Best car quirk

Some of my cars:

Mk1 Mr2 SC - automatic fuel cut before redline (manufacturer set)

Merc 450 SEL - had a kill switch installed for some reason. Girls riding in the passenger seat used to love to hit it as we would be driving down the highway... also had a dead starter that i would have to tap with a hammer every 10 or so cranks...

P10 G20 - Window motor didnt work unless i smacked the door panel. People would laugh in traffic as i would smack my panel 5 or 6 times to roll the window down

E30 - had large speakers in the back shelf i was able to move to the outside and would sit on the C - pillar. Not really a quirk, but was the boombox for alot of parties outside!

MK1 Rabbit - windshield wiper would work...sometimes... Would turn on all by itself one day, in the middle of traffic on a sunny day. When it would rain, wouldnt work at all. Someone butchered the roof to add a sunroof = wet lap whenever it would rain..

The cover on my wife's Mitsu Mirage shrinks in the cold, making the horn blast constantly whenever it drops below 35 degrees outside. Fun. And this is a factory steering wheel!

I\d be interested to learn how people "discovered" the fixes to some of these quirks. Maybe someone could create a flowchart to help future GRM readers.

In reply to ZOO:

Most of them probably would end with "screw it, I need another beer."

Had a '97 Passat wagon. I was on the road one cold week and got a call from the wife - the rear brakes are sticking. No problem - go get the dead blow hammer and give the rim a few good whacks. I wait a few seconds and hear "CLANG, CLANG, CLANG"
I yell - STOP! What are you doing!?!?!?
She says - "hitting it with the hammer...." "Ummm.. Which one" - I ask? "Oh the big metal one........" (3 pound quick drive hammer)..

At least they were the winter rims....

The Cherokee likes to randomly stop signaling at a stop even if you haven't done anything. The stalk stays in the signaling position, but it just stops.... blinking. If you bring the stalk back to rest and then put it up again, the blinkers work again.

At idle, the fan clutch also cycles on and off every 4 seconds. Haven't looked into that one yet.

The MX6's main quirk is it's ability to throw huge fireballs. Usually when you don't want it to. For instance, when there's a cop on my right side. It's always hit or miss if the cop is amused or pissed.

my ms3 shoots fire sometimes too- lack of a cat and an open exhaust can be attributed to that.

Friend of mine once had a Buick with a bad key cylinder (typical GM) where you could take the key out and it would still run. The day he bought the car (it was his first car ever with his own $$$) I was sitting in it, while he went to go show it off to my brother, who was at work at a hotel. I got bored, so I decided to see if the ingition would turn w/o a key at all. Reached over, and sure enough, it rotated. So I quick hopped in the drivers' seat, hit the clutch, hit the ignition, and it started right up. I was driving away with his first ever car, as he walked out of the hotel, with the only set of keys to it in his hand.

Also had a 1995 TSi Talon that would eat wiper fuses like no tomorrow. I eventually gave up and just rain-x'd the windshield and went without wipers for like, 3 months. Got bored one day, and decided to trace the problem. On a whim, I unplugged the rear wiper, which had already been broken off by a n'er do well, so it was just the motor and like a half inch piece of the arm. Never ate another fuse after that.

Does a 914 with the rear-shift transmission and worn out shifter bushings qualify as quirky, or just awful shifting? Because it had a Momo steering wheel the self-cancelling turn signals didn't. How about the same 914 with a newly-rebuilt engine that refused to run properly? It took two years of vainly trying to tune the carbs to discover that my new Weber carbs had cast-in vacuum leaks. Or how about the bouncing VDO tach? Let's see, calculate the moving average of the high and low points of the bounces, and shift, uh, now? Or if you attempted a 2-3 shift while turning left you'd usually get 5th? What a great way to get a run out of the corner while racing. And yeah, it was a real race car, no street racing. Or when the battery went bad but I didn't have money for a battery, so I had to jump it every session with my tow vehicle? I was terrified I might stall it if I spun and be unable to finish the race.

Wow, I had blocked most of those memories. I really wanted to write about my 1974 Beetle. It developed the habit of frequently shutting off and only reluctantly re-starting, but only while it was raining. Until the time it wouldn't restart. I never suspected that my month-old battery might be defective. Doh!

David

DWNSHFT wrote: my new Weber carbs had cast-in vacuum leaks

Reason #5412 I hate Weber conversions.

MDVDuber wrote: Had a '97 Passat wagon.

Say no more, you win

78 scout - the floor rusted through so badly that we called it the "flintstone mobile." I reattached the seatbelts using some steel from an old stop sign post under the floor to spread out the load to somewhere that wasn't rust.

73 AMC Hornet wagon - it had manual 4-wheel drums. I spent hundreds on rebuilding the entire brake system. In the winter, no matter how hard I pressed the pedal, putting it in gear it would always let one of the rear wheels spin in the snow without even moving. Just dropping it into drive I'd be sitting still with one wheel spinning.

But my favorite, (not a car thing) - my wife and I bought a used TV for our first aparment. It was a cheapy 13" walmart TV, no sleep timer, no nothing. Every morning at exactly 8 am it would turn itself on. We figured it was some quirky failure but it kinda freaked us out when it automatically started coming on an hour earlier the first day of daylight savings time. We gave the TV to Goodwill

69 Triumph GT6+. The electric overdrive was controlled by a stalk on the steering column. Spent five years driving that car, never could quite stop signaling gearchanges and shifting the lights.

My car quirks are based on crappy VWs that I have owned:

• self machining transmission 84 VW
• rubber alternator bushing that would fall apart every 5-10k miles - 77-88 VWs
• factor wiring that isn't sufficient to illuminate stock headlights - all A1 and A2 VWs
• interesting wiring idiosyncrasies... - A1-A3 vws

I've been OK since I stopped owning VWs.

curtis73 wrote: But my favorite, (not a car thing) - my wife and I bought a used TV for our first aparment. It was a cheapy 13" walmart TV, no sleep timer, no nothing. Every morning at exactly 8 am it would turn itself on. We figured it was some quirky failure but it kinda freaked us out when it automatically started coming on an hour earlier the first day of daylight savings time. We gave the TV to Goodwill

On a similar note, back in the day when caller ID was fairly new, but before most home phones had caller ID built in, I had a caller ID box on the phone line. The cat knocked it off the table one day and from then on it spoke French. If the name or number was unavailable it would say "indisponible" and at the end of the list it would say "Fin".

Also, on my E30 the clock was going crazy. The display would freak out randomly, almost looking like it was scrolling random characters, and if you would flick it it would stop. Also, sometimes it was on a 24 hour clock, sometimes it was on a 12 hour clock. It would also switch between farenheight and celcius. I finally changed it because the display was de-laminating, and noticed that there is a switch on the back to change it from 12hr clock to 24hr clock and F to C, but it had never been switched. The new one does the same thing, only less often, and the display isn't coming apart so you can still read it.

My '68 VW Fastback had all kinds of electrical quirks. Both headlight bulbs were good, but only one low beam would work, but turn on the brights and that side would go out and the other side would come on. The taillights would come on and go off randomly.

Once I drove my 84 Chevy fullsize truck when it was -20 out before windchill was factored in. The speedometer went all of the way around three times. I guess that's like 240 mph if the dead space between numbers doesn't count.

The regulator on the PS pump didn't work. It blew PS hoses every few weeks. I just gave up and drove it without.

My 81 Camaro had terribly mismatched springs somehow, and it never sat right, ever. Rode perfectly fine though, and tracked perfectly straight (on flat roads I could let the steering wheel go for darn near a mile) except for a BIG wobble (up and down) at 14 mph. No more, no less.

My 98 ZX2 had a spooky transmission. I drove it with 1-3-5, I drove it with 2-4-R, sometimes I had 1-3-4, it just chose whatever it wanted to do for that day. Once it got stuck in first. Totally stuck. I hammered the linkage back in (really hard with a sledge, like driving a spike into hard clay hard, multiple hits) and got it out and it immediately got stuck again. I found out that it could get out if you yanked it HARD out of first whilst the engine was at around 4K wide open. It was fun for a bit, that part. Also, if you had it in third and were going around any sort of corner, it wasn't going to be in third for long. POP, bzzz!

My brand new 88 K2500 would eat one 1/2 quart of oil in 100 miles, then stop. Leave it 1/2 quart low, and drive for 6000 miles, no change. Top it off, drive 100 miles, 1/2 quart low. No leaks, smoke, smell nothing. It went to the scrapyard after a hard life of plowing snow, still 1/2 quart of oil low.

Dad had a '68 BMW 2002. A short in the steering column caused an electrical fire one day. The FD broke the cover off for access and parts were unobtanium back in the early 70s, plus he's cheap, so the fix was a doorbell button for the horn and a dangling wire from the ignition switch he'd short some way or another to engage the starter once the key was turned. It stayed tht way for the rest of the car's life. It developed an oiling problem for a short time that emitted a Bond-worthy getaway smokescreen but only on left turns. Mom mandated a trip to the shop after she borrowed the 02 and accidentally mosquito fogged her friends with it. My sister and I were with her and thought it was hilarious.

I had a Mercedes 300E that developed a rainy-day only problem with the AC - it would turn off while driving and would only come back on after a re-start. Around town it wasn't too hard to deal with but on the highway, you'd have to pull over. Sold it to an M-B tech, he never figured it out either.

I also had a 1st gen RX-7 with odd quirks:
* loud gunshots out the exhaust when I installed headers and pre-silencer, but was running stock carb. I had to be extra careful not to catch police attention. A Racing Beat Dellorto kit eliminated the problem. * clutch hydraulic line cracked and I had to drive clutchless through Dallas during rush hour to get a replacement. Redlights were no fun - kill engine at red, start engine in 1st at green. After a few lights, I was quick enough to avoid annoyed honks.

My mercedes when it runs down the battery and is getting ready to die the tach will get a mind of its own as the voltage goes down. Then before the car dies the seat belt light comes, then the car dies.

The toyota pickup has a hole in the cylinder head which gets plugged with JB weld about once a year. If you take it for a drive when it is cold and hit the gas too hard it blows the JB weld out. This causes an underhood antifreeze eruption. You can actually keep driving the car just topping off the coolant with water. I bought a replacement head so next time this happens will be the last.

1981 mercury zephyr had some kind of valve in the rack and pinion unit that would get sticky when it was cold...so for the first minute or two after it was started you had to hold the steering wheel as far right as it would go until it "broke" free so you could steer.

74 plymouth scamp had floor vents that I never could keep shut...talk about cold 70mph at 0 degrees...Made defroster ducts out of the spring frame that was left from the old tubes and duct tape

92 escort gt...was a complete basket case...I saved it from the scrap pile.
1. Previous owner installed a new fuel pump and some how ripped the rubber foot on the return line, anytime you hit a long clover leaf with less than half a tank of gas it would quit, but thankfully always restarted once on the level.
2.One morning on my way to work the rubber bushing that held the shifter wore through and the shifter fell on to the top of the catalytic converter. had to hold the shifter up in the car to drive it at all...fixed it some kind of huge industrial 1/2 inch self tapping bolt my dad had - it actually shortened the throws put 100k miles on it that way.

80 something Chevy ton truck at a job I had once used the same reservoir for brake fluid and power steering fluid. And it leaked power steering fluid!

87 f-150 ran perfect, but if it stalled when it was hot or you turned it off it would restart until it cooled off. By accident I found that if I unplugged the timing sprout from the distributor it would start and run...I never could figure it out so I put a toggle switch in the cab that controlled the sprout for hot starts.

60 Bugeye sprite...The top would gap open and ram air (cold) and rain (also cold) directly into passengers face.

74 Mustang with a broken drivers seat slider. I put my spare tire behind the seat to limit movement. One day I loaned it to a friend who moved the tire and took off! Upon acceleration, the seat would slide back and he could not reach the gas pedal....then,sudden deceleration with coresponding jab on the gas pedal...then, sudden acceleration. He bucked across the parking lot for about 6 cycles before he put the E-brake on and yelled "NO" at me and walked home.

58 Ford with vacuum wipers...do I need to say more?

In reply to 16vCorey:

On the E30, my clock did the same thing and either changing the battery in the cluster fixed it. Of course, I was messing with the radio at the same time, so maybe something I did to the radio fixed it. One or the other.

my 88 jeep cherokee with my 4.7L stroker stopped automatically shifting randomly, so when it stopped it'd be stuck in OD unless i manually shifted through the gate.... except the AW4 can only get 2nd gear and TCC lockup electronically shifted, so i would start out in 1st, manually go to 3rd, then OD with no lockup ever so it SUCKED on the highway but with the 4.7L it still had enough torque to pull it out of 3rd. and other days she would shift just fine.

Oh, just remembered another one. My '94 Passat. The automatic seat belts only work if the battery is nearly dead. I didn't know they worked at all for the first year I had the car. They were stuck in the back position, so I'd just pull it over me when I got in. One day I opened the door and seat belt went forward! Got in, shut the door, and it moved back like it's supposed to! I thought, holy crap they magically fixed themselves! Tried to start the car...click click click click. If you jump start the car, sometimes they quit working immediately, sometimes they work until the battery takes a little more of a charge, then quit working.

I once went offroading and filled my alternator full of mud in my 1994 Cherokee. About 5 miles into the drive home it stopped charging and it was night. We pulled over a dumped some water on the alternator and it made it another 5-10 miles. At some point we realized that if we put the jeep in neutral and revved it to 5000 rpms the Jeep would start charging again for the next 10 miles or so till we have to rev it again. Our drive home was 250 miles from The Badlands to Ohio. I continued to drive the Jeep that way to work for the next 6 months till the alternator bearings were screaming and it finally stopped charging.

In reply to Pseudosport:

didnt we try a hammer at one point too? and wasnt there a washing machine involved somewhere?