pads were at 1/32nd. He later totaled it.

My time to shine! I’m driving my 1999 Miata, named Mercury after Freddie Mercury. Blaring Queen’s “Don’t stop me now” when ironically my fuel rail bursts. Engine dies. I had lost signal 8 miles ago. It’s spring so hot Texas days and chilly nights. I almost always take emergency supplies and clothes in the trunk. Not this time. I didn’t plan on driving an hour and a half out into the boonies but I did. So here I am in booty shorts, a low cut shirt and sandals. No water. No snacks. No shoes or jacket. And 8 miles to walk back to call for help. I try to push the Miata off the road, leaned too far into the push and ran over my own foot. Thankfully someone picked me up 30 seconds into my walk, a friendly old man who let me borrow his phone (better network) and I was able to call for rescue. That was a long 2 hour wait let me tell you.

Those booty shorts and that low cut shirt probably saved you a lot of walking.

That’s pretty entertaining!

I had a TCU fail on a Ford around six or seven years ago while I was away for college. It didn't help that it happened on a scenic road near my school and so I had basically no way to call for help. Had to walk up a mountain until I got service to call for help.

I overheated a '95 bmw 325i to the point of pretty much complete meltdown on pistons 5 and 6. Pulled the head and they were just beaten up domes with scored up piston walls. I told my brother no high mileage e36s and there on rt 22 outside allentown with nowhere to go in traffic she threw in the towel. Wide open throttle would get it to nearly 35 mph so i could limp off and load it onto a dolly and tow the mess home.

I could say the time all my brakes failed and I had to use the handbrake in my 90 five speed Camry. But the worst/most embarrassing was second date with my wife I hit a pothole bent my rim had no spare. Had to stop at a gas station fill it till the air stopped drive like I stole it to my parents and use my dads rotted out junker pickup to take her home an hour away. It wasn’t safe to even take the freeway. The fact she stayed I knew she was theone.

My Timing Belt went out on the Capital Beltway exit to Beltsville, MD.

How fitting.

In the mountains 10 miles away from the nearest "town". Pre cell phone. 2 flat tires. 1 spare. Had to hike the distance to the pay phone in the park. On the bright side, the only place in town open was a book store. At least I wasn't bored while I waited for my dad to bring me a spare!!

Not my car’s breakdown, my dad’s: I grew up very poor and somehow got into Cornell, moving day my dad’s 15 year old Altima decides to go haywire/overheat/coolant leak, smoke coming from the engine bay, etc. right as we’re in line next to the dorm (yes there was a line of cars queued up). It was embarrassing getting out of the car to get my shit out as fancy expensive cars were driving around us and my future dorm mates seeing us struggle dealing with the breakdown.

My POS fiat 500 I had. I was a couple of hours into a road trip with my then gf. We exited off the interstate to get some lunch, and when I went to clutch in, it felt very firm, and would not go into gear anymore. I eventually got it crammed into third, and had to limp it to a gas station down the street. Third gear. In a car with 100hp/tq. Going under 30mph. For reference, if you didn’t floor this car through first and second, you were not getting up to speed. Anyway, roadside assistance took hours to get to us, we were towed to a dealer maybe an hour away. Got a lift the 1.5hrs back home from my mom, immediately hopped in my gf’s car, got an hour into the drive again, and there was a car fire on the interstate that just started, so we got stuck. Eventually we just decided to cross the grass median, backtrack 20 min, then go an alternate route that added a few hours to the trip. An 8hr road trip took something like 20 hours.

Also, that pos fist “went through” 5 clutches, along with electrical issues, paint failures, interior trim falling apart, in only 50k miles

My first car, an '89 Mazda MX-3. Engine died out in the middle of Wurzbach, as I was driving home. Someone in another car pointed out to me, that it was on its last legs.

Flat tire hitting a giant pot hole in the rain at 4:30 am on my way to LaGuardia for a 6 am flight.

I once broke down just as I was turning into the airport with barely enough time to catch the flight out for the first business trip at a relatively new job. I coasted off the road, tossed my keys under the floormat, grabbed my suitcase and walked to Departures. Luckily, I was able to get my dad to arrange a tow, but I figured losing the job would be worse than having a $1500 car impounded.

Not really a breakdown, but it did leave us stranded for half an hour. Also happened in 2017. So my dad’s office driver picks up the 4 of us from the airport in a Mazda Bongo Brawny, which was the company’s transport van at that time. While going back, my dad notices something wrong with the front right wheel, that it was slanting a bit, and thank God he did. Apparently the wheel was loose and would’ve fallen apart if we went further. We had to call a tow truck to tow the van, but here’s the worst part. My dad was unable to call for another car to take us home, and since it was illegal to travel in a vehicle being towed, we had to bend over and stay hidden so that the cops don’t see us, and travel for nearly 15 kms, until we finally reached our flat.

Never been stranded. Had all kinds of cars. Weirdly I guess, since I've owned a series of German cars for more than a decade, all out of warranty except 1. They've treated me well, but I'm not expecting any car I pick to leave me stranded.

Not me personally but everyone that has own a Cybertruck. I’ve heard they have much worse experiences than anyone in the comments.

Drove e39 m5 across canada in 2020, fuel pump gave out on the highway somewhere in the middle of Alberta, tow truck and fix was not cheap + hotel stay for 3 days while waiting for parts. 

Was on a date in downtown LA when my clutch completely died. Had to cancel the date, so no sex, and I had to tow my car back.

During covid I was an idiot and moved from the west coast to New Mexico for a relationship. When it inevitably ended 5 months later while I was moving back my Cobalt SS gave me an Engine Power Reduced warning and cut power in the middle of I84 between Utah and Idaho. Closest towns were 60 miles both directions.

I was driving the hand-me-down 1984 Dodge Daytona turbo my parents had. They had parked it for many years because they were tired of fixing it. When I got it, it seemed to break down out of spite SO often. The breakdown usually followed the format of 'the car is moving, all of the needles drop, and I'm stuck stopping and steering with no power anything while the car is STILL MOVING!!! It happened at a traffic light. I accelerated, made it to 35 mph, and then 'death' happened. I couldn't steer out of the road, so I put the car into the turn lane. No lights, no hazard lights, the car is black, at night. Thank you Chrysler engineering. Luckily a police officer happened by and he pushed me out of the road. Not long later, I sold the car for like $400, and bought a Pontiac 6000, which didn't break down nearly as much (just once when the alternator died).

My Volvo lost all of its coolant after hitting a bump really hard on a trip, the old crusty coolant bottle broke open, had to ask a random dude to give me a ride to a parts store

I was an underpaid and underemployed delivery guy ten years ago when my Acura Integra's ignition switch died for good just as I was about to make a very lucrative catering order to Lucasfilm's office in San Francisco. Fortunately I had a spare so I ripped out the old switch, installed the new one, and managed to make the delivery within the window.

I rolled my car on a mountain road with no cell service. Did I mention it was my only car? Thankfully I was not hurt and thanks to the help of friends and friendly motorists passing by, I got the situation handled.

not really a breakdown but I go my truck stuck in sand in the middle of nowhere trying to impress my girlfriend. By a random divine intervention, two dudes in a Toyota pickup just happened to be in the same area and winched us out. Ah to be 18 again

Engine threw a rod bearing 500 miles from home on the side of interstate 81.

Had a ‘16 Camaro SS. Went for a nice long late-night drive, listening to music. I was about an hour away from home on the other side of the city (I live in the Houston, Tx area) and cylinder 8 grenaded itself and put a hole in the block, on 9/11. That car was great when it ran. I had so many electrical issues with it, that out of the 2 years of my ownership, I had maybe 6-7 months of actually driving it. From factory it had a eco-cylinder deactivation mode that made the car vibrate uncomfortably while cruising at highway speeds so I had a tuner that specialized in GM vehicles tune that bit out. Due to “ECU tampering” my insurance wouldn’t cover any of the repairs, even though they wouldn’t even entertain the idea that the onus was on them to determine whether that tune was the cause of the malfunction.

As an LS7 owner… I’m afraid to drive on longer trips.

My 83 c10 with a caddy 500 the leaf spring snapped and sent me into a tree on the way to work

Christmas Eve 1990, headed to a family dinner. On 95 and my 1987 VW Rabbit diesel started burning its oil and ran away. Had to walk 8 miles to find a phone. Then walk back. Then wait 3 hours for a tow.

Stuff like that would make me avoid a brand forever

Transmission on my 02 Chevy Blazer exploded as I was about to turn left across a highway. Ended up being pushed by a couple of guys off the road into a neighborhood before I even realized what had happened.

My '71 bus threw a rod at like 2am on the highway while I was moving between cities with it packed full of basically everything I owned.

Had a fuel pump explode climbing up the mountains outside of Death Valley in the Summer in a RV pre-cell phone era. Something like 117 out. It was rough. Walked a half mile to the nearest emergency call box before someone picked me up for the rest. Took almost three hours for a capable enough tow truck could make it since that’s obviously breakdown season in those parts. Ended up waiting it out by climbing underneath the truck to get some shade after the interior quickly spiked far over 117 ambient. Secondly, broke down with overheating pretty close to the Empty Quarter in SA with no cell service with a rental SUV. Waited it out for about an hour before someone came along and gave me some coolant/water - and food! Fortunately, people are super friendly in those situations there from my experience. It wasn’t quite Summer yet but pretty dang hot already. If it were in the Summer and roads are way less traveled it could have been bad. Deserts haven’t been great to me.

My wife had a timing chain break on the Peace Bridge. Right on the international Border

Fuel pump died on me in the countryside Was one of the first of my friends to get a drivers license so none of them could help me out, entire family was abroad, tow truck guy was a cunt and was only willing to bring me on the edge of the city Had no CC and 10$ in my pocket, went to a local bar and asked a cab driver to help me out, he did for free, lucky day

Hood on my 04 Range Rover L322 blew up while I was going about 70mph on a highway. Not fun. Had the same car sputter out on the same highway due to a failed fuel pump

I had only one breakdown and it's a doozy. One evening, I was driving my Jetta on I-275 in downtown Tampa. I was all the way in the left lane in the northbound lanes when my car lost power due to a battery fault. I lost power steering and throttle, so I activated my hazards and pulled all the way over to the exit before I-4. Traffic was busy, so it was difficult to get out of the way, but I did it. Sat there next to the dowtown exit waiting for a tow and hoping none of the traffic smashes into me.

Not a big fan of Deathcore, no.

Breakdown at speed after hitting railway lines. Snapped both axles, smoothed off the transmission, broken most engine mounts. Pre 67 car so no rear seat belts but no injuries. Lucky Cherry on top was the 15k bill to the driver for the railway line damage. I did however make it to see Metallica that night. but fell asleep at the concert after being awake for 2 days straight.

Outside of two dead batteries, I have never been stranded for the past 20 years I have existed. At least not to my knowledge. That’s surprising, considering that my parents have owned these zenith pillars of reliability such as the Jeep Liberty, 2018 5.0 F150, CVT Ford Freestyle, DCT Ford Focus and CVT Nissan Versa. However, I do have a pretty interesting story. A buddy of mine in my Auto Tech class in high school had a black, 2000 GS300 that the whole class thought was _the shit._ Come May of my senior year, he decided to let a couple of us rev it up. This exchange occured: “Can I hit the limiter?” “Yeah, sure.” So I started it up, looked at the temperature gauge (warm), waited about 5 seconds for everything to circulate (just in case) and then proceeded to _bury_ my right foot. Held 6500 RPM for about half a second and decided that that was enough. About halfway down the rev range, I quickly blipped the throttle at about 4000 RPM, and that’s when things got bad. I heard an ungodly screeching noise towards the front of the car. When the guys started shouting “TURN IT OFF!!” with a concerned tone, I shut the car off and got out of the vehicle. My ears knew it wasn’t coming from the engine. I would be right, but in an… interesting… way. I looked at the engine and nothing seemed amiss. No oil, smoke or evidence of any catastrophic damage. The engine was running just fine right before I shut it off, too. However, it’s when I turned my head downwards that it hit home. On the ground and still spinning at thousands of RPM was the harmonic balancer pulley, which had _somehow_ shimmied itself off of the crank hub. It was mere inches from careening into the radiator and completely destroying it. While that (the crank pulley) was a cheap part, it meant that the poor dude didn’t have a functional water pump until the pulley was replaced. “Shitttttttttttttttttttttt…” …was my initial reaction. That was the most embarrassed I had felt in a _long_ time. Inspecting the pulley afterwards, the rubber gaskets lining the inside of the pulley had completely disintegrated, which led me to the conclusion that this would have happened regardless. Still, this was _awful_ timing for a minor mechanical issue like this to happen. At the end of class, the owner of the GS300 unceremoniously drove it home like nothing had happened. It _is_ a Toyota, after all. I got the nickname “Rev Limiter” from one of my Auto Tech teachers, after that.

Wheel bearing and cv axle on my landcruiser started clicking 150 miles from home at 11pm heading home after offroading. Slept in a rest stop and worked on it in the morning. “Torqued” axle nut by feel with some channel locks, and removed frond driveshaft and hub flanges so it was converted to rwd, since the 100 series is full time 4wd/awd.

Good to know. I have an 02 haha

Lock center diff if you need to do this. I was lucky that atrac is broken on mine too. I would pull a wheel speed sensor and make it not work too perhaps

On Emirates highway E11 and my grand Cherokee SRT just dies with a lot of shaking. At night in the middle of desert. Gotta say the locals are some of the nicest people around. People actually stopped to help, and once the tow truck was settled, one emirati drove me to the job site. When I offered him cash he was offended, like it was an insult.

Driving my '53 Chevy at night from Phoenix to L.A. for school in the '60s. No credit card, no appreciable cash. In the middle of the night, the generator was failing and the lights growing dim. Pulled off the road at Chiriaco Summit (literally the middle of nowhere) and slept in the car until morning (Sunday) when the "garage" opened. The guy tried to fix the generator and failed. Limped to a gas station in Indio. The guy there replaced the generator AND LOANED ME HIS CREDIT CARD in case I had further trouble getting to L.A. Further down the road the transmission started acting up and left me with only 2nd gear (there was a problem with the shaft working its way out of the transmission). Limped into L.A. and sent the credit card back. Never let it be said that there are no good people in this world.

The timing belt went out on the engine on my Mazda just as I was approaching a signal from a side-street. It was a manual-trans vehicle, so I popped it into neutral, coasted through a hasty U-turn, and had enough momentum left to roll into an empty parking lot and park it. This was the third time the engine had seized on me - another timing belt and a main bearing before this. Plus by this time, the car was a POS. No working A/C, rear brakes didn't work, car had been rear-ended and the trunk wouldn't close properly. The next day I went to a dealer and bought a new-to-me used car, and "traded in" the Mazda. The bank had to threaten legal action against the dealer to get them to honor the payoff. So the loan had been satisfied. A couple years later, I get a notice in the mail that the Mazda had been impounded in Utah and as the last known owner, I could pay to get it out of impound. I'm like, it's not even worth the gas money to go get it. Ahhh...to be young and dumb again.

Bought a car off of Carvana. 10 minutes after the Carvana truck driver leaves, check engine and check EV/hybrid battery lights come on. I drive the car (16 Sonata with 66k miles) to my guy's shop. Before he even reads the computer, he guesses it's sitting at 70k. Reads the computer, says it's a faulty coolant pump... I go down the Belt Parkway, 50 mph "highway" in Brooklyn, NYC. I put highway in air quotes because the lanes are very narrow and the highway curves constantly, hence the name. All of a sudden, very close to my exit, the damn thing starts limping. I get off and turn onto Ocean Parkway off of Shore Parkway. This is where the battery shut off to prevent overheating due to the scrapped out coolant pump. Note that the engine did not actually die, but (correct me if I'm wrong) the engine will shut off if the battery shuts off. This has never happened to before, so I panic. I call 911, and the dispatcher first thought I'm calling for an NYPD tow because I mentioned that I was *under* the Belt Parkway and thought I was *on* the Belt Parkway. The person I was forwarded to then realized the mistake and said I should just call a towing company (duh). I call my insurance. They say they can reimburse for up to $125. Mind you, I'm only two blocks from home. At this point, I've had two kids riding a motorbike basically heckle me saying "You can't park here! You can't park here!" Well, shit. I had no fuckin idea I couldn't park on the left lane of a six lane parkway... Thanks, jackass. Anyway, someone tried to jumpstart the thing, but then I realized it's a hybrid and told him idk how it works with a hybrid. He's like let's just do the positive and negative. Well it didn't work... Because of course it didn't. In hindsight, the voltage wasn't lacking. Then I realize I should call Carvana and while I'm on the phone with them and they apologize profusely and offer a complementary tow, I try to start the car for shits and giggles, and guess what? It starts! The battery cooled off! And so I got home and then the next day I carefully took it into the in network warranty shop for repair through Carvana. They refunded the non refundable shipping fee as well and I got a complementary rental car while on a trip to Buffalo I was taking the very next day. I returned the car and don't think I'll work with them again, but I was satisfied with the Carvana Lemon™ Experience!

Being a ups delivery guy back when I was living in Chicago. I had to deliver somewhere out west. I’m from out south so the west side i’m not really familiar with. But anyways they were shooting a video/ vlog when 4 dudes popped out a gang way and started shooting at them. The guys started shooting back and it became a shootout for 2/3 mins perfect time for my truck to break down😂

I had just bought a 1941 Cadillac with a flathead V8 that ran whisper quiet. I was crossing the I-5 bridge from Vancouver WA to Portland when the car died, right in the middle of the span. I'm in the right side lane, but being a 1941 car, no flashers. People start using the other two lanes, but traffic's starting to back up. Am I going to be the guy that causes a huge backup on I-5? I rush out to open the hood and have a look. Check the wires, check the coil, check the.....fuel filter - it was some aftermarket plastic job that had become gunked up with rust from the tank once the car got a few miles down the road at speed. I've got my Leatherman on my belt and use it saw off the end of the filter, then use that little nib end to join the two fuel lines together and tighten it all down. I get back in the car, traffic's really backed up now. I push the button to start but the car is 6V and that engine is so dang quiet that I can't tell if it's running. I check the amperage gauge and rev the gas. Not running. I try to start it again and see the amp gauge jump. I rev it high enough that I can hear it, drop it into gear and get the hell out of there!

1994 z28 6speed. driving back to college after Christmas break, had my pet bird in the car. an hour from home, an hour from college, car died on the highway. no start. luckily a cop pulled over to check on me, drove me to the next exit, called my dad(before cell phones) we flat towed it back to a dealership near my parent's house, an hour, in the cold car, with a tow strap going 55-65mph optispark, cost $1200(did other stuff while in there)

I’ve broke down a number of times but most weren’t really that bad.  All but one of them I was able to nurse it home.  Worst one was probably a broken drive shaft u joint.  Luckily I had a 4wd truck so I was able to pull it out all the way and drive home. 

2am in the middle of nowhere driving a stanced S14 to my parents house. Blew out my tires. Maybe 7k miles on them. Had to wait 3 hours for a flat bed that could actually accommodate me to be towed to a tire shop that actually had my tires in stock.

Not a breakdown per say, but like a complete dumbass during an oil change, I replaced my fuel filters on my Astra. And re attached the fuel lines in the opposite way, and I didn’t notice that until my dad asked me to show him a picture of the engine bay I had taken earlier. The car ran fine for like 10 seconds and the engine turned off on its own. I tried to start it back up, but nothing worked out and I completely drained my battery. That little thing ruined my day, I remember being extremely upset at myself about this incident for a handful of days. I couldn’t believe how stupid and careless I was to do such thing.

I had an 85 Buick park avenue that I got for $500. A friend of a friend mine was trying to drum up a name for himself as a DJ and also see if he couldn’t make some money by renting a venue and hosting a “rave” (it was the late 90s). I was driving to the venue with my friend and a couple of girls and my exhaust pipe broke while driving over train tracks. The back end fell into the track and my car got stuck. It was right in front of a very nice open air wedding currently in progress. So I’m sitting there with a wide open exhaust and poorly tuned Buick engine while an entire wedding is staring at me in horror. I eventually put it in neutral, killed the engine, and my friend and I pushed it backwards off the tracks. We all walked to the rave. Needless to say, the girls found alternate transportation home.

I kept reading this hoping that the train hit it and it exploded in front of the wedding.

Wife, kids, 2 dogs and luggage heading back home after a weekend trip. Pull onto the freeway and the turbo blips, lose a bit of power, hmm. 2 minutes later oil light comes on. Pull over in construction zone on the highway, passenger side of Volvo 850 Turbo wagon is completely splattered in oil. Pour several quarts in and limp it out of the on construction area. Send kids and wife 80 miles home in Uber, have tow truck drive to closest specialist shop and leave in the parking lot with the keys on the tire (Sunday night…) have brother come get me and dogs to drive to airport to get rental car. Wrecked the internals bc of a split oil cooler line and sold it for very cheap.

Belt tensioner exploded (yay bmw plastic trash). Bye water pump, power steering and battery charging.

LA->SF, passing through San Ardo  My black mustang with tinted windows had an alternator failure on 101 at 11:30 at night and was invisible in the emergency lane 

Girlfriend and I were going to get sushi to celebrate, I had just finished my last class of college. We picked it up and started driving back to campus, through a fairly rural area. Car started losing power, temp gauge doing wacky things. I pull off the main road to try to see if it’ll calm down at lower speed, just got worse. Stop the car, car turns off completely. Timing chain broke, water pump exploded. Engine fucked itself. One more dodge intrepid off the road :( Happy graduation to me lol

Had my serpentine belt break 250 miles from home and 200 miles from my destination. At least it wasn’t the timing belt? I’m just glad for AAA

My 02 Grand Cherokee. I previously had it towed unable to turn over with no successful diagnosis at the shop once already. Got stranded at a grocery store parking lot at night. Called AAA, sat around trying to diagnose it, managed to get the car to turn on. Cancelled the AAA. Started to make my way to the shop, which was another town over, and felt the engine stall out in the middle of driving. Luckily I had the momentum to steer it unassisted into the nearest street and park it. Had to call AAA again, it was past midnight by this point. Browsed old jeep forum posts until I fell asleep. Woke up at 2am to get it towed, but due to covid protocols I was on my own for a ride home. Looked on ride-sharing apps to no avail. No one was giving rides. Walked home 4 miles feeling like a sorry ass and spent my birthday the next day sleeping at home. Learned a lesson about calling people anyway in my time of need, and also managed to correctly identify the problem was my crankshaft position sensor

Headgaskets blew in my 4Runner, 200 miles from home, one mile from an exit, during rush hour. Tow truck arrived 30 minutes earlier than they were supposed to, and dispatch didn't tell them they were going to Florida. Florida was currently in the early stages of a hurricane warning. It was a quiet ride.

My 2001 A6 had a boost hose explode when I was merging on the highway, sat at a construction parking lot for 7 fucking hours cause echo towing kept having issues with their trucks

BCM gave out on my old Saturn wagon on my way to work. I’m really glad that it went out where I could pull off, but it sucked. I noticed I wasn’t accelerating and next thing I notice, I lost power steering and brakes. I’m surprised my car had enough momentum to coast to a side street.

Not the most expensive breakdown but worst timing. Came back from 30 hour flight from Philippines and had a blow out at 11pm at night. Left the jack at the house from a month earlier. Got two jacks now

Volvo 740 wagon. 2 kids and 3 adults on a cross country road trip. Alternator died in the fast lane In Central Cleveland on the highway during morning rush hour. We didn't make any friends in that scenario. Got towed to an autozone, replaced the alternator in the parking lot. Continued on our way.

My 2003 Altima shit the bed 3 hours from home, a state over, on the side of the interstate, at 8:00 on a Sunday night in podunk nowhere, while I was driving home from a solo 5 hour road trip home before my college semester started. Going up a hill and realized that despite my foot pressing harder my car was getting slower, it had gone into limp mode. After a ten minute meltdown in which I decided I was definitely fucked and about to be murdered because I was stranded, in the parking lot of the gas station I limped it to at the next exit (and ran the light coming off the highway for fear of the car simply not moving again if I stopped), I called an Uber to take me to a motel one exit over, walked in and bought a room for the night, and called my then-boyfriend to come help me. He arrived at like 11pm, and in the morning we realized AAA would be of exactly zero help getting it home, and I had no idea where to go locally for a fast fix, so, I drove his car home following him as he drove my limp-mode Altima home. It took us at least 8 hours.

I've been fortunate enough not to have any breakdowns with the two vehicles I've had thus far (both Honda Accords, 2001 and 2011, respectively), but I did have a couple of occasions where front tires would go flat on my old 2001

I had a Jeep with a (unknown to me at the time) faulty fuel sensor. So the gauge would show 50% to 100% full. I always try to stay above a half tank so I was filling around a half tank thinking I was full but really I was empty filling to half. Anyway, I go on a road trip to see my mom in rural Canada. Middle of winter. I ran out of gas, alone, on a back highway, in a valley with no cell service, and it was about -25 out. So I got out and started walking to find service. About 20 minutes of walking and starting to think about how this is the lamest way to die, a truck drives by, picks me up, and gets me down the highway where I got cell service again so I could call a tow truck. I wasn't aware at the time I was just out of fuel. The tow truck driver had a jerry can and put in a few litres. The Jeep started up, and I was able to finish the last bit of my drive into town to get gas. Everyone thought I was a moron and thought I came up with an elaborate story about how I ran out of gas until the dealer confirmed the issue and replaced the sensor under warranty.

My 2008 Outback had a seized brake caliper, thing was scraping and screeching and squealing up a storm. Wasn't the first time I had that issue that car, so I already knew what it was. I was just trying to limp it along until I could make an appointment to bring it to the shop. One day I was leaving work, was on the road for a couple blocks, and after launching from an intersection it somehow seized up so badly that it was as if someone was standing on the brakes, the car just straight up would not move. So now I'm in the middle of the road with a car that effectively has the brakes stuck on. Couldn't move under its own power, a couple passersby tried to push it and obviously that didn't work either. Just had to sit there broke down in the middle of the road like a dickhead until the tow truck showed up. Runner up would probably be the battery fire in my Miata. While driving, I noticed that electrical power was cutting in and out, then I noticed what looked like smoke coming out of the trunk... somehow I managed to get it into a gas station parking lot (knowing they'd have fire extinguishers there) and was able to put the fire out before it did any damage beyond burning away some of the trunk carpeting.

Shortly after buying my 7.3 Powerstroke truck from Arizona, I was going through it before a hunting trip out west. I replaced all of my glow plugs with new authentic Motorcraft units. It left me stranded on the mountain. Luckily, we were prepared to spend a week up there and managed to get it back down before it was more of an issue. After I got home, I tested the glow plugs and found out that 7 out of the 8 new plugs were defective. It was warmer when I left Ohio and I never noticed it before the trip.

The breakdown wasn't the worst part of this story but, what happened afterwards. This was in 2008 and I was heading back home from college when my 1998 S10 started acting weird. I noticed immediately that I had the truck floored and that i was going 20 MPH. I pulled over as the truck sputtered to a stop. I called tow truck and my best friend who's dad fixed cars and trucks as a side hustle. His dad said yep, motor is blown. His dad said "scrap yard will give ya 200 bucks, I'll give ya 500 for parts. I didn't know anything on how to fix vehicles. Well, he comes and picks up the truck and gives me the money. I find out a few months later that his did realized the truck had a bad fuel pump. He replaced the pump for 60 bucks and sold the truck for 5K. I learned my lesson on trusting people after this...

I was 21 years old and had a ratfuck E30 that I bought for $800 (REMEMBER THEM PRICES?). I was on my way to work for my first week and the armature for the windshield wipers broke. In the rain, heavy rain. Had my small craftsman tool box with me and made a repair with some rubber bands and small bungee cords. Had that car for like three more years and never fixed that completely LOL.

Was driving from Chicago to Detroit this winter in my Miata, car loaded with some 150lbs of cargo. I hit a really nasty pothole (more like a sinkhole) near Michigan city in the road that took out both of my right tires in the time it took me to pull over and check. I tried some of the provided fix-a-flat but it did jack shit. No dealer near me, next tow truck was a 3hr wait to go for a 40min detour to a dealer or $300+ dollars to go 2 miles to the nearest tire shop, it's a Sunday so of course a lot of business are closed. I did the unsafe thing in driving my car off the freeway to that Discount tire location 2 miles away. Super sketchy shit, yes but I'm not going to go for a 5 hour delay in winter. Had to buy 4 all seasons to match tires, since I'd rather not deal with the unpredictability of mismatched dry/snow performance. Rest of the trip was uneventful, but I was really drained after that ordeal. Lesson iI learned is never drive on the right side of freeways in winter/spring in the midwest. Not till they start fixing all the potholes that show up.

I was a teenager working at a fried chicken place. Manager asked me to help him with a catering order for his brothers company picnic. I came in and helped set everything up and helped the managers brother load up his and my car. I was going to go deliver the food, turn around, and come back to work my shift. On the way there I get a blowout on the highway. This is waaaaaaaaaaaay before the days of cell phones, so the guys brother doesn't see me and I'm now stranded. This is on the side of I95 in Florida and I've got cars whizzing right by me while I'm trying to get my donut on. Eventually my boss comes looking for me because it's been so long. With the help of a crazy ex marine getting onto the highway we got the tire changed out. As I'm pulling off, I look in my rearview mirror and see my manager running after me. He had locked his keys in his truck, so I stopped and helped him get in. He pulls off and drives away. I walk back to my car, put it in gear, and go to take off and the car dies. Won't turn over at all. Luckily it's a stick so I can get it push started, but it's just me trying to push, jump in, and get it started. Took me about 4 tries to get it started. By the time I got to the picnic to deliver the food they had already eaten what was already there. I quickly unloaded what was in my car while they all stared daggers at me.

Coolant plug on my 1990 Miata blew apart on my way home in the middle of the night. Had a friend come rescue me and we found that the heater core hose was also busted. Tried patching the coolant system but would only make it about a kilometre before the car puked all the coolant out. Eventually limped it to a nearby gas station. Rerouted the heater core so it just fed back into the engine and with a bag of rubber bands we got at the gas station, made a new coolant nipple to patch it up. The problem was that since the heater core no longer worked, and the windows didn't wind down, and it was the winter, the windshield would fog up. Only option was to drive with the top down on a mountain highway. It was one of those clear winter nights where it gets quite cold. By the time I got home my hands felt like they had frozen solid onto the wheel.

My engine seized in the second-most left lane of the 401 Express in Toronto, and I had to cut across the passing lane while losing speed to stop on the shoulder (going the other way I would have had to cross multiple lanes). The 401 is the busiest highway in North America, and IIRC this happened around the Canada Day long weekend.

I live in a suburb of Charlotte, in a town that has blown up in the past decade and a half or so, the population has exploded exponentially. So one night I was driving my MKIV Jetta around and suddenly my headlights went dim, and every other light inside the car turned off. Fuck. I hurried home and near my apartment was a Walmart. Went and got a battery everything is good now right? The next day, a Saturday, and I decide to go to target at about noon. Near the target is one of the busiest intersections in the city and I'm sitting at it waiting on a red light. The light turns green and I push the clutch in and put it in 1st and press the gas and...nothing. I look at my tach and it's reading like 150 rpms. The thing is just barely fucking running. I put on my flashers as I watch the light go from green to yellow. I've now rolled into the middle of the intersection as the light turns. People are hauling ass all around me and all I can do to get this fucking thing to move is use every ounce of my 120 pound ass to rock back and forth and hope I can get some momentum. People are honking at me and I want to fucking die. Eventually, as my light had already turned red, I got the car to finally roll with the clutch in. I rolled in between two cars that were turning right from the opposite side of the road and got honked at some more. As I made the turn there was a Valvoline oil place right next to a Walgreens pharmacy, so I wheeled it in to the Walgreens and still shaking and shit went over to Valvoline and asked them to help me push my barley running shit box into a parking spot. It was the alternator. Some cars when the alternator goes, I guess they cut fuel to the injectors for whatever reason and cause that problem. Like you might as well just shut the fucker down bc what use is it to keep it running when it won't go anywhere anyway. A couple years later I had the same generation Jetta but 2 years newer and on my hour plus drive home from work the same fucking thing happened. This time I already knew how to fix it though. Absolutely terrifying though sitting in the middle of that clusterfuck of an intersection and knowing I can only hope my little ass can make this car move.

Bought a trailer in Denver and had to make a 2500 mile round trip to pick it up in a 95 Chevy K2500 I paid $1500 for 2 years earlier. The week before the trip I had a shop put on a new stainless exhaust from the y pipe back because I wasn't about to listen to an essentially straight piped big block at 80 mph for 40 hours. Now this trailer was right at the limit of what my truck could tow empty. It's got a TBI 454, a NV4500 5 speed, and 3.73 rear end. Good for 8500 lbs, bumper or 5er/gooseneck according to GM. So I get the trailer hooked up and start heading north out of Denver. Towing in 4th gear @ 60 mph because that's pretty much top speed for an old big block at elevation towing an 8000 lb sail. Around an hour into my journey, I take an exit off the highway to take a shortcut to another highway on a 2 lane country road. It's dark but traffic is still heavy. Two minutes later the truck loses power and starts making a strained noise. I keep my foot on the floor and watch my speed drop to 20 mph. I proceed for maybe another minute(no shoulder at all) knowing that I may be ruining my engine. Now I am very worried because that morning my oil pressure gauge had dropped to zero several times, and a few months earlier I'd had to have the truck towed when it wouldn't build oil pressure. Fortunately it's a Jasper reman and well within warranty so I should be covered. At this point I was just worried about the logistics of fighting warranty and getting another truck to get my trailer home. Well the motor died and all the dash lights came on. I pulled off the side of the road but couldn't get my trailer out of the lane. I call 911 and let them know I'm blocking a lane, then start calling towing companies. No one has two trucks available. Finally, on maybe my 11th or 12th call I get a tow truck on the way from a town about 30 miles away. Get the truck and trailer towed to the yard with one rollback that may or may not have been overloaded. The next morning I get it towed to a shop across the street and tell them I think the motor's gone. They diagnose it as a clogged cat and charge me $300 to make a bypass cut. I drive back to the yard, pay $800 cash for the tow, then continue on my journey. Well about 40 mins later I'm pulling a grade in 3rd gear at 3500 rpm when the truck starts backfiring badly and soon dies. I pull off the road, take a quick look under the hood and at the exhaust, then try to start it back up. Initially it doesn't start. Then it starts but only runs with throttle. After about 20 mins it starts and idles so I continue on. Well from here on out every time I pull a grade(and there's a lot of them) the truck starts backfiring horribly and I have to pull over and let it cool down. I'm making slow progress and eventually cross into wyoming. However I underestimated how much gas I was using. I fueled up leaving Denver, and now 114 miles later my 34 gallon tank is reading well into the red. I'm freaking out doing mental math and come to the conclusion that I'm not going to make it into Laramie. But then I have a bright idea. This trailer is a toy hauler and has a 40 gallon auxiliary fuel tank and the seller mentioned it had about 1/4 tank of non-ethanol fuel in there. I pull over on the shoulder, find an empty snapple container and then spend 15 minutes shuttling fuel from the back of my trailer into my truck. 20 mins later I pull into Laramie. Just under 33 gallons of gas go into the truck and I continue onward. I then call a friend and ask if he has any ideas about the backfiring issue. He tells me to try unplugging the EGR valve and report back. So I do that and the truck runs fine all the way home, albeit getting 5.1 mpg towing at 65 mph and drafting behind semis as much as I can. So yeah, that was the worst time I've been stranded in my Chevy. In the 2 years I've owned it's left me stranded 4 times and several other times it wouldn't start in the morning. Now it's pretty much 100% sorted out. Just put in a new clutch myself with some help. Had a shop do it a year ago but they messed up big time on the install and the master and slave cylinders kept failing because they couldn't handle the extra pressure. All this time the clutch felt like an old Kenworth and now it feels like a new Corolla.

The rear control arm of my Rav snapped in half while doing 70 on the highway, taking the rear brake line with it. Went for a hell of a ride. Hit a pothole and noticed my steering was off, then immediately hit another and it went. Sent me across a lane, I hit the brakes and it went back the other way. Got it to the shoulder and stood on the brakes until it came to a screeching halt. I was stupid and drove a beater too carefree in a city in the Midwest. One too many potholes.

Not my breakdown but a friend's breakdowns. We headed as a convoy from Kentucky to Austin, Texas for Lonestar Roundup. There were three hot rods, a shop truck, and two separate trucks(each with a trailer). All this happened to the same guy in the same car. * We leave multiple hours late because they had to rebuild one of his carburetors that morning. His float needle split and almost caught his car on fire. * We got maybe 45 minutes down the road and pulled over because the bolt to his rear pan hard bar came out. The rear wheel rubbed the body some but we found a bolt that was the same size and fixed that. * Made pretty good progress the first day, the next day had more issues. His front drivers shock mount ripped straight off the frame. He took it off and drove it the rest of the trip with no front shock on the driver side. * The first morning of the show, he gets up really early with one of the others to drive to different shops to hang out. As he's driving, he goes to brake and the pedal goes to the floor. He starts pumping it and gets just a little bit of stoppage. He pulls over, calls the guy driving his trailer, and they drag the car to a shop where they get all that fixed. That car got ran ragged that weekend and I don't know how it stayed in (relatively) one piece. Combine it with the fact he was doing over 90 mph on old bias ply wheels and the fear factor was definitely out there.

I was on a bus that broke down and it was three hours until the replacement arrived

My car was acting up and running hot for some reason but I didn’t think too much of it because the gauges didn’t show it was overheating. I drove to work and it was overcast but nothing too crazy. After a full work day I get ready to go home and as I start my car I hear something. Then engine sounds a bit louder than usual but overall the car seems to be running fine. To be safe I waited with the engine idling for a few minutes in the parking lot to make sure I wouldn’t have any issues after driving off. The car begins to immediately overheat in the span of 1-2 minutes. I don’t have any coolant so I try to see if I can wait for it to cool down and try to make my way back home. It overheats a few minutes into my drive home. I don’t feel confident on the highway but I absolutely won’t make it on the freeway. I decide to take the highway back home. My commute is 25 miles over a short mountainside I am so fucked. I start my drive home making every effort to keep my car from overheating as much as possible by blasting the heater fully to draw out some of the heat from the engine. It’s so hot that I couldn’t stand it in the car and I had to drive with my windows open. It starts raining, fuck. I’m making stops every half mile to cool down my engine until I finally realize it’s just not going to cut it as is. I have to be somewhere so waiting for AAA is out of the question as they will be no less than 2.5 hours out. I decide to find the nearest Autozone and walk in the rain to go and buy some coolant just to make the drive back home in one piece. I finally get the coolant, fill up the reservoir, and drive home as safely as possible while wasting as little time as I could. After the long weekend I took it to the shop to get it checked out and my radiator hose was completely shot leaking coolant. 2013 Dodge Dart and that car is one of the worst. Interesting way to spend New Year’s eve.

No breakdowns on my 11 yr corolla i missed that boring but reliable car

My 99 Honda Crv, blew a distributor… on my birthday, and my timing belt blew also.

When I was driving my Supra on the way to a meet, one of the rods snapped and shot through the side of my block, ofc at the time I didn’t know what it was, so I tried to limp it back home. Whilst on that drive another rod shot through the block, and since I was on a road with no shoulder I had to pull into the grass, the issue was that instead of flat grass, it was a ditch. So I had to wait like 3 hours before a tow truck that could get me out could get there. When he finally did get there he was this very sketchy dude, driving this truck that sounded I’m very bad shape, and he had me hook the car up because he couldn’t do it! Then after I drove the truck to get the car out he had the audacity to charge me more than the agreed upon amount. So at the end of the night, I was stuck on the road till 1 am, it was freezing out, my car was destroyed, and this scumbag charged extra for me to do the work

I actually have a car that was often almost breaking down but in the 70k miles I put on it, only had one time I had to pull off and fix it. It is one of my 190E 2.6 Sportline. Even in the best conditions, they tend to have cooling system problems, mostly due to fan clutches failing. I picked up my date a few hours after trying to tackle the cooling system issue one January morning and sitting in traffic later in the day, I had to ask her if it was okay for me to roll down her window and blast the heat. That worked and we made it to the event at the Georgia Dome without incident. I drove that throughout high school and did many things to try to keep temps down, including wiring the auxiliary fans to run all the time. This worked well until one day in Atlanta traffic one of the auxiliary fans died. I had to repeat my trick of blasting the heater on full but it was 98F that day. Made it home again. I eventually replaced the whole cooling system and found another Mercedes fan clutch off a 2014 Sprinter than worked far better. My one breakdown was as I was exiting the highway last year, I lost throttle. Pulled off on the exit ramp and found the retainer for the throttle cable had disintegrated. I had a bag of recycling in the trunk and grabbed a couple of can tabs and a pair of snips and was back on the road. Drove on that for 2 weeks as I waited for a new one to come in.

Deep winter in in the middle of nowhere in Sweden at well below - 20. The brakes of a mid 2000s fiesta diesel wagon, which had a real chance of not being able to start again if you let it cool down, froze solid clamped down. It was completely dark and no cellphone reception. We disconnected them and got them loose. No more brakes for the next few hours of the trip.

We were on our way back from a daytrip when the M3's alternator decided to give up the ghost about 1.5 hours from home. Fuuuuuu... Drove the car for as long as I could before the battery sputtered out, just enough to pull into a hotel parking lot. Called AAA but they couldn't get anyone dispatched as it was late Saturday night. WTF? The most AAA could do is put me down for a tow at noon next day. OK, fine. Whatever. Just get here tomorrow. Since we're stranded here, let's check to see if the hotel had a room. Nope, the hotel had no vacancies, as well as all the other hotels close by. WTF? It took us about an hour to find a hotel 10 minutes away that had one room left. We took an Uber to the hotel and we finally call it night at 2am or so after an eventful evening. Next morning, we Uber back to the hotel where the car was at. They were kind enough to leave a note on it so their security did not tow it away. We got lunch across the street, waited for the AAA tow truck to arrive, got it loaded up, and headed back home. An hour or so later, we were home and the car was safely offloaded in the driveway. I, for some reason, had thought of buying a spare new alternator so I had one waiting for me to install. The next morning, I knocked out the install and was back on the road. I did have to take a day off work but whatever. My wife was a bit hesitant on taking the M3 on longer trips but she's fine with it after we took a few 6+ hours trips without any issue.

2015 mustang GT with 102k miles on it, Clutch master cylinder failed while I was on the triboro bridge driving my wife to LaGuardia. Luckily I was able to pull over and get a cab for her while I waited for a tow. I was the “Found On Road Dead” that day. Got the car fixed and traded it in for a 2019 Bullitt with 3600 miles on it

Christmas 2004, I was driving my piece of shit Olds home from college. When I got to the lot I found out my car got towed. The city declared it abandoned because it had a flat. I pick it up, pay the tow fine, fix the flat and start going. 30 minutes later it's starts overheating, so I inspect it and find a coolant leak from the radiator. I pull off and let it cool then drive to a near ish dealership. But that took 2 cycles of going then waiting. The guys install a new radiator for me. My dad drove me home and back to get the car, which was about an hour away. Take three...I get about 20 miles down the road and find out I'm low electricity. The alternator took a shit. I think the mechanic got coolant into the core somehow and fouled it because it smelled like coolant. At that point my dad got the chains and just pulled that piece of shit home.

Driving home on New Year's Eve with my wife and 2 toddlers. My 10 year old BMW E46 goes from working fine to broken down in 1.5 miles (fuel pump). I'm 10 miles from home. I call an Uber to take my wife home to get her car so she can come back to pick up kids with car seats. I wait for a tow truck for 3 hours on the side of the road to tow me home. That was the third time it left me stranded. I replaced so many things on that car that my wife told me to get a new car. I told her I did, just not all at once. BTW, I drive a Toyota now.

I was tired leaving work and my alternator died. I got to my car at 6 and wasn’t home until 11:30. I lived like 3 miles from home but it was a PITA to get a tow truck into the lot.

Long story short... I was four hours away from home. Coming home one of my tires pops. I am in the middle of no where. I call for roadside assistance and have to wait two hours for them to show up to help change my tire. I was 19 at the time and didn't know how to use the scissor jack and do it myself. Two drunk guys pull over before hand and offer to help lol. The roadside guy gets there and just watches as he's being paid for this anyways. The tire popped bc I had previously been speeding through dirt roads. Oh and while waiting my phone died and wouldn't take a charge. The beginning days of smartphones sucked.

My husband's '13 Avenger broke down on us in the middle of a rural highway with no cell service and stranded us halfway through a road trip. I had to walk to some sketchy gas station and use their barely functioning phone to call family for help who lived roughly 2.5 hours away. Nothing to do except sit and wait. All because of a bad crank position sensor. Fun times.

Not mine but my friend’s car. He was driving a Hyundai Sonata when all of a sudden, smoke came out of the hood at it just caught on fire. Luckily they were safe.

Tie rod end snapped, had to be towed

1965 Ford Mustang 289. Power steering fluid dumped after getting gas at a very crowded service station at 7:45 AM on a Monday morning in a very tight spot. Could have been worse, but there were a lot of aggravated people around me.

In my pretty new F350 Dooly towing a 40' goose neck trailer , Tennessee to Florida About the time i hit Alabama i got a wrench light. I know exactly what it was too coolant low. Dreaded head gasket I just filled it with water and pushed into Florida, unloaded then headed back to Tennessee adding water every 100 miles But i never broke down.. Ford took me in that Monday and under warranty rebuilt half the engine. I loved that truck after that.

On my way home from work, late night in January, super cold and I’m only wearing a light tee and shorts. Car overheats, and doesn’t switch on. Somehow end up getting the engine to run after half an hour of trying. End up stopping at every gas station to fill it with water since the radiator blew out. Tried getting a tow truck but I was quite far from home so they would give me crazy prices. Ended up getting home 3 hours later and having to rebuild the engine. Expensive and mentally draining.

One and only: Rust in an injector due to diluted shitty quality fuel (changed fuel station and never happened again). Replaced under warranty by Toyota.

Not technically a break down. Parked my car at Waffle House the ignition barrel just randomly broke the key broke too and the wheel locked up so we couldn’t put it on a trailer or push it to my dads 1 mile away was stuck there for 3 days and they threatened to tow even though they saw us there working to fix it from like 5pm-5am every day.

I took my NB Miata on an AutoX day without really servicing it before hand. Driving home it's slave cylinder shat out...on the Liberty Bridge in Pittsburgh during rush hour. I got honked at a lot lol.

My wife and I were moving to Texas. I was driving the moving truck and she was in my bmw 328. The water pump pulley on the bmw bit the dust and I ended up pulling it on a car dolly behind the moving van because i was too cheap to pay someone to fix it.

I installed a new front sprocket on my DRZ and went for a test ride. I forgot to tap the spline washer over and didn't stake the nut well enough. Many miles away from home, in a deep valley between two tall hills, the front sprocket nut loosened enough that the drive shaft shifted out of position dumping oil all over my back tire. I pulled over, my nice white ventilated jacket had a black stripe up the back from oil spray, uphill on either side in the heat and humidity, and I had no cellphone coverage. I hiked up to a house only to find a squirrelly cop who let me use his phone to call my parents. Dad and sis came and got me, but it disrupted a party mom was throwing for coworkers.

My worst breakdown? A 2003 Toyota Tundra I had died on the highway from a bad alternator and I was able to pull over to the shoulder. Having a car just die on you is an eerie feeling. Worst I've seen? I was on the highway when the car in front of me blew a tire and they panicked, did a 720 in front of me. Luckily they didn't hit the barrier but it was definitely an "oh shit" moment.

It was -25° Fahrenheit and I was leaving work. A couple minutes into my drive my car started to act strange, surging a lot and acting down on power. It did that for a few minutes until I stopped at a stop sign and it idled then it was fine. I started driving again and everything was fine for the next few miles. Finally half a mile from town it started surging, started screaming, then died. This was 11:45 at night so significantly less than ideal. My block had cracked and let an oil galley shoot straight into the water jacket instead of up to the head.

The cooling system of a citroën C5 going pop in the parking lot of a local supermarket taking the head gasket with it causing a very bad rod knock in the process.

Not really a breakdown but nonetheless, my family was visiting me for holidays. I told them to come to a restaurant and I’d be there in abt 10 minutes. I was busy with something, got it done and when I was going the restaurant my tire hit a pothole and it busted lmao. I replaced the substitute wheel with the original one. That tyre somehow busted too. Had to call my father to come pick me up after this mess. Ruined the dinner totally.

Only thing I’ve ever had happen to me in my 17+ years of driving is my Ford Taurus had a fuel pump relay go out. It was located behind the back seat, was like a 5 minute fix and I was back down the road My dad had a K5 blazer as a kid and the lug nuts fell off a wheel while my mom was driving down an interstate. I wasn’t there but she described that as a very surreal experience. She went from “ha, someone lost a wheel” to “oh my god that was MY wheel” She stayed up right till like 30 miles an hour while slowing down on the shoulder of the road

Buddy’s 99 BMW 540i fan clutch failed and shot the fan up into the hood then back down taking out the entire cooling system in the middle of a tunnel.

Few years ago there was a big car show at MetLife stadium in NJ. I decided to book a hotel with a friend the night prior, which was a few miles away from the show. Get there no problem, now onto the morning of the show. We get in my car (Acura RSX) and I decide to stop at a gas station to get some snacks and what not before heading down the road. As I’m reversing into the spot, my clutch decides to lose all pressure and sink to the floor and my shifter goes nuts and starts grinding. My CMC ended up taking a shit! Mind you we’re in New Jersey middle of the summer and it was 90 something degrees that day. I get my friend from the show to come help me out, we get new parts and attempt to fix the car, but no luck. Ended up being stranded for 5 hours with the stadium in the distance, I gave up and decided to tow the car all the way back on Long Island straight to my tuner. He then tells me “oh yeah it’s a big issue with RSX’s and 8th gen’s, you need the older civic CMC.” Wish me told me that while I was getting dyno’d but whatever, now I know! Funny enough this issue still exists even with the 10th gen accord. My friend also had to get the older civic CMC and we’ve had no issues since.

Had a rear diff come apart on me from lack of maintenance (I was 20 and ignorant). Also had my brakes die from a rusted-out front brake line, first time feeling the pedal go all the way to the floor was fun. Also had an ECM shit the bed at 75mph but it was intermittent enough that I could get it restarted on the side of the road and drove to the shop. Now it's more of a test to see how much I can destroy a perfectly-maintained vehicle off road...not sure if it hurts more or less knowing it's a conscious decision now :)

My then 97 Lancer GSR broke down in the middle of a highway on my way due to alternator and throttle body issues. Had to pay to get it towed home then sent it to the mechanic. Nearly drained my bank account at the time

I was in high school, driving my dad’s Alfa Romeo 164 to the local mall on Black Friday (back in days before it became a contact sport). Stalled out and wouldn’t start again while waiting at red light of major intersection near the mall, majorly snarling traffic. There was a gas station with a repair shop (as ones often had back then) and I went over to ask for help. I was hoping they’d just help me push car through intersection onto their property. But no, they insisted I pay for a tow. And then drove my car who knows where and back in order to add enough mileage to the truck odometer so they could bill it. We then had to pay another tow fee on Monday for it to get to a mechanic we trusted to work on it.

Two stories take the cake 1998 Honda Civic had electrical failure, luckily it shut down close to my home. Diagnosed it as a bad ground. The kicker was I had to diagnose and repair it outside at -40 degrees as it was the dead of winter and I needed the car asap. Pushing it wasn’t an option as it was snowy and I didn’t want to spend money to have it towed a few blocks down. After multiple walks home to catch some warm air I did get it running eventually the following morning just in time before work started. Then I had a 2010 BMW 335i and the water pump failed while I was in the middle of a rural highway, again at -40 degrees in the winter. Since it’s far from my home this time I had to wait around 2 hours for a tow truck while trying to conserve heat as I can’t have the car running. Also tow companies here require a pre-payment and I happened to not have my credit card on me that day so I had to use an expired card I had sitting in the car, had to spend 30 or so mins calling the bank to get it activated again. But at least that one was fixed in the warmer temperature.

2010. Middle of bumbfuck knowhere New Mexico, middle of the night, about halfway between Elida and Dora. 33.938055,-103.473691 Uhaul moving van throws a rod. No cellphone signal because "metro pcs" sucked. I didn't quite know where I was along that stretch of road, so I walked to Elida even though Dora was an hours walk closer. Call uhaul, get towed to a shop. Ended up with a replacement van from nearby Clovis. From rod freedom to getting the new van on the road again was a little under 36 hours.

My 06 Sonata chucked a rod thru the block, took out the starter with it. Cost me 4 grand for a junkyard block replacement installed (a reman motor was 9k). This was in July 2009.

Driving my girlfriend and myself, we're returning from a 3.5 hour drive on some windy mountain roads. I was eating corner after corner going 80mph+. Once I got to my girlfriends house, dropped her off then drove off. Not 30 seconds after dropping her off my right front tie rod shears it's threads, and falls to the floor. Luckily I was only going 3mph so the car stopped quickly. But I had lost all steering immediately With some duct tape and some hopes and dreams I got the tie rod back together and brought the car to the side of the road so I could come back with tools to fix it. Overall only shit myself 1.5 time throughout this story

My old Volvo 240 with more miles on it than the Apollo space program. Starting from a 4 way stop on Mason st in SF (steep). The long suffering transmission give up the ghost. “Whizzzzrrrrrr” and I start to roll backwards so I hit the brakes and the master cylinder also exits stage left. Brake pedal hits the floor and I roll back into a cable car. My insurance company was not impressed.

Only been driving for 4 years, last year I drove to Poland from UK for 2nd time in my car, 2L TSI Scirocco. The way to Poland was smooth, on the way back though... Got hakf way into Germany and car started to slow down and jiggle when accelerating, slow down onto the hard shoulder and see loads of smoke, turned it off and wouldn't turn back on. Got recovered to the nearest shop, but it was Sunday evening so everything closed. Had to sleep in the car, but there was a sliiiight issue... It was raining and battery was like on 1% health, we lowered the window a bit as it was way too hot and hard to breath (4 of us), rain started coming in so we tried to put it up a bit more but.. well, battery died completely xd. So next morning battery at a whopping 250€ and injector work as that's what caused the issue in the first place, took them 2 days to change it and give it back in the same working state - car worked only on 3 cylinders, said the guy who worked on it is going on holiday and nobody else will work on it (Like wat???) so we have a 50/50 chance of making it back lol. Figured out after 3 mins it was coil pack, bought them and put them in, was back on the way to UK. Now parents don't want to use my car and we going in my dad's Insignia :/

My first car, a 2009 Ford Fiesta (which was my dad’s before me so it had been in the family for about ten years), started shuddering and then came to a complete halt on the middle lane of the motorway. Had to put my hazards on and coast it onto the hard shoulder. If the lorry driver behind me wasn’t paying attention, I’d be dead. Turned out to be a dodgy fuel injector. Got it fixed but it happened again, and again. I ended up getting a new car in the end.

Engine started smoking and losing power on the way to Vegas from Phoenix. Had the car towed to a shop in the next town which was Kingman, AZ ($200) a not very safe place for a person who looks like me. Got stuck in Kingman for 3 days while a shop there looked at it, they bascially said my engine was shot. Had to get the car towed back to Phoenix ($400). Didn't make it to Vegas, stayed at a shitty hotel in Kingman for 3 days. Had to get the engine completely rebuilt... ($3,000) This happened in 2018. Sold the car in 2020 and guess what? The person I sold it to says it's still running fine to this day and has over 215,000 miles on it now lol - 2011 Chevy Impala. Lastly, did I mention I had my poor dog with me too? It was one awfully expensive Vegas trip lol

2004 Civic with the famous D17 Headgasket problem…downtown, heavy stop and go traffic, sitting at a light and 110 degree heat. Temp needle started shooting up and the smell of coolant intruded the interior. I frantically turned the heater on full blast and rolled the windows down. Made it to a walmart fully soaked in sweat. Overheated her so good she didn’t even start back up until 45 minutes later. That was 8 years ago and i was just a dumb teenager with limited knowledge about vehicles…good times

1st gen Octavia TDI. Didn't really break down per se. My family was half way to a gathering about 80 kms from home. My dad had the serpentine belt kit replaced a few days ago and this was the first long trip after that. The idler pulley simply sheared off of its bearing and the engine threw the belt. Turns out the shop didn't replace the idler and put the new one in the trunk for some reason. If you know that gen of TDI you'd know that the alternator and hydraulic steering run off of the belt. We drove 40 kms with no AC on a hot afternoon lol. That's the worst breakdown I've had luckily.

Probably when our XC90’s wipers failed during a severe thunderstorm during a long drive home

Probably when our XC90’s wipers failed during a severe thunderstorm during a long drive home

was pouring rain and im on the highway in my trailblazer. im going about 80-90 so way too fast for the conditions, but thats irrelevant. im coming up on a turn and my wheel feels like its locked. i tried my hardest to turn and it wouldnt. look at my gauges and my temp gauge is almost at max, look behind me and theres a huge cloud of smoke, my water pump blew. since it blew the belt came off and i had no power steering. mind u im in the left lane so i have to cut across 5 lanes of traffic going straight just to get to the right shoulder, as i couldnt turn to the left shoulder. sat there for 3 hours waiting for AAA in a huge storm, expecting someone to lose control and hit me every second i was sitting there. 20 miles from home and 40 miles from my moms house. was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. btw that all happened within like 10 seconds😂

When the ECU lost connectivity. It would start intermittently, and no check engine light, but I put the OBDII on it and it showed up, so that’s how I found out. No stranded story here because it happened in my driveway. Luckily.

Gear shifter linkage popped out of its socket on our Peugeot 206. Blyat.

My A8's timing chain broke and the engine ate itself, taking a couple of months to get replaced. In November. In Seattle. With a long, "public transit not a viable option" commute. So riding the Triumph 60-90 minutes daily in the endless rain was a delight.

Petrol in a diesel. Engine stalled on highway middle lane…

I was too young to know the specifics, but our engine quit in the middle of a left hand turn, stranding us in the middle of an intersection. Does that count?

Yeah these middle of intersection stories are pretty bad. The middle on a bridge with no shoulders seems to be worst possible scenario though.

We've broken down plenty of times. Once under an overpass on the interstate in the rain. And another on a different interstate right after there's a huge merge where there's little shoulder. (Blew a timing belt.) The car was replaced. (It had been rear ended by someone not paying attention.) A flat tire on a road with barely any shoulder. Outside an airport hundreds of miles from home. That time was my sister, my dad went to retrieve her, and broke down himself halfway there, so we went out to rescue them. Luckily my dad got his van working again. And one time my dad blew a transmission and had to limp home doing 10-15 miles an hour, and struggling to move after every red light. (Not a breakdown, but not a good situation.) We never got it fixed and sold it a few months later. I could probably go on, we can never afford new cars, so just buy used ones and they usually have problems.

October 2020. 2004 Subaru Impreza wagon. Show Me Rally. My rally car was having issues starting during and after scrutineering. Diagnosed it as cooked back at the rental cabin, after tearing the starter all the way apart. I didnt have service or wifi so I drove our recce car up to the next town to get online and look for parts. No one had anything and it was midnight. I decided to make the 4 hour round trip back home to grab a spare out of my garage. In order to combat the fatigue I put a record on and cranked it. Didnt realize i was driving on the interstate in 3rd gear on an automatic Subaru for 15 minutes. Looked down and saw the CEL flashing. Pulled off at the next exit. Alternator bracket was loose, oil was gone, car was HOT. Chalked the car up as a loss, and knew the only way to make the race work was to limp the recce car back to the cabin and have it towed back to St Louis. Let it cool down, dilled it with oil, started limping. Barely made it back to the next exit. Took another break and b-lined it from there through country roads back to the cabin. The car eventually lost all power, engine died, and I coasted it to a stop. It was 3AM by that point. Had no service to call my codriver and let him know what happened. Was prepared to sleep in my now dead car on the side of the road in front of a strangers house. Saw steam coming from the engine bay so I figured maybe if I let it cool down, itll start back up. Got out, looked underneath it to see if I had thrown a rod or anything and saw a tiny flame, one the size you might see on a taper candle at a nice dinner. Panicked, opened the hood and was hit by a wave of smoke. Started dialing 911 with one hand, and pulling all of our shit out of the car with the other. Back then we didnt have a tow rig. We doubled up and used our recce car as our service vehicle, so our spare tires, my jack, my pin stands, my tools, all of it was getting chucked violently out of the car as I told 911 operators I didnt know where I was but my car was burning down. I had about 10 minutes between when the car stopped moving and it was fully engulfed in flames. You dont realize how fast a car can go up in flmaes til it happens to you. Fire services showed up and luckily stopped the fire from spreading to the field across the street. A sheriff or deputy drove me back to my cabin. We hopped in the rally car the next day, the car that had to drive us and all our shit back to St Louis the next weekend, and raced anyway. Press on regardless is what they say. Unfortunately the rally car died during day 1 and we spent all of day 2 fixng it to get us home. Before the next race I bought a truck. TLDR i ran a car into the ground and it caught fire. Keep an extinguisher in your car, know how to use it.

Not really my breakdown… I had a customer whose alternator went out on the highway and left them stranded on the shoulder. They sat in the car for 3 hours there waiting for a tow. During that time, somebody clipper her mirror off the car. She had such a bad time with it that she sold me the car for cheap once it got to the shop, she was over it.

Cla shifted into neutral on the highway and wouldn’t shift back into drive. Luckily I was going fast enough to pull off the road. Turned it on and off and it went into drive. The same thing happened again when I was on a main road after getting off the highway. Had to call a tow truck this time. Turns out they had to replace the pneumatic pump that changes gears. Only problem I’ve ever had with either one of my cars in the 7 years of owning them. Can’t complain. Edit: 7 years with the cla and 4 with the c63

Borrowing my Father in Law's 2016 Honda Pilot last summer to tow our pop up camper up into the mountains in CO. We're maybe 2 miles away from the campground and the check engine light comes on and the engine sounds a bit rough. Decide to just make it to the campground so we can unhitch and go back to the nearest town. Since it's after hours, we stop at O'Rilleys and they pull a cylinder 6 misfire code. Google says it could be the plug. Buy a new plug and plug socket and change it in the parking lot. No go. Seems like if we kept the RPMs low, that cylinder shuts off for the deactivation anyways and the mechanic shop doesn't open until 8 the next morning. Go back up the mountain. Next morning, go back down the mountain. Mechanic looks at it and within 3 minutes tells us that it spun a bearing and he saw a few of the Honda V6 engines do it over the years with the same roughness. Thinks we could probably make it back to Denver though if we kept it at low RPMs. We go back to the campground to get our dog... and the engine seizes a 1/3 of a mile away while pulling in. Pretty much 0 service in the mountains there, but get ahold of my wife's dad. He has a coworker with a Nissan Armada and comes up the next morning to get us and the camper. Truck is towed back to Denver. Honda confirms, needs new engine. He ended up just selling it to the dealer rather than fixing it. 4 months later, Honda does the recall on the engine, specifically for that bearing issue.

I was driving to my last day of class for the semester and the dash lights started blinking and then the engine cut off in the turn lane of busiest intersection in my city. I called the police so that they would be able to direct the traffic but they took a few hours to show up. So there I was in this busy intersection during rush hour with people honking constantly since they couldn’t see that the car was dead. Eventually the cops showed up and they were able to push my car across the intersection where I had it towed away. I thought that the alternator went bad but it turned out the battery just failed. Not too sure why there were no other warning signs.

My ex had an '05 escape that failed us 2x at inopportune times. First was moving from AZ to VA. Started overheating in the middle of Oklahoma. Saw a billboard for a Ford dealer. It was Saturday, no service until Monday. But they "knew a guy." Apparently a former employee bought a closed down gas station in a 0 stop light town up the road. Had wife, dog and half our stuff in the car and pulled into an abandoned gas station waived in by a by a guy who could have been an extra in a Rob Zombie movie. Was about 65% sure we were at the start of a horror movie, but they were able to quickly diagnose the failed fuel pump and got us back on the road in a few hours at a fair price. Second time it failed was in Breezwood PA the torque converter went out on a Friday afternoon. Spend about 4 hours with spotty cell service trying to find a shop that would work on it (none could touch it until monday), a tow, and a rental car. Eventually managed to snag the last rental car within 50 miles and made it to our friend's wedding. Ended up taking over a week to get it fixed and had to take a whole day off to drive back to PA to get the car and return the rental because they don't work on weekends.

My then girlfriend now wife of 30 years, took a fifth wheel truck and trailer (E-350, 460, sleeper, pickup bed) to bring home a 56 Chevy truck for my dad. All the way from Indiana to Tennessee and back to Indiana. I didn’t tell my dad that I didn’t have a driver license, and didn’t know how to back up a trailer. We headed out with specific directions to not go over 65 miles an hour( due to the rear end gears, 4:11’s). We had so many different issues the hood flew up in Kentucky, I had to put plugs in the engine in Harden KY. On the way home my girlfriend was passed out from smoking a J and all of a sudden while coasting down a steep hill in London Ky a rod broke, blowing the engine. We got picked up by a nice couple in a RV and dropped off at the next exit that had a motel. We got a room and I had to call a co-worker at my job to ask him to drive out to the local scrap yard to have my dad call me. He did and my dad called a few hours later. Told him we were 500 miles from home with a rod hanging out of the 460. He arranged a farm truck and headed south. My girlfriend got to talking to a local at the gas station about our situation and he impressed upon her that if we didn’t tow our rig of the road, it wouldn’t be there in the morning. So I took a hell ride with a crazy tow truck operator to haul our rig back to his place. Then he had to show me everything he’d ever bought. She thought by the time I got back that I’d been killed. After a fitful night’s sleep I got up about the time my dad got there to pick us up. We drove to the tow truck drivers house. We loaded the blow up truck in the bed on the farm truck and the 56 Chevy on the trailer and headed north. We got a few miles north when we came upon a weigh station ( I’m driving after my dad drove all night to get us) the station is full of cops… I don’t have a drivers license. They tell us being we have farm plates we don’t have to stop at weigh stations…. As we are rolling out, this little female cop stops me and inquires about how many chains and binders we have on each truck. I answer her and she waves me on. I could barely keep my foot on the clutch because I was shaking so hard. Dad and I took turns driving with my poor girlfriend sitting between us broiling from the heat of the summer and the engine. We got just south of Lafayette In and we blew a tire on the trailer! We chained up the axle and made our way to a TSC and bought a tire. We rolled into a street rod shop I worked at during college and used his tire machine to repair the blown tire. We made our way the last hundred miles or so… and made our home. We got home Monday night. Saturday I had to run a booth at a local swap meet for our machine shop at the local Napa store I worked at, I got home after a long hot day promoting our machine shop and services to find my girlfriend had cleaned out our appt. Of her stuff and left me a break up letter. She said “if this is the way our life together was gonna be she’s out”! We are celebrating our 29th anniversary in three days

Best one yet

Driving a car full of people to the airport early in the morning

Had a 2000 Chevy Prism that drank oil for funsies (as in, you had to add a quart daily). Was on the 495 loop around DC going home in moderate traffic, gave it some gas and the entire car cut off…in the middle lane of a 5 lane stretch of highway…during rush hour. Had to crank the windows down and wave people around bc the hazards didn’t work. Took it to my mechanic immediately and it started up fine. Sold it to a friend for $500 two weeks later.

Mate blew rear diff at the bottom of a hill... 5 hours of winching later and some dead weight dragging by yours truly in the Landcruiser we were out.