What are your biggest car related mistakes?

[rog518]

HItting an artic lorry in a honda civic, caused £100k worth of damage, my ex girlfriend lost half her left leg, i had 197 stitches in my head as i scalped myself on the sunroof.

When We were cut out of the wreck, the copper that was at the scene, later told me that all he could see was a huge white patch on my head, that happened to be my skull

 

So all in all, that was a bad day.....

 

But true non the less, even made tv as the crash happened right outside Meridian Studio's in Southampton.

 

 

That explains alot about you Paul!!

 

No seriously glad you made it through mate

[martinmac]

Buying a TR7, the worst car i have ever owned.

 

Selling a mint 240z on an impulse to buy a 260z super samurai.

 

Not these cars but good examples of the models.

 

 

Selling the samurai to buy a 280z.

 

Selling the 280z to buy a 300z.

 

Selling the 300z to buy a rover

 

And owning all the sheds I have had to endure before getting the 350z.

[Dom187]

Well heres mine...

 

1) Putting my Golf car up on a car lift with the bonnet open ready for a tube light which was hanging from the ceiling to scratch the bonnet when the car got lifted.

 

2) Putting one of the rear bushes the wrong way round on the Golf, then having to destroy said bush to get it back out... then having the car sat while I ordered some new bushes... then not realizing there was a postal strike so my new bushes where not delivered in time so I had to get the bus to work for a week.

 

3) After getting my lovely Zed, I had this happen... This is one of my *black hole moments*...

 

When I got my Zed it needed some new tyres, no problem ordered a full set from a website and got they delivered to my house... Simples. Now my first mistake, I tried to fit all four in my Zed to take to a garage to get them fitted. Second mistake... wiggling the two tyres that where on the front passenger seat which then proceeded to somehow dont ask me how disengage the handbrake...my drive is on a hill and there is a hedge at the bottom. My car went down the drive with me running after it pulling the tyres out and I belly flopped into the car and pulled the handbrake up to the ceiling. The car had managed to go through a hedge and mounted kerb buy this time, thankfully all the damage polished out but I felt very very stupid

 

*Black hole moment* when something so bad happens if a black hole appeared you would get in it!

 

Well thats mine, please dont point and laugh.

[Wasso]

First car was an Escort MkII. purchased for £450 but actually worth Zero. How did I find out? Well after modifying it to the nines I got stopped by the police. Policeman very nice chap radio'd to his controller asking about the history of the car. After checking the relevant VIN numbers he proceeded to say that my car is actually 3 cars which he smirked and said the middle part is the piece which I purchased.

 

Luckily I was able to drive home but proceeded to rip the car apart to remove modified parts and took it to the junk yard for the scrap man!!

 

Then after that I had 2 Opel Manta's. Both of which were written off. Neither were the fault of mine. So 3 cars out of 3 turned out real bad.

 

Now that I have the Zed I'm now pennyless!!

[JetSet]

I could write a book about my Lotus Europa.

 

Brake pedal fell of while approaching a roundabout at 80 mph, don't know how I got away with that. The split pin holding it on had broken

 

Entire gear lever came off in my hand in Chester.

 

Engine mounting snapped in half and dislodged the clutch cable 50 miles from home.

 

Boot caught fire when the engine backfired through the carb.

 

Repaired boot blew clean off the car in a gale

 

My mate ran into the back of me on the way back from The British Grand Prix, another boot repair required

 

Accelerator pedal snapped in half

 

But the scariest thing of all was when The Police knocked at my door and interviewed me regarding a Murder in Leicestershire when the female victim was last seen getting into a Lotus Europa

 

 

Pete

[Sarnie]

3) Writing off Westway Birmingham's Nismo 350z on the test drive.

 

2) Crashing my Alfa in the recent snow after the Mrs said it was too bad to go out, I disagreed.

 

1) Selling the Lambo

[captain]

 

of Zugara's noggin.

[srobrien]

Fitting a V2 spoiler to my 350z then entrusting "carbon forza" to skin it in carbon fibre...what a disaster that was! Also dropping an axle stand on my M3 and denting it and possibly choosing the manual M3 over the DSG..manual is a great box but wish I had gone for the DSG (not really a disaster though).

 

 

R

[Greavsie]

For me it was buying a black Astra GTE in the dark and rain. It looked so shiny sat there under the street light luring me in with its sexy twin headlight conversion. Rain hiding the bubbles in the paintwork on the bonnet and roof. Needless to say I had to have it. The list of things wrong with it was insane I used my dads RAC membership to the limit on that thing. Managed to offload it to someone who also loved the twin headlight conversion, so much so that he didn't notice it smoking away on the test drive or the dodgy digital dash, broken seat etc, etc, etc.

[nixy]

3) Writing off Westway Birmingham's Nismo 350z on the test drive.

 

^^^^^^^^

my personal fave

 

Mine has to be buying a suzuki vitara soft top fat boy thing with all the chrome bits - handled like a sponge cake! Soon got rid of it though!

[Chris`I]

3) Writing off Westway Birmingham's Nismo 350z on the test drive.

 

^^^^^^^^

my personal fave

 

Mine has to be buying a suzuki vitara soft top fat boy thing with all the chrome bits - handled like a sponge cake! Soon got rid of it though!

His potential biggest mistake was almost wiping out his car pulling into traffic on the Wales run, lucky the car he pulled out on had good brakes

[nixy]

i've seen the vid........

[Ando]

This is a good thread, some amazing stories on it!!

 

Mine was buying a 1983 Sierra XR4i and thinking it would be a nice car to mess about with and make faster, after buying it for £950 in 2005 and thn speanding the next 2 years emptying my pockets on it, even buying a Sierra Cosworth breaking that and fitting it all in the 4i, even the ABS system. Then going to a trackday at cadwell park and the cam belt coming off on the way there, I then broke the car and sold it as spares, trading my 636 Kawasaki motorbike and buying a M3 Evo that was a minter, taking on a trackday at Anglesey and having one of the biggest crashes since they reopened the track in 2007, I had to walk away from nearly 10K as everyman and has dog took pics as it closed the track and posted then on the net every where! No serious injuries, i popped my shoulder out, an old moto cross and my mate got a bit of whiplash.

 

In a way I don't regret doing what I've done, apart from crashing the M3, I have learn't a heck of a lot about cars and am can do most things with them and had some fun along the way.

 

See pics below

[nixy]

That's pretty gutting to see - I can imagine how you felt when you did that.......

[NeilMH]

All of the above are making me feel so much better. It's hard to choose a favourite!

 

Zugara's is still the most diabolical IMHO.

 

There is something about the Z rolling towards the hedge (with crazed owner trying to throw themselves in to pull the handbrake on) that I find particularly amusing

 

The nature and scale of some of the others are putting my errors into perspective. No need for me to continue with the therapy and tablets any more

[Simon+Kat]

Wow Paul that is horrible i suppose we all should take note how easily things can go terribly wrong so so easily.

 

On a different note.... My Dad asked me to reverse his Nissan Sylvia off the drive, this was years back. Id been driving my XJ6 automatic for months.....forgot about the clutch......threw it into reverse.......skrrrrrrrrruuuuunncccchhhhhh......'sh*t!!!!' 1x stripped gearbox......2x unhappy parents

[P19DRO]

Selling my boxster because I couldnt afford it anymore and then about a week later getting a job offshore But I got the Zed instead so its not all bad.

 

Reversed the boxster into a lamp post outside a police station as well, that was pretty dumb

[Ozz]

I could write a book about my Lotus Europa.

 

Brake pedal fell of while approaching a roundabout at 80 mph, don't know how I got away with that. The split pin holding it on had broken

 

Entire gear lever came off in my hand in Chester.

 

Engine mounting snapped in half and dislodged the clutch cable 50 miles from home.

 

Boot caught fire when the engine backfired through the carb.

 

Repaired boot blew clean off the car in a gale

 

My mate ran into the back of me on the way back from The British Grand Prix, another boot repair required

 

Accelerator pedal snapped in half

 

But the scariest thing of all was when The Police knocked at my door and interviewed me regarding a Murder in Leicestershire when the female victim was last seen getting into a Lotus Europa

 

 

Pete

 

Wow - are they that bad??! I looked at those before buying the zed, lovely looking cars.

[NeilMH]

Sounds more like the original Europa hopefully (?) - I also considered one of the later ones before buying the Z.

 

The BMW track incident looks quite dodgy

[JetSet]

Sounds more like the original Europa hopefully (?) - I also considered one of the later ones before buying the Z.

 

The BMW track incident looks quite dodgy

 

Yes, it was the original Europa, in those days Lotus sourced cheapo parts from other cars and fitted them on. For example the inside door handles were from a Morris 1300, the rear bumper was from a Ford Anglia, the engine was from a Renault 14, suspension was Triumph based, a right mix of bits. Mine was a 2 year old factory built car, 23k on the clock when I bought it, other problems included having to tighten the manifold nuts once a week, weird things, you needed a key but there was no room to turn it , the electric windows used to stick, flattening the battery, the paint cracked, the list of jobs that needed doing was endless

 

 

Pete

[NeilMH]

Yes, it was the original Europa, in those days Lotus sourced cheapo parts from other cars and fitted them on. For example the inside door handles were from a Morris 1300, the rear bumper was from a Ford Anglia, the engine was from a Renault 14, suspension was Triumph based, a right mix of bits. Mine was a 2 year old factory built car, 23k on the clock when I bought it, other problems included having to tighten the manifold nuts once a week, weird things, you needed a key but there was no room to turn it , the electric windows used to stick, flattening the battery, the paint cracked, the list of jobs that needed doing was endless

 

 

Pete

 

Apart from that it was ok then!

[JetSet]

Yes, it was the original Europa, in those days Lotus sourced cheapo parts from other cars and fitted them on. For example the inside door handles were from a Morris 1300, the rear bumper was from a Ford Anglia, the engine was from a Renault 14, suspension was Triumph based, a right mix of bits. Mine was a 2 year old factory built car, 23k on the clock when I bought it, other problems included having to tighten the manifold nuts once a week, weird things, you needed a key but there was no room to turn it , the electric windows used to stick, flattening the battery, the paint cracked, the list of jobs that needed doing was endless

 

 

Pete

 

Apart from that it was ok then!

 

 

It was a good bird puller

 

Pete

[jollyranchers]

Buying an RX8 instead of a 350Z. I now have both but I've been trying to sell the RX8 for nigh on 4 months and the Zed is just sitting in my garage until this bloody Mazda goes.

 

Great car to be fair, but the novelty wore off so, so quickly. The Zed is a lot better in nearly all aspects aside from practicality in my opinion.

 

+1 , had my rx for 3 months and struggled to sell , lost 1k in depreciation in that time!

[elfman]

Writing my Honda civic Sport off, then buying a seat ibiza only to justify just under a year later to trade it for a Honda Civic Type R, owning that 2 weeks and then writing it off, 1 year exactly to the day that i wrote my other civic off, 9th of december - C-day, i only drive that day if i MUST, and then it's done with every care in the world! what narks me more than anything is i lost around 1-2k on the civic even though i'd owned it 2 weeks, surely a purchase reciept is good for getting my money back off insurance if it's only 2 weeks later.. FFS

 

Along with that thinking i could drift my MR2 and sticking it in a hedge luckily it was a cheap repair but ruined the car for me!

 

Not waiting a while to pay off my cards before i got the zed and sticking it all into 1 loan. But i dont regret getting the zed even if it is a little more expensive than it should be

[HaydnH]

what narks me more than anything is i lost around 1-2k on the civic even though i'd owned it 2 weeks, surely a purchase reciept is good for getting my money back off insurance if it's only 2 weeks later.. FFS

 

Last time I had to claim from my insurance I sent them examples from autotrader showing cars with exactly the same spec as mine (anything like sat-nav, cruise control etc) and asking for at least the average of the prices.