On the move breakdowns

J

john-e89

Lifer
Pointless thread but just for the he'll of it.

Has anyone had a dramatic break\failure whilst on the move, my most dramatic was M5 outside lane around 75 mph MG metro crankshaft snapped clean in half, thought the world had ended it vibrated so much!

Post up if you have a story and can be bothered... :D
 
Only a couple.

Only scary/serious one was in my e34 M5 where the throttle cable snagged in it's sheath and wouldn't spring back - the only way to reset it was to stop the car, open the bonnet and close the throttles manually. Problem with being sat in the outside lane of the motorway, in peak time Monday traffic and no option other than to either brake or turn off the engine as the car was just bouncing off the rev limiter.

Drove it for another 2 weeks taking care not to use full throttle as the snag only occurred at the last 20% of pedal travel.
 
Had a 1976 VW Polo in 1987 and the accelerator pedal just fell off onto the floor as I was approaching town centre.

Had a 1983 Ford Capri in 1990 and the gear lever came off in my hand in busy town centre traffic.
 
Yep only the one that scared the cr#p out of me.

M22 overtaking a lorry, on a Honda Super Dream, in the early eighties. The engine seized and the back wheel simply locked up at 80mph. After a second of wtf panic, I pulled in the clutch and was very fortunate to be able to freewheel to the hard shoulder, across two lanes of traffic.

Don't try this at home, it's scary.
 
Had the pinion bearing collapse and lock the diff on a Sunbeam Lotus at around 90mph...

Only momentarily locked and then shattered the diff case,was enough to see my flying off into the undergrowth.... :driving:
 
Worst ever was southbound on the M6 in my Escort XR3i, outside lane and the camshaft belt (I think, not chain) snapped. Coasted onto the hard shoulder but very lucky to escape an accident, major engine rebuild though.
 
i was on the m1 doing about 80mph in an mr2 turbo when the steering suddenly went heavy, i drifted over to the hard shoulder and as i was doing so, i saw the front tyre slide off the rim and shoot off down the motorway :o apparently it had punctured and deflated slowly over a period of the journey but because it was a very low profile tyre, it was unnoticeable until it had actually completely deflated

luckily it didnt cause an accident and stopped who knows where. i was able to pull over safely albeit with no front tyre and no damage to the car lol. called breakdown and they took me to a local garage who sorted me out and sent me on my way
 
had a rear tyre come completely off the rim whilst doing about 60 down a curved onramp to the A1M.
first indication I had was when the backend snapped right out and the car started to spin.
managing to avoid smashing into the armco of the onramp (it was one from a flyover that drops down onto the road), I caught it at 180 degrees, but now i was heading down onto the A1M, backwards, at about 50mph.
there's no hardshoulder, and I wasn't going to stop before getting onto the A1M anyway.

slowed to about 30 as the onramp ran out, so I hit the hazards, and joined the A1M, in front of an aa recovery truck with a car on the back (he'd seen me, and was slowing quite quickly..)

the hardshoulder started about 10 yards after the end of the sliproad, so I glided it off the road and onto the shoulder, and to a stop.

the truck pulled in ahead/behind me and made sure I was alright.

my passenger at the time said he'd looked right at the trucker's passengers face as we came on and said he mouthed 'lucky mother f**ker'.

certainly the scariest 5 seconds Ive had in a car.
 
My old Toyota SW20 was as reliable anything until the day the imobilliser cut in on the M4. I was in lane three and 'getting on with it'. There was I'm afraid some swearing after a change of huggies :o The loss of servos was most interesting.
 
buzyg said:
Yep only the one that scared the cr#p out of me.

M22 overtaking a lorry, on a Honda Super Dream, in the early eighties. The engine seized and the back wheel simply locked up at 80mph. After a second of wtf panic, I pulled in the clutch and was very fortunate to be able to freewheel to the hard shoulder, across two lanes of traffic.

Don't try this at home, it's scary.
Click to expand...
Done that a few times on my DTR125. Flat out over the Fenwick moors and seized it solid.
I had one of the crank bolts that held the flywheel come through the plastic casing of my GPZ600 on the M8 just before the Kingston Bridge.
Temp fix on the hard shoulder got me off the motorway to a bike shop for a loan of a couple of tools to fix it properly.
 
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