The snow chains on the rear (of the A class Merc) got me thinking about daft drivers over the years.
Back in the days where I was selling cars a disgruntled customer brought his Golf back complaining about it pulling to the left, I took it out for a spin and couldn't find a fault. I handed the keys over saying it's fine, I even slammed the brakes on without holding the wheel ? no probs. The guy became very irate saying there's definitely a problem and he'll turn up with his ?bros? if I don't fix it. So I offered to sit in the passenger seat while he demonstrated the problem, no sooner had we headed off we nearly collided with cars on the left hand side of the street. ?See? he exclaimed triumphantly. It transpired the steering wheel had been replaced slightly pointing to the right (or the tracking had been adjusted and the steering wheel had not been reseated) and this guy had it in his head that you hold the steering wheel so it's pointing straight ? regardless of what the wheels are doing! Somehow I don't think this guy had a license...
Any similar stories?
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Went out to one of our C1 car share vehicles yesterday....hirer had refused to take it from it's bay because the brakes were terrible and making one hell of a noise at the front......fair enough.
Started it, drove it a few yards and braked, the front wheels locked up and juddered.
Did it several times, always the same.
Took it a bit further down the road to a section that didn't have snow on it......brakes perfect !
Never had this phenomenum with anything else I've driven in snow or ice at 5 mph.
Must be a problem with a very light car with naturally ' grabby ' brakes. Punter didn't realise, nor did I.
Ted
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Is the C1 ABS equipped? Maybe a very (over) sensitive system?
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I've posted this before.
When I met my wife she had a diesel Peugeot 306 estate, which needed to be driven with a healthy dose of 'divers boot'.
On a wet miserable winters day, she drove my car for the first time... to work...(3 litre petrol auto)...and came home saying there was an intermittent warning light that kept coming on, on the dashboard.
Well of course you worry about it don't you....until I worked out it was the traction control and DSC etc, desperately doing their best.
Edited by Westpig on 12/01/2010 at 22:12
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Our Micra does this, pretty certain it's the ABS - seems to do it much more readily than our Scenic, yes I am a glutton for Renault reliability problems and as for the wiper mechanisms...
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I recall my mum picking my brother and myself up from school in the family car, a mark 2 Escort estate. On the way home the car was slewing round the bends and wouldn't go above 35. My brother and I convinced her to stop and we noticed the flat tyre at the rear. For reasons I cannot recall she decided to drive home 5 miles on the flat.
Needless to say the tyre was practically dripping when we got home and the rim was a smoking battered mess and had to be scrapped. My dad went ballistic when he got home.
How we laughed
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Some clown I know put white spirits in his bike battery instead of water.
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Another classic from my selling days involves a rather pretty young girl and a Mini.
I used this particular car as my personal transport for a couple of weeks before I sold it so I knew there was nothing wrong with it. The girl and her father reported regular (daily) breakdowns and devised a scheme to charge me for the ?loss? I investigated the problem, the car would breakdown every day on the way to the girl's work, and yet it could be driven back home at the end of her day! As per the Golf story, my only option was to shadow her journey to see what turns out.
Well, this one was quite simple, Maria (Still remember her name after 22 years!) used the pull-out choke-knob as a handy place to hang her handbag, needless to say she didn't turn the choke off, this meant there was a certain period of time until the car ran hopelessly rich and conked out. By the time she returned to the car it would restart and make the return journey! I shudder to think what the fuel consumption would have been!
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This happened to me yesterday (snowy sweden).
I was outside in the woods preparing my XC skiing when this elderly chap skis up to me out of the woods. "Can you help me, my car is stuck at the other side of the woods". Being a nice chap off we drive in my works Ranger 4*4, up and up, twisting and turning in this little bumpy mickey mouse track, passing numerous turning areas, but up and up we went deep into the forest for around 5 miles. Honestly at one point I thought he was a Hannibal Lector character and I was going to feature on crimewatch! Who would drive all the way out into the sticks with 12" of snow? At one point I asked him why he drove so far without turning around and he replied that he was a 'stupid idiot'. mmmm..
Anyway we eventually got to his 4*2 merc and having cleared away the compacted ice around his rear wheels he drove away happy as larry.
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in 1960s a small garage in Ewell, Surrey, Triumph agent, had Herald customer who complained about poor fuel consumption. Couldn't find problem with set up, so works manager went out with her for drive. First thing she did was to pull out the choke knob and hung her handbag on it - because, she explained, it displayed a handbag symbol; it was supposed to represent a bank of cylinders!
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