What Car Problems Have/did You Put Up With.

[arwyn]

...............Either because you could'nt afford to fix them or other reasons?

I remember a time when the car I owned had no lights, I could'nt afford to take it to a garage so always had to be home by dark, good job it was summer ha ha..

[SlackAlice]

Having spent all my money buying my first car I was totally skint. I found out that it didn't have a heater (they were optional then). I suffered through 2 months of winter before I had the money to go to a scrap dealer and get one.

[4getmenot]

Leaking sunroof. If it had been raining i had a jug in the car to catch the water as i went round corners

[douglas9401]

I had an old Peugeot that was missing a rear brake calliper. The brake pipe was folded over and crimped. Got a year out of it.

[arwyn]

10clarant I'v never had that problem. But what a good idea.

slack... no heater, I'v had that before, the insides of the windows would freeze in winter. Oh and so did the puddles on the carpets.

4get.... The dreaded bloody sunroof, we thought we were posh because we had one.

[arwyn]

douglas... M.O.T time was when we either fixed everything or sold the car ha ha..

[FredPuli43]

Had one which hadn't got a working speedo. That didn't matter; all you had to do was drive over the middle of the road, look through the hole in the floor, count the cats eyes as they came into view, and do the maths. The MOT has put an end to that kind of fun motoring :(

[factor-fiction]

My first car wouldn't go in 1st or 3rd gear for a few weeks

[coccinelle]

My husband drove back from England to France (getting on the ferry) with only the 1st and 5th gear working. It was an horrendous drive!!

[RATTER15]

I once a had a car (Capri I think) that would select first and reverse at the same time and was a nightmare to get out of gear again, it done this on and off for about a year before it died.

I had the fuel pump die on a Ford Zodiak about fifty miles from home, I repaired it by making a new diaphram from a crisp packet, it got me home with a few more replacements.

I also had a Ford Anglia with a dead fuel pump, to get home I tied a fuel can full of petrol with a fuel line attached to the roof and gravity fed the carb all the way home, about 30 miles.

You could do this type of "get you home" repair with modern cars, far too complicated these days.

In those days motoring was about knowing how your car worked, not just putting it in a garage at every little sniffle and splutter.

I also drove a Morris Minor 70 miles with absolutely no foot brakes at all, I braked purely by handbrake and going down long hills by rolling down forwards with reverse gear selected and foot on the clutch, to slow down I just lifted the clutch a little and used reverse gear as a break, I done it that way so I didnt burn the brakes out on long down hill runs.

Stupid I know, I wouldn't dream of it now, so dangerous!! young and foolish!!

[Prudie]

had one that had some cogs missing off some wheel (cog?) that meant the starter motor was often dead until you put it in gear while not running, got out and rocked the car until you heard something move and then it would start. Put up with that for months due to lack of money.

[FredPuli43]

That was the Bendix, Prudie, I think. You had to free the starter motor by turning the central rod of the starter assembly with a spanner or by engaging a gear and rocking the car. Quite forgotten doing that. Modern cars are a complete pain for the amateur mechanic; my old father was a mechanic all his life but had to give up in despair when he found that the simplest repair could not be done because of the dreaded sealed unit which required either special tools to open it or couldn't be opened at all.But for that, the fault would be cured in ten minutes And what does the garage do? Often they send the whole unit away and replace it with a reconditioned one. I had a Fiat 500 that went through three starters like that. No good being the kind of old mechanic who could detect and diagnose 10 faults in a car by driving it a couple of miles when that's the only answer.

[RATTER15]

Fred, wasnt it satisfying to strip down your dynamo or starting motor, give it a good clean up, polish the armature and see it all working again. I used to love doing the job, and then the task of growing new skin on all your knuckles ofter skinning them trying to put said devices back on the car. Those were the days :-)

[mrs_overall]

I used to have an old Escort estate and the windscreen wipers packed up. I could only go out on fine days

[arwyn]

Made good reading these tales did. I too remember having to rock a car to free the starter motor before it would start.

I did a mechanics course for women (they spoke slow lol) but I still knew where every phone box was as I still rang family for help.

I once left a conked out car with a sleeping baby with two men in white van while I went to a nearby pub to ring my Dad. While on the phone it dawned on me what I'd done, I raced back to find they'd never took their eyes of him and they told me to Shush incase I woke him.

I now have a computer for a dashboard that says "don't even think about getting the socket set out" ha ha..

[chrisgel]

I had an Austin Cambridge which used to activate the wipers every time I did a left turn. I never did fix it and put up with it for 18 months,

[mrs_overall]

arwyn, when I was around 19 or 20 I went on a basic mechanics course, hoping to meet men. The entire class were female, all with the same intention as me.
The course did come in handy though

[maggiebee]

Had a heap of junk many years ago. Think there was something wrong with the alternator? whatever that is. Anyway battery wouldn't charge and I always parked on a hill to jump start it. Went to that great junkyard in the sky after a few months.

[arwyn]

Used to have a boot full of bottles of water as the car would over heat in traffic jams.

Oh and that fibre glass and bodge stuff that used to fix all the holes in the floor and body work.

Spending the weekends in scrap yards, used to pay for big parts but fill your pockets with bulbs and fuses.

[arwyn]

mrs o I was married so was'nt looking ha ha. but as the male class and female class only had a few pupils we were grouped together so it would have been handy if I was looking.