Since we all have horrible stories about what happens when selling/buying/trading/racing cars figured we should but all of those stories in one place.
I will try and get pictures of the mythical 67 mustang killer accidents that somehow I am incidentally involved with but want to hear from you guys first.
Today there was an Infinity QX56 about half way into the street reversing out of a driveway so I stop to let him go. Timidly, he creeps out of the driveway and into the curb behind him which brings him to a stop. Then, he accelerates up the curb, onto the sidewalk and into the no parking sign behind him (knocking it over). I wish I had a dashboard camera.
Guy is test driving my ranger for sale. Throws it into 4x4 on a paved surface, takes a tight turn and the front end starts hopping. He starts yelling about how broken my truck is and that he wants a discounted price. I think he did it on purpose and accuse him of trying to break my truck. I told them to berkeley off and left. Good thing I was in a piggly wiggly parking lot.... I didn't want those scum bags to know where I lived. A week later I saw the little scum bag in the gym, he gives me the evil eye and walks off..
Did I mention that he got into a minor accident with the truck while he was test driving it. He pulled a 3 point turn in the middle of a food lion entrance and some teenager t-boned my drivers side tire at a slow speed. Lucky no damage.
1) Two punks came to look at my 77 Malibu. I was eating supper, so I told my buddy to take them around the block in it. It was plated, but since I hadn't been driving it, I took the insurance off it. It was pretty quick, but what could possibly go wrong just going around the block? When they asked how the brakes were, buddy hammered them on, went into a 4 wheel skid, and ran into the back of a parked mid 70's Trans am, totaling it. I got the no insurance fine, and my friend had to sell his tools to pay for the guy's car. We had a spare front clip and were able to fix and sell it within a week. A year later I moved over an hour away, and so did the car. I used to see it all the time.
2) I was on my way to work one morning, and stopped at the gas station to get the Tri-ad/Buy and sell. I pulled up in my 87 S10, stopped on the concrete pad, and ran in to get the paper. The E-brake was broken, and I was in too much of a hurry to shut it off, and put it in gear, so I just left it running in neutral. As I was paying, I looked out to see the truck rolling away. It rolled off the pad, straight for the propane tanks, followed the groove in the pavement and turned, going straight out the entrance, across four lanes of normally busy highway, and into the 10' deep ditch on the other side, still running. The kid running the gas station was driving a blazer 4WD, and I had chains in the back of my truck, so we hooked it up, he pulled it out, and I left for work with no damage. I wasn't even late.
I got my old 240sx stuck in the snow once. I tried rocking it between 1st and reverse with no luck. I ended up just slowly letting the clutch out at idle and the rear wheels started spinning ever so slowly. I got out and left the door open with the engine idling in first gear and pushed the car put of the rut, then ran and hopped in the drivers seat and took off. I wish I had a camera then, it had to be a funny sight.
Street: Hyde County NC, 1970s. Tuned the carbs on a swing-axle TR Spitfire for a girl I had a crush on. Took it out (by myself), got a little enthusiastic. Zinging through a blind (tall corn in the field) 90deg left, and a combine harvester was in the road. Too much brake, 180deg spin, POW! I'd made about $3K working on charter boats the previous summer, lost it all trying to make everything right.
Track: My SCCA buddies still tease me, but.."IT WAS A BERKELEYING BALLJOINT!" Half-endo and 2 or 4 rolls at Charlotte..with a stock seat. I should have let them x-ray my neck, 20yrs later, it makes a lot of noise.
Spoolpigeon wrote: I got my old 240sx stuck in the snow once. I tried rocking it between 1st and reverse with no luck. I ended up just slowly letting the clutch out at idle and the rear wheels started spinning ever so slowly..
I did that with a 4wd Subaru.
More hilariously (because it was a few years ago and we can laugh now), one of my friends did that with his wife's Sable. This particular model year had the feature/bug where the doors automatically lock over 5mph.
Three hours later, tow company comes by to unlock the car...
I hit my sister with my K-car.
I was 17 or so and didn't yet know how to do much of anything on cars. The brakes had been getting progressively worse over the past week but my complaints to my parents went unheeded because my mom's van was in the shop for something. My mom and sister were walking home from work together, mom was a vet and sister helped, the practice was a little less than a mile from home. I was on my way home from a greenhouse job, saw them and thought I'd be awesome and give them a ride. I swung out of 55 mph traffic onto the gravel shoulder and hit the very ineffective brakes. It didn't take long to realize I was in trouble. There were only three things I could do. I could move back into traffic and cause an accident. I could head for the ditch that was deep enough to swallow a motorhome. I could leg press the brake pedal and pray. My optimistic 17 year old brain thought I could haul it down so I mushed the pedal and prayed. As a warning to the hapless related pedestrians in front of me I layed on the horn. Both of them looked, and then looked away. They assumed that I was being a jackass, which was usually a pretty safe assumption, but that meant that they weren't watching me. I continued to slow, the gap continued to shrink, I thought I was going to pull it off. I was wrong. Thankfully my sister was a half step behind my mom and she was the one caught up in the last six inches of movement. Bumper met ass and she was launched. She popped up and my mother turned to face me through the windshield with the angriest stare she could muster. She raised one finger, pointed it at me and flatly said "you're grounded". She then turned and walked the rest of the way home never once looking back. It took a brief test drive by my dad to convince her that my version of events was true and my grounding was reversed. The next day I asked my gear head friend at school how to change pads and he told me. I bought the pads with my own money (even though the car was shared among three of us kids, I always paid for and did all the repairs) and fixed the brakes.
Delivering pizza's in the southern part of San Francisco (there are some very steep hills there) in a 4 door powerglide Corvair. Powerglides don't have park in case you don't know.
Guy opens the door, gets a weird look on his face looking over my shoulder, turn around to see car, with drivers door open, roll across the street, rip the door off on a Hyundai, and smash open the security gate of the house. Guess the parking brake wasn't on hard enough.
Luckily it did not go straight down the street, it was pretty steep. Had to pay for the fender of the Hyundai later, the door was no big deal. Roped the door back on and drove home.
The rear driveshaft U-joint in my '65 Impala SS failed once. Not spectacularly, thankfully. Then my '80 Toyota 4x4 got stolen. I recovered it a day later. It was mostly fine, but among the things taken from the truck was the rear driveshaft. I had to drive it home on front wheel drive.
The starter solenoid on my 69 D100 started going out, sometimes you'd have to hit it with a screwdriver to start the truck (fender mounted like old fords). I was getting ready to leave home, jumped out hit the solenoid, truck fired up, in reverse. Luckily it turned sharp to the left and ran it self into a tree and stalled. If it had gone straight back, it would have nailed a either a light pole or a barn. I needed a new bed and almost some new shorts after that.
Same truck would get hung up in two gears at once. For some reason only my dad could get it to unhang. I was at the main 4 way stop in town (small town MS), truck hangs up. I ended up walking about a mile to my uncle's part store in the rain to get help. After I made it to my uncle's store it stopped raining.
The night the tornado went through Evansville and leveled a trailer park, I had been out on the vectren power plants coal road doing a top speed run in my '98 4.3/5sp s10.....right at the top of 4th gear, over 100, I heard a loud bang followed by a shower of sparks growing ever farther in the background....I coast to a stop and wondered what happened. Look under the truck only to find the driveshaft completely gone. My roommate was with me, so we pushed it a mile to sit under the one underpass in the area(as the storms were coming) An hour later, another roommate picked us up and we got back to USI an hour before that tornado rolled through.
I was stopped at a red light waiting to pull my bus in to the depot. A civic coming the other way tries to stop, can't ,and slides head on into the bus, going under the front of the bus. I watched him panic and slam into his seatbelt then I kneeled the bus out of habit and hop out to see if he's ok. Kneeling the bus lets the air out of the front suspension to lower the step. Doing if with his car under the bumper crushed it pretty good and lifted his rear wheels off the ground. He began yelling at me for ruining as car and threatening to either kill or sue me for wrecking his car.
Two guys take my $500 Datsun for a test drive. 45 minutes later they come back pushing the car down the street. I had just changed the clutch slave and did a poor job bleeding it and the clutch was on the floor. The funny thing is the 2 guys were college students fresh from Nigeria looking for a low cost car and were confused at what happened. I couldn't convince them it was an easy fix.
Was driving my Samurai by myself in the middle of a valley in a sand quarry in the middle of nowhere, drove over a little sand ridge like it was no big deal...it dug in and got high-centered. I also just happened to lose cell signal and GPS signal at that moment.
Ive got a few from being a dumb young man...
My grandparents lived in a rural area and would let me drive around if I wanted. I took the 79 Malibu out and tried to take a jump from the road into a church parking lot about 3 feet below. The car made the jump great, but the rear-view mirror came off and popped me in the face. I still have a small scar on my forehead.
I got in an accident in Myrtle Beach with my '01 Mustang GT and the car that hit me took off both front fenders, bumper and hood, but not the bumper support or radiator. I wasnt allowed to drive the car according to the cop, but I hit the highway with what looked like a dirt modified car. My friend and I wondered what a high-speed test would be like. Well, I can tell you at 130 mph, plastic bits in the engine compartment (fan shrouds, covers, ect) explode off. Definately got the heart racing on that one.
I think I told this one before, but here it is again:
When I was 17, I went for a Sunday drive in the country. The sun was shining when I left the house. A surprise summer storm whipped itself up, seemingly out of nowhere. It produced a tornado which picked up my '89 MX-6 LX and dropped me on my wheels maybe 40 yards away in someone's yard. I was carrying forward momentum after being dropped and could not get the car stopped in the wet grass. I was heading directly towards a large brush fire. But before running through it, the ground seemed to open up beneath me and I fell down in a hole. (There had been a deep ravine between me and the fire, which I could not see due to the rain and the two sides of the ravine converging in my line of sight.)
The car was nose down, smashed against a gravel bed. I was hanging from my seat-belt. Black Sabbath was still playing in the cassette deck. I managed to unbuckle myself and scramble up the side of the ravine. The wind was blowing so hard that I could barely walk in the direction I intended, but someone from a nearby trailer ventured out and helped me inside.
The ravine filled up with flash-flood until only the rear bumper of the MX6 poked above the rushing water.
The trailer owner turned out to be a creepy weirdo, who made me do chores until my mom could come pick me up. He asked where I was from. I told him, and he said "There's some pretty little girls down that way."
My school books and homework had been in my car and were destroyed by the water. The next day in school, when I tried to explain what happened, I was incredulously ridiculed by teachers and classmates.
I had a 96 Sunfire that never idled quite right and like to think you were stealing it and shut off the fuel if it stalled or you tried bump starting it. After a few interesting intersection situations, the solution was to simply drive it like I stole it.
Spoolpigeon wrote: I got my old 240sx stuck in the snow once. I tried rocking it between 1st and reverse with no luck. I ended up just slowly letting the clutch out at idle and the rear wheels started spinning ever so slowly. I got out and left the door open with the engine idling in first gear and pushed the car put of the rut, then ran and hopped in the drivers seat and took off. I wish I had a camera then, it had to be a funny sight.
I did the exact same thing with my grandfather's Chevette, except it was an auto. I was in a parking lot and dropped the front wheel off the side. Damn thing nearly hit a light standard before I got back in. 
I was pretty little, thought I would "drive" my dads new GLH out of the garage. Well, I didn't know about column locks so I got it going out of the garage down the driveway and took out the neighbors row of rose bushes. My brother and I pushed it back up but it wasn't lined up with the garage anymore and my dad had the keys at work. I never heard the end of that; I was seven or so and had only ridden tractors and mini bikes at that point.
Earlier this week I'm parking a bunch of cars at work. There's a woman sitting in a Volvo completely in everyones way, keeps moving and parking again in the same place so I'm keeping an eye on that trying to figure out WTF she's up to. Backing up one of our Volvos I hear horns, look in the mirror to check distance and there's plenty of room between the two of us. Look in the other mirror and there's a silver Audi RIGHT THERE. I didn't feel it but I did give him the tiniest of battle scars on his fender. Thankfully he was cool about it, took it better than I would have.
I still feel like an ass for that one. 
NGTD wrote:Spoolpigeon wrote: I got my old 240sx stuck in the snow once. I tried rocking it between 1st and reverse with no luck. I ended up just slowly letting the clutch out at idle and the rear wheels started spinning ever so slowly. I got out and left the door open with the engine idling in first gear and pushed the car put of the rut, then ran and hopped in the drivers seat and took off. I wish I had a camera then, it had to be a funny sight.I did the exact same thing with my grandfather's Chevette, except it was an auto. I was in a parking lot and dropped the front wheel off the side. Damn thing nearly hit a light standard before I got back in.
I did the same thing with my own Chevette auto, except I adjusted the idle high, put it in drive, and pushed it out of a deep snow drift way out in the middle of nowhere. I was by myself, late at night during a major snow storm.
I got the same k-car high centered on a snow drift about half a mile from home. I walked back to the house and made my sister (other one) come help me dig it out. We shoveled under the wheels first and there was easily 6 inches of air between the tires and the road surface. It took us almost two hours to get it back down. Luckily just as we were contemplating having to dig a path back toward the plowed road, a county truck came by and gave us the biggest WTF look ever as they cleared a path around us. It was a pretty fun way to spend a snow day when it was all said and done.
I had a Suzuki Samurai with a failing starter. If you rocked it back and forth while in gear it would get the starter to work sometimes. Other times I would just push start it - it was really light. I also happened to park inside at night in a warehouse space. Well, one morning the Samurai starter clicked and so I jumped out to give it a shove, neglecting to turn the key to the off position. I heaved to it and the thing fired right up, driving off, inside, in 1st gear. I managed to get alongside the Sammy and start to reach for the key just as it caught the front bumper - which was made of 2x4s - on a rung of an extension ladder. That made the ladder swing away from the wall and whack me really good in the leg which served to pull me out of the car a bit. The end of the bumper broke off so I was able to free myself and lunge back into the car just in time for the stub of the bumper to hit the next rung on the ladder which made the ladder pull me right back out of the car again. Again the bumper broke and this time I gave it all I had, lunging into the car and shutting off the ignition. I nursed a pretty serious collection of bruises for a while after that but amazingly did not break my leg or the ladder. I bit the bullet and replaced the starter after that.
I guess this one fits.
86 S10. I was leaving for work, and with a cool morning, and dying battery, the truck wouldn't quite turn over enough to start. My driveway had a slight grade, and it was usually enough to bump start the truck if i did it right. I was also experiencing stomach discomfort of a rather explosive nature. Anyway, I get the truck rolling, hop in, let the clutch out, and it's not enough. The truck is now sitting in the middle of a country road at 6am. It was light enough that I was able to push it back up, but it wasn't easy. I put my back against the tailgate and started pushing, hard. On about the third grunt, the previously mentioned stomach discomfort began to erupt. Because I knew there was no stopping it, I had to make a split second decision. Do I run for the house, just grin and bear it, or do I leave the evidence right there on the road? In an instant, I hoped nobody was watching from their living room window, whipped my drawers down and let it rip. Based on the volume of evidence, I totally made the right decision.
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