snap_understeer
snap_understeer New Reader
3/7/12 11:27 a.m.

Basically, you have to post the worst thing you've ever done to a car. Here I go. Last summer, I bought an accent. No, I do not know why, but I had an Idea of jumping it. Fortunately, it jumped the creek. Unfortunately, it bent on the landing. Hard. I ended up welding the doors into place, caging it, and hooning about town.

JohnInKansas
JohnInKansas New Reader
3/7/12 11:34 a.m.

Buddies and I bought a wrecked Tercel (don't remeber, it was something like that), did some terrace jumping, broke the radiator. Wouldn't die, we got bored for the day and parked it.

Next day an out-of-hand trash fire lit the carpet on fire, melted the plastic fuel connections and roasted the car.

Engine blocks melt pretty spectacularly.

Alan Cesar
Alan Cesar Associate Editor
3/7/12 12:11 p.m.

Run a LeMons race.

Wait. Torture done to the car? That race was torture on me and my team. Glorious, wonderful, exhausting, enlightening torture.

DukeOfUndersteer
DukeOfUndersteer SuperDork
3/7/12 12:27 p.m.

Took my 1976 Mercedes 450 SEL out "mudding", though my though of mudding is more like the Baja 1000. While all the rednecks in their Chevys and Fords were doing 2mph, I decided to hit the same patch of mud at about 40mph, with a car load of girls in it too . From there, I hit a massive dirt hole and the impact punctured a hole in the rad. Drove it to a nearby parking lot, covered in mud, puking coolant and laughed the entire way. Pulled the rad out, put a new one in, topped off with coolant, went on my way! That car was a beast!

ronholm
ronholm Reader
3/7/12 12:28 p.m.

I had a mid 80's something Celica GT... and a 84 honda accord 4 door..

Both had overheating problems.. Cracked head.. blown headgasket.. whatever didn't matter.. We had two junk cars, a couple sets of mud/snow tires... and 300 acre's to play on...

We really should have intstalled cages... both both cars would run for about twenty to thrity minutes full out before they would overheat enough the engines would lock up.. Sometimes more.. sometimes less.. We must have locked up both cars 20 times...

Private demo derby's with quirks thrown in are a blast to say the least..

the worst.. one day we were out beating the E36 M3 out of the cars.. and I was driving the toyota.. and got it stuck... Of course stuck means hold the gas pedal flat on the floor.. But wait.. Oh E36 M3.. the Cat managed to set the tall grass on fire.. Oh no.. So what else is there to do beside have a buddy ram into to car with the other one.. Freeing it enough to allow me to drive it into the small pond at speed extinguishing the fire..

A fiero was added to the mix somewhere along the way... but lets just say the front end of a fiero is to low.. making it quite dangerous.

When we quit.. the brake pedal and the clutch pedal of the toyota were overlapped... and the roof was canted off to one side really bad due to a rollover...

and the fuse box on the honda was bashed into the engine... and the center of the car was nearly dragging the ground...

Good times.. No idea how we didn't end up in the hospital.. oh to be young and dumb...

JohnInKansas
JohnInKansas New Reader
3/7/12 12:39 p.m.

On that Tercel there was a sensor in the trunk that shut off the fuel pump on impact. At that point the routine was line up the jump, get to speed (30-50mph), get air, land/crash, laugh till you cry, get out, reset the switch in the trunk, change drivers, repeat.

Young and dumb is right.

I'll see if I can dig up a picture of the fire.

stuart in mn
stuart in mn SuperDork
3/7/12 12:57 p.m.

I never figured out the allure of beating on machinery just for the fun of it, so no stories here.

SilverFleet
SilverFleet Dork
3/7/12 1:02 p.m.

Back in high school, Pseudosport was given his grandmother's rusty 88 Monte Carlo LS as a parts car for his 1986 Monte Carlo SS-clone (hence the Pseudosport name). It had a perfect gray sport coupe (aka bucket seats and a console) interior, but was VERY rusty. The car had a hole in the roof! The EFI 4.3 ran like a top though. So what did we do with it?

We took it to a tuning shop that serviced cars, bikes, quads, and race carts where our friend worked to pull the interior. The shop was surrounded by a wooded area. In the wooded area, there was a dirt path and some jumps, and some were big enough for a 1988 Monte Carlo to traverse.

We beat on that car mercilessly for a couple hours. It started on the pavement, where the peg-leg rear differential was put to good use by having a burnout competition with one of the cars they were tuning at the time (I think it was a Dodge Viper?) The Monte vaporized those skinny 14'' whitewalls no problem. Then we hit the trail.

We took it off the jump numerous times, each time with parts falling off. At one point, the left turn signal got stuck on and it was bombing around the trails with it flashing, which was pretty comical. It also got stuck in a huge mulch pile, trying to do a Jeep impersonation. About 1.5 hours in, the water pump quit, and the car was overheating, but still running. Then, the car ran over a huge rock, liberating most of the ages-old oil from the oil pan.

The car ran for another half hour after that, with it's last 10 minutes of life with its throttle pegged to the wood in park. A loud thud occurred, and then the fun was over. Thankfully, we videotaped all the insanity, and someday, I'll have to figure out how to get it up on the internet.

Conquest351
Conquest351 Dork
3/7/12 1:23 p.m.

When I was 18, my mom had a LeBaron. Not a turbo one, just a E36 M3ty NA automatic 4-banger. I used to take it down a really fun twisty road in Austin called Lime Creek Road. I manually shifted the transmission up & down. Started acting funny about the 250th time I took it down there and was making my record run. Stopped hooning and took it home and parked it. Next day my mom gets home from work and says, "Hey hun, the car's acting weird. I try to leave from a stop and it revs and then bang hits and goes. You have any idea what's happening?" I told her to get a new car. LOL She did, a 1998 (I think) Escort. It suffered much the same fate, but she got t-boned before it could chunk the transmission. LOL

akamcfly
akamcfly Reader
3/7/12 1:36 p.m.

VW bug in next door neighbor's back yard. We (the group) were ages 3-6yrs old. We DESTROYED that car over the course of a summer playing in it.

pinchvalve
pinchvalve GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
3/7/12 1:44 p.m.

I have never intentionally abused a car. Most were so abused by rust and mileage that there was no point.

ditchdigger
ditchdigger Dork
3/7/12 2:14 p.m.

The only one to my credit was jumping the companys 2008 or so Malibu.

The battery was dead from sitting for 6 months so I jump started it and had to drive it around a while to charge it up. I took it out to some of my favorite roads and was so taken aback by its miserableness that I thought why not and pointed it up the curb ramp in excess of 45mph. My co-workers eyes told the whole story. I really thought I had broken the car but it was fine. It was driven from Oregon to North Carolina the next week without issue.

Cole_Trickle
Cole_Trickle Reader
3/7/12 3:30 p.m.

Oh where to start...

I drove a Ford Explorer into a river while on a 4-wheeling trip.

I got in a big wreck with my best friend. I totalled his 95 Camaro with my 01 Mustang. It bent the back of his car into the ground. (almost) The car was still driveable, and the insurance company said that he had until monday to cut a check for it or turn it in. So all day Saturday, I practiced pit manuevers on it with my back up car, the 79 Malibu... in the middle of town. He went to the mall and parked in front of the food court and I "accidentally" reversed up on to the hood of the Camaro. The day ended with me ramming the car into his driveway. Overall, just a couple scratches and a small ding in the bumper of the Malibu, while the Camaro looked like hell.

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
3/7/12 3:40 p.m.

In shop class in High school we drained the oil out of a donated Buick Regal, foot to the floor for around an hour or so till she went bang. Then we got to tear down the engine for the autopsy. It was fun.

phinz
phinz New Reader
3/7/12 3:47 p.m.

I worked for a local architecture firm back in the late '80s. We did a lot of DOE jobs, so we had a couple of government K cars. I'd take them out to drop off the mail at the post office. On the way back to the office I'd rev them up in neutral, dump them in drive and do FWD burnouts. There's nothing like the smell of government tire smoke.

MA$$hole
MA$$hole Reader
3/7/12 3:55 p.m.

I took my rusty 89 Grand Am off a jump doing about 50mph. I was unaware of the amount of rust on the inner wheel wells, I found out afterwards when I punched the left rear strut through the wheel well. Upon opening the trunk it looked like a can that had been opened with only about 2-3 inches of metal left holding it together.

Pete240Z
Pete240Z SuperDork
3/7/12 4:05 p.m.
MA$$hole wrote: I took my rusty 89 Grand Am off a jump doing about 50mph. I was unaware of the amount of rust on the inner wheel wells, I found out afterwards when I punched the left rear strut through the wheel well. Upon opening the trunk it looked like a can that had been opened with only about 2-3 inches of metal left holding it together.

My wife owned a 1986 Grand Am SE that started rusting after the 4th winter we had it.

I still have nightmares about owning that car.

4g63t
4g63t HalfDork
3/7/12 4:06 p.m.

I sold my pristine 250,000 mile Eclipse to my cousin. I should have kept it. Been totalled twice.

bearmtnmartin
bearmtnmartin GRM+ Memberand New Reader
3/7/12 4:07 p.m.

Well when I was in grade 10, the shop class was mayhem, and two memories stand out. One poor sap brought his pride and joy in to do an engine, and it took him all semester. About 16 boys in two shop classes pissed in his gas tank every day for the entire time. I would like to point out I was not involved. The other guy who is still a good friend rebuilt his 351 Windsor and when he was done someone pulled the pan and removed all the rod bolts, then replaced the pan. It actually started. The damage was impressive. He still has a piston with the big end of the opposite rod jammed into the base.

phinz
phinz New Reader
3/7/12 4:40 p.m.

Back when I sold cars we would move the used cars from the boneyard at the new car dealership to the used lot a couple of miles away. It wasn't unusual to be sitting at a light in one beater and have somebody else hit you in another beater. We'd play bumper cars all the way down the road.

Graefin10
Graefin10 Dork
3/7/12 5:14 p.m.

I purchased my second car when I was 17. It was a 59 Karmann Ghia convertible with a Judson supercharger and Abarth exhaust. I drove the crap out of it. First I blew up the superchager because I ran it out of oil at 90mph; next I hit some gravel; in a 90 degree corner and was going off of a bank sideways. I caught the slide and drove it off of the bank, it was about an 8' fall into about 2 feet of water and mud and the car landed with a nose down attitude. It took a tow truck to get it out. The driver got on one side of the front fenders and I got on the other side and pushed the fenders back straight. The only evidence of the mishap was cracked paint on each fender. Next was a burned valve due to dirt-tracking it up a long winding gravel mountain road "practicing" for rally competition, lol. Then I had to replace the transaxle due to too much "speed shifting". Finally, I topped a hill on the way to school on a slick road, wet from the morning's snow melt. Suddenly I saw a school bus that was see-sawing it's way to turn around in the highway. I steered right as I hit the brakes with the inevitable sideways slide. I saw that I was going the hit the bus sideways with the probability of cracking my head, so again I caught the slide and drove it around the front of the bus and off the road onto the 6" or so layer of unmelted snow. I managed to turn the car back to the left enough to try to drive it between a telephone pole and a barbed wire fence. Didn't make it! Well I did but not before taking out two fence posts and skinning up a perfectly good telephone pole on the way. The last fence post turned the car perpendicular to the highway and stuffed the nose under the barbed wire resulting in gouges all the way to the bare metal almost to the windshield. So I learned how to do paint and body work. That car taught me a lot. Mostly how to do a lot of repair work that was new to me and how NOT to make a DD last.

RossD
RossD SuperDork
3/7/12 5:31 p.m.

My sister drove our '88 Subaru GL 4x4 Wagon down the rail road tracks from one block to the next. And my did wondered why he had to replace the CV joints on that car all the time.

Knurled
Knurled GRM+ Memberand Dork
3/7/12 8:40 p.m.

I bought a car for its engine, decided that it was in better shape than the car I was going to donate the engine to, drove it around for a month, found the then-car of my dreams and bought that, and the donor car ended up sitting for a year until the city gave me two months to get it out of the driveway because we had too many cars. It didn't sell, and the junkyard gave me $25 for it.

Waste of a perfectly good 460, it was.

aussiesmg
aussiesmg SuperDork
3/7/12 9:23 p.m.

I was a cop, cop cars can go ANYWHERE. I learned to rally drive in one of these in the dirt tracks under the West Gate bridge.

Aaaah memories

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