Share your tales of horror

[Voodoo Chick]

I was talking to a friend, he told me a story about the time his friend's 572-powered '70 Nova swallowed the air-cleaner stud (don't ask me how....) and ended up with $2,000 damage. I have had more than a few experiences with my own cars that have probably taken 5 years off my lifespan, and if my hair weren't dyed, I'm sure I would see a LOT of grey hair, experiences like brakes going out, throttle blades freezing open, spinning out on wet pavement.....So, if you have a true horror-story, whether it involves a mod gone terribly wrong, a repair that REALLY went bad, or a "holy sh*t, that was the dumbest thing I ever did with a car" moment, PLEASE share......Misery loves company.......... :stare

[Poncho]

I was born. Madness and stupidity and confusion ensued. Been going on for 25 years now.

[MoCkiN U]

16 years old driving a dodge omnni. I had this tight curve by my house in the carolinas. Each time i went around the curve I tried to test it just a little faster each time. Not by a lot but maybe a few mph to see if it would stick (because at 16 everything is a race car) EVEN A DODGE OMNI LMAO!!! But, the story goes we have a dairy queen near us and my grandmother and I's weakness were sprite floats.

She asked me to go get some so happy to drive and test this curve off I go. On the way back I see this curve coming and get excited but for some reason completely ignore the sprinking rain shower we just got.

Hit the curve, ass end slid out, slammed the brakes, hit wet grass and remember saying to myself to this day.....DAMN, I'm going to dent my car

Hell. wasnt a dent. Hit a tree and turned the car completely around, blew all windows out, wrinkled the roof, ejected the passenger seat completely, broke the rear seat loose, and lost both driver side wheels.

Still have a few scars from that crash. Boy, am I glad my best friends mother made him stay home. I tried to get him to go with for the fun or else he would be in that seat and I would have a different life.

[Flicktitty]

about 2 or 3 years ago now. Me and my buddy (Rogerdarkness) were on Hwy 100 in his 72 Chevelle. And anyone that knows him he was on the bottle more then a baby. so were crusing around about 1130-12 just about ready to go home doing one more last lap.

Going North on Hwy at about National this Black SRT-4 blows off at him. and he laughed and jumped on it and sprayed the shit out of it. well the nitrous must have puddled in the Intake then when he gave it gas it had a huge nitrous backfire big ball of flame goes under the car were doing about 45-50mph i look down to see the carpet of the car on fire (there are 2 quarter sized holes in the trans tunnel) So i start stomping at it and pouring my soda on it. he goes through a redlight and turns into the pick n save and starts pouring what ever liquids he has onto the carpet.

that was the worst night i had on hwy. The ride home (40ish miles) were were doing about 35 or 40mph on the free way cause the car wasen't running right.

Later found out blew a hole in the air cleaner, Cracked the intake manifold, and demolished the intake mani gasket.

Since then the car has had the motor out and been sitting. but i hear it's gonna be out this year?

[oneslowcamino]

I was going north on hwy F in Waukesha when the traffic light right before the bridge going over I94 turned yellow. So I was doing about 60 mph when I hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. So I ended up running 2 red lights and almost hitting one of the cars that was turning on to 94 east. Then I pulled into American let it sit for the weekend and had the junk yard pick it up on Monday. This was on a Friday and i was going to be picking up my new ranger on Saturday so I guess it all worked out, but it still scared the crap out of me.

[OxmanWI]

I was driving from Memphis to Milwaukee a couple summers ago, about an 10 hour drive. It’s 2:00 AM and I'm in the country somewhere in Illinois on highway 70 North towards Chicago. I'm the only car on the road for miles as I’m rocking out to my favorite tunes (Yea I just said that, **** off). As I was looking down for a moment to read my road map and I hit a raccoon. I hear a "THUMP" and then a "WRRRRR!" sound followed by a loud screeching "REEEEEEEEE!" Mind you my windows where down. The "REEEE" sound was the raccoon screaming as he was stuck in my wheel-well getting treaded by the tire in a painful agonizing death. I pull over to see a dead bloody mess of fur, guts and limbs sticking out of my rim and underbody. I have nothing to clean the dead garbage rat out of my car so I just drive for another 15 minutes with the smell of burning raccoon until I get to the nearest gas station. As I pull up there is a trail of blood following my car, the gas station was closed and I was the only one there. It was a horrid site to see with bones, guts, limbs, fur and the smell of burnt death in my wheel-well. Blood is all over the place, the smell made me sick to my stomach as I started to clean the fury guts out. I’m thinking to my self, “I hit the fattest raccoon in Illinois” cause there was so much remains! I pulled out what I believe was the lower half of the raccoon and puked on the cement gas station pad. As I gathered my self I finished the job with all the gas station’s free paper towel from all the pumps. I tossed the carcass in a field near by to get rid of the evidence. I take one of the garbage bags from the trash cans and put it on the floor of my car cause my shoes had dry blood all over them. As I pull away from the gas station it looked like a murder scene with blood all over the place. That with the bloody paper towel in the trash cans and my pile of puke was the cherry on top. I was scared a highway cop would have seen me and pulled a gun on me thinking I just ate someone. That is one of my horror stories. I never want to do that shit again.

[Firefighter Z]

I have in my current car the Z28 and I went on the on ramp at 76th st (Best Buy entrace) and I got on the gas a little bit and must have hit an oil spot and the car start going sideways, so I counterd steered 7 times all the way down the on ramp. When I looked in my mirrors I noticed freeway traffic had really slowed down cause, so they must of saw me going sideways. So I booked out of there cause I didn't want anyone to get my plate number.

Another time but in the same car I was at the begining of HWY100 Oak Creek and decided to go WOT and when I got off of it the throttle got stuck. It freaked the crap out of me but I knew what to do. I just put it in neutral and turned the car off and coasted till I stopped... Come to find out a foreign object was caught in between the throttle blades .

[Yooformula]

4 years ago I was driving home from downtown with my BFG's mounted and it began to drizzle a bit while taking the offramp at the Dolphin interchange where all 5 lanes merge for a short bit. Well I was driving rather tame probably about 45mph and I needed to change lanes, and just as I was about to complete the lane change a guy swerved into my lane. I over corrected a bit and spun out a 180 IN TRAFFIC. I was facing the backwards with traffic coming head on towards me. I ended up crossing 2 lanes of traffic backwards and was able to correct my position when I got to the shoulder. I will NEVER forget the look on the woman's face that was behind me when I was facing her. I ended up puking on the shoulder when I got out of the car. Those tires were dismounted the next day and sold off. I will NEVER run a BFG drag radial on the street again. Luckily I didnt get any damage.

[Sleeper Sierra]

I,ve got a couple of horror stories. When I had the 509 in my cutlass I had just installed a different torque converter and decided to blast down greenfield ave in new berlin to test it out. it ran great and was quite a bit quicker than before. So i was just taking it easy on the way back home. The car started to overheat, so when I got home I started to look it over and found no leaks so I then checked the coolant level and found it to be very low. I then checked the oil to find all of my coolant in it. So I pulled the intake thinking possibly One of the coolant passages on the intake blew a gasket, no luck. So I pulled the heads and found no cracks or bad gaskets. I head the heads checked and they were fine. I then dissassembled the bottom end and had the block checked and there was a hole in the water jacket of cyl 5. One of the bolts holding mt breather on the valve cover came loose and the cam pushed tho 1 inch long quarter inch bolt through the water jacket. I ended up having b&b racing engines in appleton drill and tap the hole and plug it, S about two thousand dollars later it was back on the road.

[GRAMPS SS]

this was moons ago...i was lined up next to a car on Appleton and good hope heading into milwaukee....flip the switch to arm the bottle...light turns green and i hit the gas and the button and BOOOOOOOOM.....fire comes from under the cowl hood and a nice thud and the car moved slowly over to the side of the road....i pop the hood and there is my carb laying off to the side of the top of the intake manifold.....the guy i was going to run came back to help me out... i called my buddy from the cell phone and he came with the parts to fix it, when done the guy still wanted to run.....so we ran and KICKED its butt.....not a 9 sec ride...but hey...i'm a northside queer and proud...

[forest]

Back in 2000 a wa staying on the northside with a buddy and he decided he wanted to build a car, so being from AZ I said, lets find a car down there with no rust. We came up with a 1970 Buick wildcat 2dr 455 3spd console/bucket car. I drove to AZ in my Gremlin and he took a bus 2days later cause of work. We go to my dads house and pick the car up that he had secured for us. I had a 1982 F100 with a 4spd manual and a 300 straight six, 4bbl swap, header, cam, ect.. we decided to flat tow the car to WI with a tow bar, not tow dolly, but a tow BAR that attaches to the front bumper of the car being towed. NOT a good idea. I was exhausted so my buddy started out driving. I woke up in NewMexico with the rig jacknifing and sliding all over the freeway and my buddy freaking out. I jumped over and wrestled the wheel from him and we somhow came to a stop in the road intact. I then said, I'll drive. going on no sleep to speak of here. We drove without stoppping to sleep the whole way here. By the time we got to Chitown we had blown 3 tires on the buick, and the truck was smoking and knocking badly. I found that STP oil additive and CHEAP gas station oil was my friend. I had the pedal to the floor pretty much the whole way up here and smoked that motor BAD. It was a long expensive trip that sucked being as my buddy sold the car for a HUGE profit 1month later. And I had a blown engine to show for it. Haha, live and learn

[05caddyext]

Bought a built 89gt from a guy in Pewaukee when I was 19. Had to have it right. Already had a really clean 90gt, bought it from the next door neighboor with 12,000 miles on it. Car had some issues that needed to be fixed, deal was contingent on those. Needed some valve train adjustment, had some knocking noise supposedly from new valves not being seated properly. Waited 3 weeks for the guy to get the car back, still had the noise. Didn't know much about cars, guy seemed really nice, haha can you see it coming? Drove the car home, about 22 miles. Did an oil change, car had been sitting for a while. Start car - 0 oil pressure. Let car sit for a few minutes off. Start again 0 pressure. Long story short - knocking noise was #8 piston slapping the head. Took motor apart, D.S.S. Bullet block cracked through the #8 cyl wall. Only thing I salvaged was the heads, 7 pistons, and crank. Everything else was toast. Never got the car running again, sold for parts including most of a new motor I bought. Had to sell the 90 to pay for parts, and loan payments. Put a total of 22 miles on the car, cost - over $10,000.

[Z28Roxy]

Getting my Thunderbird's front bumper clipped broadside at 55mph (never saw it coming :mad:)

Driving down plowed freeway, I was accelerating about right for the conditions and one rear tire went over a big unplowed patch of snow, so one tire hooking one tire spinning = me heading for the wall. Please don't hit the wall, please don't hit the wall. I didn't.

[CobraSnake]

I have so many I wouldn't know where to start. One day my and buddies were going to go on a big fishing camping trip. It was 12am 1 in the morning or so and I just looked thru my stuff and realized I left my contact stuff at home. In order to see for the whole weekend I decided I needed to go back home to get it. Well I didn't have a vehicle with me so I woked my buddy up to ask him if I could use his car. He said "no" and my one buddy said "just grab his keys they're right there" So I did because there was no way in hell I would've lasted the whole weekend without being able to see. So I take his like 80's something dodge caravan and mind you this is filed with all of our camping gear and fishing polls and everything. It is snowing pretty badly that night so I driving and just taking it easy. It was late at night early morning so there aren't any plows out yet. Ok so I was driving in the all the way right hand lane on the freeway going about 50mph. I was going faster but it felt a little squirelly so thats why I slowed down to 50mph. I was cruising at 50mph for miles then all of a sudden the back on whipped out(fwd van) and I started spinning. Surprisingly I wasn't the only one on the road but luckily I didn't hit anyone. When I started spinning I just closed my eyes and hit the brakes. I was so scared that I was going to screw my buddies van up after he told me I couldn't take it(he still doesn't know till this day). Well like I said I was spinning and I closed my eyes and just hit the brakes. When I stopped spinning I opened my eyes and too my amazment I didn't hit anyone and I had somehow spun all the way into the fast lane facing the right way. So I just drove to the next exit(at like 25mph if that) went to my house and picked up my contact stuff. I have so many more I could go on and on.

Mark

[Poncho]

The reason I refrain from burnouts.

I was at this show, and everyone was going some crazy sick burnouts. Well it comes to be my turn. I don't know if someone before spewed something on the ground, but as I let off the brake to turn it into a slow rolling burnout, the rear end kicks out and my car veers for a 30's-40's era hotrod which (dumbly IMO, was parked along side where the cars were doing their thing) I was able to hit the clutch and tap the brakes to slide right by and save it, but I thought I was about to do something quite bad. It's the last time I've done in a burnout at all in my car, it's been a long time since I've done one.