quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

The turbo on my Passat "went pop" last October. I towed it to the dealership November 1 (warranty repair). Haven't seen it since....

You're driving a dealer's loaner?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
You're driving a dealer's loaner?

Yessir.

Never. The closest I ever came was a 92 Civic Si hatchback with 120k miles on the ODO. My friend/mechanic had warned me that the distributor would go at some point and he pointed me to a place to buy a rebuilt one and keep it as a spare. So one day I’m at the grocery store about 1 mile from my apartment. Car started making a noise. I made it home and called him. He asked me to go start it and I put the “cordless” phone up next to the engine. All I heard next was him yelling through the speaker in the phone to cut the engine off. He says “it’s your distributor. Did you ever pick one up like I told you to?” I replied yep it’s in the apt. He came by my apartment, replaced it in like 5 minutes, handed him a $20 and that’s that.

I always do vehicle maintenance before it’s due. At the first service (liquid changes basically) I gut all the oils, engine oil, ATF, diff oil, whatever, and put in Amsoil. I run oil analysis on all my vehicles via Blackstone labs. It’s been a while but those have picked off issues for me in the past. I’ve had warranty issues that needed fixing but never anything that left me by the side of the road. Over the last few decades I’ve come close to arguing with mechanics with them saying “It isn’t required yet” and I make them do it anyways. Forums for every vehicle exist so it’s not hard to learn of routine issues, problems with OEM part longevity, etc. I’ve got spare parts for my bikes that won’t be needed for 10 years sitting in the garage.

I am not hooked on convenience food, delivery of items, etc. But I do hate inconvenience such as needing a dishwasher part, pool equipment part, etc, and not being able to get it. I also hate the aircon going down in anything living in the South so I’m as anal retentive with my vehicle maintenance as many are here with their firearms.

When my CRV lost a valve in 2016.
I coasted 8 miles down Burnt mountain.
I even passed a slow driver. Coasting!!
Marzy has to go get my truck and tow me the rest of the way home.

The BMW went through fuel pumps faster tan it could use up the gas in the tank.

I kept a spare in the trunk and got good at swapping it out on the side of the road.

It's been a long while. Certainly not in the last 15 - possibly 25 years. Last memorable breakdown was on Thanksgiving night in 97 or 98. Driving a Nissan Pulsar when the timing belt/chain broke. It was so weird the car just died completely. Luckily I coasted off the highway onto an exit ramp. I was living in Minnetonka at the time. I walked to a house that had lights on and they offered me dinner and let me use their phone to call for a ride. Stupidly I kept trying to turn turn the key to get it started. I ended up destroying the motor/valves.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
You're driving a dealer's loaner?

Yessir.

I bought a new Passat, I think it was around 1994 or '95. It was great to drive when it worked, but no exaggeration, I put more miles on dealer service loaners than on my own car.

It was constantly back at the dealer, primarily electrical problems. Batteries dying. Windows that would go down but not go back up. Door locking system that refused to work. Radio was replaced several times, and speakers quit working and were replaced.

I decided that I would not be able to afford to feed its maintenance hunger so I dumped it the week before the warranty expired.

I think it was made in Mexico, probably a Monday or Friday car.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
I bought a new Passat, I think it was around 1994 or '95. It was great to drive when it worked, but no exaggeration, I put more miles on dealer service loaners than on my own car.

[snip]

I decided that I would not be able to afford to feed its maintenance hunger so I dumped it the week before the warranty expired.

I think it was made in Mexico, probably a Monday or Friday car.

I remember that model... "B4," I think was its platform name. In fact, I think one of my school friends had one of those. He got a good one -- ran the tar out of it, rebuilt it, gave it to his brother who ran it to death again. Mine is the Chattanooga-built NMS version. Fairly comfortable (compared to my 20-year old SUV), torquey (great for the long hills around here), and very roomy. And at 38mpg, I love the fuel economy. I think I put about 24k miles on it (bought used) before "the pop."

This one's got a pile of warranty remaining, thanks to having been involved in the "dieselgate" thing. Like you, though, I'll probably sell it before that warranty expires.

I did talk to the service manager in March. He told me one of the other broken-turbo customers in his queue had (at that time) a $9k car rental bill (covered by VW USA) -- more than her car is worth!

As for the loaners: so far I've put about 10k miles on two Subaru Outbacks the dealer has lent me. The more I drive these wagons, the more I like them.

I have my Fiesta ST in for a warranty repair, it seems that Ford likes to purchase parts from China and the clutch slave cylinder failed at 33,709 miles. That 20 dollar part will cost Ford about 1500 dollars to replace. However that wasn't my breakdown because my Fiesta was still derivable when I took it to the dealer with the clutch pedal nearly on the floor.

My breakdown was all due to a Sheet Metal guy who didn't give a shit about leaving some of his sheet metal screws on the West Virginia Turnpike. The rental I'm stuck driving took one of these screws in the left rear tire. Good news is the Nissan Kicks I'm driving did have a TPMS system so I was able to see the tire pressure dropping and I was able to nurse it into a toll plaza. More good news is that I had a couple of my tool bags with me. Bad news is I didn't have a 22mm socket in either bag so I couldn't use my M12 Impact Wrench. More bad news is the tire change kit was designed by a Gen Z engineer so the tire wrench was all of 10 inches long. Ever try to break loose a lug nut torqued to 100 ft.lbs. with a 10 inch wrench? Aint gonna happen. Fortunately I did have a combination wrench set up to 1 inch in one tool bag and looping a 7/8 inch wrench over the tire wrench did provide enough torque to get the wheel off and install the spaghetti spare. Took me 2 1/2 hours to get the tire patched, thanks a lot to Covid for that. The tire shop with 10 service racks only had 2 people to use them, so nothing happens quickly.

PS; In regards to the Nissan Kicks it's actually a good handling vehicle with excellent gas mileage for it's size. It's a lot more nimble than I expected and I average about 35 mpg on the highway or in town. However it's badly underpowered and the transmission is flat out weird. In addition the cruise control features a forward sensor that will trip the brake hard if someone cuts in front of you or if you pull into a new lane close to a vehicle in the new lane. In addition the Air Conditioning is pretty weak, on a 90 degree day it takes about 2 hours of driving for the car to cool the interior to about 75 degrees.

My parents had a 77 GMC Suburban with a 454 and a 400 Turbo Hydramatic tranny that I drove a lot. That thing was a beast. But not 4wd so constantly getting the things stuck in No Fla read clay.

Such a huge engine was very hard to turn over. The ring gear would warp eventually and the starter would wear out fairly often. Like 2x per year.

I alway kept tools in the truck for parking lot starter swap-outs...last time was in the parking lot of an IHOP in Miami Beach in 1990 when I was down there for a water polo tournament when I was a grad student at FSU.

We had a guy that would replace the ring gear for like $150.

This was before the VW ands its multitude of mechanical failures...

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
The BMW went through fuel pumps faster tan it could use up the gas in the tank.

I kept a spare in the trunk and got good at swapping it out on the side of the road.

Six years ago when a stupid head put the wrong coolant in my little red Pontiac grand prix.

Flat tire about two months ago. Those Michelins lasted 8 years.

If you’re of the older subset of this forum, you may have more breakdowns from your early life than later. Mine that are memorable as follows:

Mid ‘70s: Chevy Vega, open the hood and see a piston rod sticking through the block. Plus other breakdowns due to the cast iron head and aluminum block sealing and leaks. Not the best exemplar of engineering from GMC.

1982 GMC diesel pickup, wheel bearing failed(GMC covered it) then at higher mileage led to injector pump issues. Which later I was told anecdotally that brass- bronze gears instead of the original plastic gearing would have fixed.

1994 Chevy Silverado, again at higher mileage, the plastic and aluminum radiator let go .

2004 Ford F-150, transmission failure and again at higher mileage, the variable timing began to fail. By this time, Ford has engineered the “limp home” mode, so not a complete break down.

I need to get out of holding onto my vehicles too long....

Today actually.

The fuel pump died on the way home.

Looks like this will set me back 200 bucks.

Summer 2020 in my 2018 bmw 430. Lost a lot of coolant and car overheated. Was about 4 miles from home. I had the top down and didn't smell anything while driving.

Ended up towing the car home and trying to figure it out. Coolant hose connector became brittle and crumbled after 60k miles. Local place wanted $600. BMW wanted $900. Part was $38. Took me a few hours but replaced it.

Sold the car in January 2021. This year BMW issues a recall on this hose part. They wouldn't pay me for my repair. lol

Mrs. Flash's Merc blew a transmission in Bakersfield Calif on the way to Disneyland and the dealership there made an attempt to steal it.

But that's a story for another time.

2016. I was pulling out of my driveway and accelerating up to the speed limit when I discovered my transmission was not shifting. This was a 2015 Ford Fusion with an auto transmission. It got towed to the dealership and I got it back in less than a week.

Before that it was my 2001 Ford ranger. I was living in 29 Palms, CA and on my way into work I discovered I could not get my manual transmission out of third gear. I drove it to Yucca Valley Ford and they found a bad bearing. I got a new transmission.

The only thing I have had issues with in the past decades is the cheap batteries that come in US vehicles now. I can't say that I've gotten 3 years out of new truck batteries once in the past 5 trucks. That period covers 20+ years.

+

Given the state of cars built in the last couple of decades with all of their complicated electronics I'm surprised that breakdowns don't happen more often.

Our fifteen year old Mazda recently had a mental meltdown. Its ABS module decided to give up the ghost and caused all of the rest of the car's electronics to throw a serious hissy fit. Sometimes the car would refuse to start. Other times it would refuse to stay lit. Caused the mechanical speedo to stop working, and boy was the instrument binnacle a Christmas light show. Pretty sure it also caused problems with the battery as well, which I checked and found healthy less than a week before the ABS module decided to crash and burn. New module was done by the dealer, but now the 2 yr old cell won't hold a charge at all, and something called the body control module appears to be having its own tantrums.

A horse n buggy is sounding mighty good 'bout now...

I guess it was more than ten years ago now, was driving the ole F250 up to Indiana. Hadn't even gotten out of the state before the ole girl almost completely gave up. Managed to limp it and my trailer into a truck stop at the next exit. Luckily I was able to practically coast it in...It was a Sunday, so my options were limited, but was able to get a diesel mechanic out there to help. Turns out those 7.3's would sometimes develop loose connection at electrical plug under the valve cover that controls the fuel injectors on that side of the engine. It's a known problem, but it wasn't to me... After a couple hours of delay, he got me going. I was grateful, settled my bill and tipped him $100.