Best car quirk

I was thinking about an old '74 Camaro of mine and remembered how it used to shoot little bits of foam insulation out of the vents every time the heater was turned on full blast (it was probably asbestos). Got me thinking about some of the quirks cars I've owned/drvien had, like: -'80 Chevette where the floor pan rusted out so bad it would flex up and down when snow or water would splash up and hit it. -My parents '84 Toyota van, which required that you shake the steering wheel back and forth like a maniac in order to get it to release the key when you parked it.
-My '93 Civic DX, which was the ONLY car I've ever driven, including the Camaro, that didn't have a chime to tell you if you left your headlights on. Fortunately, it was light enough I could usually push start it myself, since it had a battery that wasn't fit for a lawn mower.

And so many others.

So what's yours?

Ohh boy, this brings back some memories.

For me,

'79 Mustang, first car, bought in '93 floor was rusted through under the passenger seat, at highway speeds had to keep the windows up otherwise would suck in exhaust in through the hole. trunk leaked so anything in said trunk ended up soaked and rusty.

'80 something Dodge D50 4x4 truck. -lost the oil dipstick never able to check oil last year I owned it. just added a half a quart here and there. -when it was really cold (anything less than about 20 degrees), starter would stick, would have to push/pull start it to get going in the morning, hoping it would warm up by time I had to return. -transmission would pop out of reverse, so no reverse either.

'87 RX7. -windshield wiper switch permanently on. had to keep wiper motor unplugged. unless it started to rain, would have to pull over, pop hood and plug it in and go. stopped raining?...pull over, pop hood, unplug wiper motor, and go. cost over $300 for new switch back in the day when I didn't have $300.

VW Fox, 4 speed man. -trans started whining at higher rpms, I mean whining loud! didn't have any money to fix it so just kept driving. after a few months and a few thousand miles, eventually sound went away. problem solved.

Ahh to be young and broke again.

My current 740 has a work ignition cylinder. Once you start it you need to turn it back towards off for the accessories to work. When people borrow my car they wonder why the radio and A/C doesn't work.

My current 240 wipers won't turn off until you shut off the car. I always forget to fix this untill it rains.

My latest Miata.....is fine. How did that happen?

OhhShift wrote: VW Fox, 4 speed man. -trans started whining at higher rpms, I mean whining loud! didn't have any money to fix it so just kept driving. after a few months and a few thousand miles, eventually sound went away. problem solved.

I believe thats known as "self-clearancing"

We had a work 1963 Ford Dump truck that we had to pump the gas peddle 21 times in the fall cooler weather to get it to first start in the morning.

My 97 E-150 you have to turn the wheel back and forth while holding the cruise button down to get the cruise control to turn on. Not too fun to do at 70 towing a car trailer so you have to make sure you turn it on before you leave the house. You also get one chance to move the seat before it blows the fuse. I don't drive it enough to worry about fixing it.

The 93 Roadmaster at least once every time I drive it decides it likes first gear and doesn't shift. You have to stomp the gas pedal to get the TV valve to release. That's on the list to fix. I've never been into an automatic transmission. It should be a learning experience. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

I had a 81 Corolla wagon that on a hot day would shut off at least once. I kept a gallon of water in the back to douse the fuel pump with. She would be back to running fine.

I had a 78 Delta 88 that would leak transmission fluid unless parked with the passenger tires up on a curb.

When I was in high school I had a 78 Chevy truck that took forever to go into gear in the mornings. I would crank it up and put it in reverse. About three minutes later it would actually back up. During those three minutes you could hear the crank rattling around in the main bearings. It ran like that for two years. Say what you want about GM, but their old stuff is hard to kill.

I'm sure there are others, but I have blocked them from memory to save my sanity.

'92 240SX coupe: This basket-case would stall on even the gentlest of inclines. I had to wave by more cars at intersections than I care to remember in that car.

95 Saab 900S: Umm, it was a Saab. Even when owned by GM, Saab=quirk.

98 Impreza 2.2L coupe: The only car I've owned that was neither a hatchback nor had folding rear seats. It took a lot of contorting and creative packaging and swearing to get bulky cargo to fit in that car. I think it is the reason I love hatchbacks so much.

87 RX-7 non-turbo: Oh, where to start? Early 2nd-gen RX-7s had solder joints that would go bad over time. The PO jury-rigged the wipers to work off a toggle switch that would zap me when I turned them on, and the horn was activated by a joy-buzzer-looking-thingy on the dash. After I repaired the solder joints and Mickey-Moused wiring the horn works fine but the wipers now bang into the windshield molding on the left. It needs to be started with the key and a small screwdriver, since the ignition was knifed by a thief when it used to belong to the PO. The sunroof works, but sometimes it needs my help to open/close it.

07 Mazdaspeed3: If I put a load on the engine all of a sudden (say, downshift 6th-to-5th and hammer it to shake a tailgater), it will emit a small puff of smoke. I still need to install that oil catch can I got...

86 RX-7 w/ JDM turbo swap: Same as above, only replace "small puff of smoke" with "flames from the exhaust." That works much better to deter tailgaters. The horn button doesn't work on this one either, so PO replaced it with a doorbell mounted under the dash.

I one time helped my friend "fix" the horn on his suburban. Everything seemed to be perfect until he turned left and the horn started honking. He drove it like that for quite some time; with each left turn making the horn honk. I thought it was pretty funny but he was less amused.

I also had a 90 full size Bronco that would always die between my driveway and the stopsign at the end of my street. Luckily it was a stick so I'd just pop the clutch, the truck would restart, and I'd continue on my merry way. Weird thing was, that truck would only die that one time each day.

'74 Honda Civic - The radio would only pick up one station - a Mexican music station. Arriba!

My brother's '58 Belair - the fan blower switch would act as a valet switch, severely limiting engine power when on "High".

'80 LUV - No pumping the pedal needed before a start. It didn't even seem to need to crank. Just turn the key and it was running!

My Rover likes to turn its radio on when I am not even in it. I also have to apply pressure to the top corner of the driver side window when rolling it down to avoid having it catch and sound like its going to shatter in a million pieces. My first gen RX7 got an axle swap but the threads for the brakes didn't match so I plugged the rear lines. Great for burnouts, horrible for actually stopping. I borrowed/drove a Celica for awhile that had a severely escalating vibration any time you drove straight that was best cured by yanking the steering wheel hard left. There was so much play and so little suspension left that the only result of such a violent steering input was less vibration and a very slight body wobble. I had a supercharged first gen 7 that was so poorly tuned it shot machine gun backfires out of the tailpipes at anything over 6k. Ive had so much more that I can barely remember-screwdrivers to start, driving for months with no clutch, walkman driven stereo with amps and subwoofers, clutches that would barely let you get uphill, etc...

'88 Accord had no out side door handle, so you had 3 options, leave the window open, reach up from the back door, or if locked, go in from the pass. side.

Mom's '93(?) Acclaim, CC would turn off if turning the wheel more than 45 degrees.

93 F150, no "lights on" warning chime, a weak battery, and a broken battery clamp bolt resulted in MANY long jump starts and a mental breakdown. It also liked to blow out brake lines.

Neon #1, the only way to open the trunk was release by the drivers seat, but you had to hold it up. So opening the trunk was either a 2 person job, or I would use my snow brush to keep it up.

Mom's Taurus #1, You had to deliberitly push down the out side door handles other wise the door wouldn't latch and then fly open around a turn.

My '81 Alfa Romeo Alfetta had a few.

Turn the engine off while it was still cold (without a proper warm-up), and it'd foul the spark plugs. Which meant either changing the plugs, or giving it a proper run to "clear its throat".

When the starter motor began to die, you had to give the solenoid a tap with the jack-handle until it decided to engage, or just park facing down-hill.

When I replaced the alternator with one from a later model car, I could never get the belt tension right, so I was frequently adjusting that.

No one else could drive the car without a crash-course from me in double-de-clutch technique. Graunch! "No, no no....clutch down, out of gear, clutch up, stab throttle, clutch down and into gear!"

Lemme think.....

80 Pinto that really didn't have anything wrong with except for the parking lights would come on when you hit the brakes.

80 Fairmont pulled straight from the JY. was great except for the MI rust. It did catch me a few times with the lack of a clutch interlock switch. When that car got junked, found out the 4spd was holding to the block with 2 or 3 bellhousing bolts. OOPS.

87 Escort wagon that loved eating ignition modules and not wanting to start when hot. Stalled that POS pulling away from a stoplight in the hood and it wouldn't refire. Tried getting the guy behind to push it to start it, but he didn't. Eventually, I got it rolling by myself, jumped in, put it in 1st, popped the clutch and drove away.

91 S10..... Fairly bulletproof outside of the T5 eating a mainshaft. Nothing really ever wrong with it. It was like a Timex.

89 Mustang GT was perfect until the final year it got driven. Then it really started eating/burning/losing 1qt of oil every 250 miles. I broke reverse in the T5, so for a good long while, I had to be perfect when parking.

97 F250 PSD no problems ever except for broken water pumps, power steering pumps, and vacuum pumps. I did though every day or two have to put in PS fluid because some berkeleytard at AZ gave me the wrong damn line and I never figured it out until I got Ford lines for it.

96 Ranger I bought brand new never had a problem with it. EVER.

Current DD my 95 Dakota randomly pops on the check engine light when I drive it more then 1hr. I start it with a screwdriver after taking out the locked up key cylinder out and never replacing it. Front brakes vibrate because of the damn Advance rotors. It has a HUGE bumpsteer issue going on from using a POS Belltech lowering spindle. When it rains, you can't apply ANY power in a corner or you will be facing traffic instead of flowing with it. There is no headliner, as it fell, I took it out, and never have fixed it. There is also more, but I don't need to extole all it's mishappened virtues.

Brian

I don't know that any quirk has a better name then the "Death Rattle" or "Death Shake" experienced by pretty much all solid-axle Jeep Wranglers and Cherokees when the bushings in the suspension get worn. Exacerbated if it is lifted or running oversize tires.

Quite possibly the most un-nerving feeling I've ever had in a vehicle when my '90 XJ Cherokee (2" lift, 31" BFG AT's) did it at 70mph on the highway after hitting an expansion joint just right. I literally thought that the entire vehicle was going to shake apart into 1000 pieces all over the road, it was THAT violent. Scary. And almost impossible to predict when it was going to happen. Maybe on a gravel road. Maybe on a just-paved highway. I fixed the bushings real quick.

'88 Supra - random bumps would cause the headlamps to turn off, followed by panic induced finagaling of the switch. Not fun when bouncing around at 2.x times the posted limit on 2 lane back roads.

lets see, my temporary-DD Miata has two cigarette lighters, the factory one in the dash and a second one right beside the driver's seat on the bulkhead. the one in the dash evidently will blow the fuse if you try to plug anything in to it, such as a phone charger or anything remotely useful like that. oh, and the front license plate bracket is literally an old plate that expired in '02, bolted to a piece of scrap iron, bolted to a rather pathetic bent-sheetmetal gate hinge, bolted to a bumper-mount hole in the front grille opening. if you grab the plate, you can twist it 45 degrees (!) without much trouble. and the washer jets don't so much spray as they ooze, which does nothing except give me an ugly purple waterspot on the hood around the washer jets due to the blue washer fluid, and there's more curvature to the windshield than there is to the wiper blades, so the last inch or so of wiper blade at each end isn't in contact with the windshield.

the only real quirk my Mini has is that the rear window washer jet built into the rear wiper won't do anything. it makes noise like it's trying to squirt out washer fluid, but nothing actually comes out and I can't be bothered to follow that line back through the car to figure out why. that, and it will bong at me upon startup if it notices the air temperature is at or below the freezing point. other than that it's a pretty normal little car, no real oddities.

Not really a "quirk" but a design feature - being able to apply the brakes in a '70's Civic from the passenger seat (linkage to the passenger-side master cylinder was behind the dashboard/glove box, easily reachable with your feet).

I had a non-roadworthy Jeep CJ-7 that was strictly used for hunting & plowing. Something went wrong with the ignition switch system (can't remember what), so I moved the wire from the horn to the starter solenoid.

Turn key to "Run". Pump gas pedal twice. Honk horn. Vroom.

My '86 Buick Century was perfectly reliable in every way, unless you ran the A/C, then it would wear out the v-belt in about 2 hours. After shimming all of the belt driven accessories to about perfect, then replacing them all, then taking it to several professional mechanics (before I was in that business), I never figured it out. The air conditioning was awesome, but it made every conceivable brand of belt stretch out in a frighteningly short time. As a plus, autozone was pretty cool about replacing their lifetime warranty v-belts about every two weeks for me during the summer.

The century also had a pioneer CD player that if you wanted to eject a CD from you either had to do it immediately after starting the car or cup your hand over the ac vent to blow cool air into it for a while.

My current XJ cherokee has a defrost that doesn't work if you put it all the way in defrost. Just a bit right of it keeps the blower working.

My Express 2500 tow van needs to be started 5 times if it's not dead cold to stay running. It's fine once it's going, but it won't run at all until you start it and let it stall the correct number of times.

1978 Fiat 128, my first and last out of the showroom car.

Driving down the road it would shut off like someone flipped a switch! Wait 15 - 20 minutes and it would fire up like nothing ever happened. WTF?

It didn't stay long....

The driver's side (right) headlight on my Lotus seems to have developed the capacity for independent thought. Sometimes when I retract them it will stay up for an indeterminate period. I've had a couple times where it went up on its own with no input from me, and once, annoyingly, it went down on its own when I was driving late at night in the boonies. I still think it's trying to wink at chicks.

No, it's NOT a Lucas part.

1975 VW Rabbit

The location of the radio antenna was directly over the fuse block. When the antenna gasket started leaking, they were know to start by themselves.

The recall told people to park them in neutral.

My '86 Prelude Si.........

The speedo doesn't work unless the e-brake lever is slightly engaged. If the brake warning light is off, so is the speedo.

Favorite quirk. Hmmm.

The wind up turnsignals on my old Honda.

flip the switch and then listen to the relay. R....R...R..R..R.R.RRRRR! Blink - Blink - Blink.

It would do it every time you turned the blinkers on to the other side, but not if you kept using the same side. If you made two right hand turns, the second right would blink just fine. But if you made a left instead, it would go through the whole windup routine.

A very small quirk on car that seems to actually be constructed of quirks and a little paint to hold it all together: the headlight dimmer switch on my dad's '66 MG B. It's on the floor, as many were in the era. I knew that the first time I drove it at night, but I didn't know that in the 'middle' of the switch - that is, when you have it pressed to the floor prior to releasing it - there's a dead spot where you have no headlights. This was exciting to discover on a backroad while negotiating a nasty first gear, downhill, off camber, decreasing radius corner with oncoming traffic.

After about an eternity of darkness packed into a split second - wherein I'm pretty sure I found Jesus even though I didn't know I was looking for him - there was light again, and it was good.

And after that moment of darkness, Lucas headlights have never looked so bright.