My first car, a 1947 Pontiac, had no rust whatsoever when I purchased it in 1961for $75. The floor pans were solid. I cleaned it up and looked great inside and out. Unfortunately, I found the block was cracked, but K &_W seal took care of that problem. The cluster gear was worn, so the car was really noisy in low gear. No car I owned that reached 14 years old was as rust free as that Pontiac.
I had a 64 Chevy pickup that had a lot of rust around the bottom of the body, holes in the floor, etc., but the frame seemed OK so I drove it. Until, one day I went around a corner and the whole body let out a tearing crunch and shifted to the side. The seat stayed with the floor, but the doors, top, dash, etc., just leaned over to the side. That was the end of the 64 Chevy.
There were years that, if rust was worth money, I would have been rich. The gas tank just dropped off the car on a 66 Tempest Le Mans convertible. I saw it sliding down the road after me. If you can believe it there were no leaks at all. It was the type of tank that had a short filler tube you got to behind the license plate, so the tube wasn’t stuck in the car and didn’t have any damage either. We picked up the tank, put it in the trunk, ran a rubber gas line from the pickup on the tank to the line (through a hole in the floor) and drove off. I drove that car another year before the rusty frame gave way and the car settled and jammed the doors closed.
Another one… a buddy of mine had a bright yellow VW Beetle as his first car. Used of course. Very used. The 2nd or 3rd day he had it, he sat down and the seat went through the floor. He started to walk back into the house depressed about it and stopped short when he noticed smoke coming out the window. Something electrical had shorted and caught fire behind the dash. It was self extinguishing but the car was never driven again, at least by him.
ken green Rod knocking like a bill collector. Funny! My story is similar. An engine, transmission, or differential suddenly seizing at speed could be scary If not catastrophic. I was 17 years old in 1969 working at an actual service station and learning auto mechanics. I could hear the howling a block away before a 1978 Ford Maverick pulled in. It was a guy in a suit. He was travelling from Portland, OR to Eugene, OR for an “important meeting”. I was about 3 miles from I-5. The exit he choose had no service stations and he found his way to me. I pulled his car onto the lift and discovered the rear differential inspection plug was missing and gear oil was all over the differential. He said that was impossible as he had had the car serviced 3 weeks ago. Smoke was pouring out! when it cleared, using a flashlight what I could see of the ring gear was blue. When I informed the driver his differential was toast he would not accept that diagnosis as he had to get to his destination now! I looked in the junk drawer and amazingly found a plug that would fit. I filled the differential with 90 weight, charged him for that and sent him on his way. I doubt if he made it the 3 miles back to the interstate, much less the 70 miles to his destination.
“I doubt if he made it the 3 miles back to the interstate, much less the 70 miles to his destination.”
And, of course, in that guy’s mind, you were the one at fault for his breakdown, and he likely told everyone about how “that young guy wrecked my differential”.
The saying that covers this type of situation is…No good deed goes unpunished.
20 years ago I worked at my father’s shop. The main work was repairing floor pans and rusted out frames from the salted Buffalo Roads… we had a ?83? chevette come in with bad floors. In fact the entire perimeter of the cab floor was rusted through so that the main section of the floor “floated”. When you would sit on the drivers seat the passenger seat would rise up. The only thing that was holding the main pan in was the carpet (Screwed in around the trim) and the exhaust system. Never seen anything like it. The car was 3 years old and she still had 2 years of payments to go on it. If the exhaust supports had given way, she would have been sliding on the road…
Had a guy come into my fathers shop complaining that his brakes were not working… After some conversation, he said he had oiled the brakes because they were squeaking…lol
My daughter told me her brakes felt funny. I backed down the driveway and could hardly get it stopped as my foot was to the floor. The master cylinder was gone. I asked her how long had it been this way. She said, “a week”. I siad how did you stop it. She said that she just drove slow. Then I asked why didn’t she tell me. Then she said that she was afraid I would take to long to fix it. Needless to say, I explained that she could have killed herself or someone else. I fixed it, but she lost her driving privileges for awhile.
VDCdriver With no salt on the roads vehicles here only suffered minor surface rust except for the K5s. They must have been one of GM’s planned obsolescence experiments.
My son had a 78 Horizon and complained that his brakes were “grabbing” . I went out in front of my house and told him to drive slowly by and step on the brake.
He was only going about 10 mph and when he stepped on the brake the car spun 180 degrees.
The trailing arm to the left rear wheel had rotted in half and the only thing attaching the wheel to the rest of the car was the parking brake cable.
When he stepped on the brake the axle pulled the cable tight spinning the car.
A couple of years ago a fellow called and needed a lower ball joint replaced. He said he’d drive it over slow, and leave the key under the mat, but I should not to drive it on the road.
I pulled it into the shop …removed the tire and found that there was a ratchet strap pulling the upper and lower control arms together.
When I released the ratchet strap the lower control arm dropped right off the knuckle.
When he came to pick up the car, I was relieved when he said that he only lived around the corner a mile away and he never went over 10 mph on the way over.
Yosemite
I remember seeing not 1 but 2 grossly overloaded compact pickups. Both were early 1970s Datsun 620s that were somehow rated as 1/2 tons. This was mid to late 1980s and both were beaters. The first was on level ground. A 35mph speed zone. The truck was loaded with as much pea gravel as could be mounded up. They were struggling to reach 25 mph and the rear bumper was about an inch off the pavement. The second was loaded with as much damp sand that could be mounded up. They were turning right from a stop onto a bridge that was about a 20% incline. As I was following I was confused. They were struggling to reach 10 mph and kept braking. I thought that was a strange way to attempt acceleration. As I passed I realized the braking allowed momentary contact of the front wheels with the pavement accomplishing rudimentary steering! I think this confirms we will always be forced to share the road with idiots!
Those pickup drivers sound like the farmer here who used to drive an 80s era Ford 1/2 ton.
He had a hay spike on it and with a ton of round hay bale leveraged out way past the rear bumper the only thing the front wheels did was keep him going generally in the right direction whenever they made contact with the pavement.
I’d see him doing 20 MPH on the highway with the truck floating around and both hands see-sawing back and forth on the steering wheel.
I’ve had to repair a Toyota Camry that had the brake pads on the drivers side installed BACKWARDS…I.E…Metal side TOWARD the Rotor!!! That was bad enough…but when I pulled the Pass side out of curiosity…I FOUND DUCT TAPE… YES…DUCT TAPE holding the caliper onto the spindle. Someone somewhere lost one of the caliper “Pins” that hold the caliper onto the spindle…they had one out of 2 pins… In lieu of going out and buying the 5 dollar part…They used DUCT TAPE INSTEAD!!!.. THEY DROVE THE CAR INTO MY SHOP THIS WAY…and they lived about 12 miles away as well.
I honestly didnt know how to politely “BRAKE” the news to these idiots. On one hand the issues were so obvious…and on the other…I was actually ANGRY at these people for unleashing this death trap onto the public at large… I mean talk about IRRESPONSIBLE… Like WTF MAN?
I honestly WAS ANGRY…SO Instead of yelling at or berating these knuckleheads…I just slammed them with an appropriate bill to repair this vehicle. Instead of offering them my usual bend over backwards to save people money…I gave them the bill that they would’ve gotten at the dealership to repair every single Nut, Bolt and Piece Part and Rotor. I repaired the vehicle BY THE BOOK so as to make this event stick in their minds and teach them a lesson that you CANNOT do this sort of thing…Especially when other peoples safety is in jeopardy out on the roads…I mean people travel around on the roads WITH THEIR CHILDREN IN THE CAR!!! C’mon you idiots.
Anyway…I have seen MANY MANY MORE CRAZY ISSUES on peoples cars. The most “DANGEROUS” vehicles I have found are the ones where the owners THINK they know how to repair cars…These are usually the WORST ones…Because they “KNOW” How to fix cars afterall.
UGH!!!
I could definitely go ON and ON about similar issues…but this is the one that stuck out in my mind…I CAN STILL SMELL THE MELTING SMOKING DUCT TAPE…AND THE METAL ON METAL of the drivers side…The smell is STILL stuck in my nose…If I stop right now I can recall both distinct aromas emanating from this vehicle and I can also still see the idiots faces who drove it into my shop…UGH AGAIN!!! PLEASE PLEASE LEAVE THE REAL REPAIRS TO SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING… There is MUCH MORE than just your vehicles safety on the line out here people…
Blackbird
In the 80’s I worked at a tire shop where we did a lot of truck tire work. A trucker hauling a high flatbed trailer w/tandem axles pulled in with the 2 right/rear trailer tires ran nearly flat. After I broke the tires down I found both tires shredded on the inside. The truck driver said no problem, just toss the wheels up on the trailer deck & leave the trailer jacked up. What?, I thought.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”, he said.
Wow. OK, bud. I wanted to see how this was gonna work out. I’d heard of “singling out” a hub (bolting 1 tire & wheel assembly & one bare wheel on a trailer’s dual wheel hub IF the trailer had no load on) but no tires or wheels whatsoever on a hub?!
He chained the 2 bare wheels to the deck. Then he took a real heavy come-along & wrapped the mid section around the axle inboard of the brake drum. He attached the ends of the come-along to the rails that ran along the side of the trailer deck & cinched up the axle. It actually LOOKED pretty secure but if a cop had seen it on his way home, there would’ve been heck to pay!
I have to say that the backwards pads and duct tape brake job gets my vote for the shoddiest repair I’ve ever heard of; especially considering lives are on the line every inch of the way.
Jesus Christ, what was someone thinking; assuming they even had a couple of functioning brain cells… 
When I first got ahold of my 1994 Geo Metro, it needed pretty much everything replaced. This included the entire front-end and the front brakes, etc. I replaced all the control arms, tie rods, pads/rotors, and the like, then moved on to swapping the entire engine and other associated components. I thought it was doing pretty well overall and was running great and getting 55mpg.
I had the front tires/wheels off of course to do all the work and then one of the rear tires got a flat so I removed it and got it patched. All seemed good. Then a while later I decided to rotate the tires. MY plan was to do an X across and move the fronts to the rear and rears to the front. The 3 tires I had removed in the past were fine. Then I removed the wheel cover for the one rear that I had never messed with. One lug nut was missing. The stud had broken off. I didn’t like this but then went to break the other 3 remaining ones loose. The first one I tried just snapped right off with no force. The next one did the same so it was held on by only one lug at this point. Then I decided to jack of the car and put a stand under it in case the last lug was in the same condition.
I raised the car just a tad to put the stand under it and broke the last lug loose. IT actually didn’t snap off and seemed to be in OK shape. So I had basically been driving around in a Geo Metro with a rear wheel held on by one lug. Not good! I ended up doing the rear brakes and replacing all the studs at this point. The 3 busted ones had been overtightened to where they had stretched and necked like an hourglass before they snapped off.
And I thought the people forcing an SAE bolt to go into a hole meant for a metric bolt was bad until I had this.
I once saw a pickup truck fire up and pull out of a parking lot near a construction site. You knew it wasn’t good as soon as it started. IT sounded like there was no exhaust and a cloud of blue smoke rose from the back of the truck. It started to drive and you could see clear through each side of the pickup bed and what was left of the bed sides was flapping in the wind. It started to climb a hill and you could hear the driver downshifting to be able to make it up the hill at a snail’s pace. You couldn’t see the truck through all the smoke but the compression must have been terrible as it sounded awful and had no power at all. This and all the smoke seems to have meant the engine was just shot.
What I saw was terrible but I suspect everything else was pretty much shot too. I was in the same area a few days later and happened to see a familiar blue pickup truck going down the road but on the back of a trailer this time. Those I was with remembered seeing the truck several days prior and we all got a good laugh out of this. Hopefully it was going to the scrap heap as it was definitely a gross polluter and I am sure the brakes and other safety systems were likely also not in any better shape.
“The 3 busted ones had been overtightened to where they had stretched and necked like an hourglass before they snapped off.”
It’s actually really easy to do, even without using an air impact wrench
If you put a generous helping of antiseize on the threads, and then attempt to torque the lugs, you WILL bottleneck them
I’ve seen it happen a few times
Back when OK had a vehicle safety inspection program a guy brought a car in once for an inspection. The pedal felt funny as I pulled it into the shop and soon discovered that both rear brake lines had been crimped flat to prevent fluid loss through the leaky wheel cylinders which had then saturated the brake shoes.
He gets a rejection slip written and gets hot under the collar while starting in with the “can’t you let it slide. I’m gonna fix it this weekend.” BS.
Imagine the consequences of this clown having a wreck right after the inspector signs off on it with his name and number attesting to the brakes being fine.