BXProject

David · Post by **David** » 14 Nov 2007

Following on from the "engines" thread, that was quickly wandering waaaay off topic... The most abuse you've given a car, be it yours or someone elses.

Courtesy cars are the BEST fun to arse about in. My favourite was a Nissan Micra 1.0 courtesy car that my ex was given when a Ka ran into the back of her Ka. (no great loss there!) 68 miles on the clock and it already had flatspots on the rear tyres due to a fairly massive handbrake turn, that I might have had something to do with.

It also went back with significantly less rubber on the outer edges of the tyres, and a nasty burning smell from the brakes.

Who? Me? *looks all innocent*

docchevron132 · Post by **docchevron132** » 14 Nov 2007

I dont actually tend to gove cars much abuse on the whole. Especially not other peoples. I rag the valver occasionally, and I've had the odd moment in the TD, but I'm pretty much an old man when driving these days..

I've even calmed down in the buses, but years ago I was a lunatic.
I've blown tyres off the rims cornering.
Had a 40foot 9 tonne Lance with a full standing load off the ground (all 6 wheels) and broke 4 windows when it landed.
I've blown up a few, including another Lance that I blew up so well it needed a new engine, new gearbox and rear axle... They found 2 out of 6 pistons, the rest were molten lumps in the sump..

I let a Iveco minibus run away down a big hill with the clutch dipped, kept it in bottom gear, let it get to 70,ph and let the clutch up, blew the head and most of the block through the bonnet.

On the whole though, very restrained me!

Post by **Vanny** » 14 Nov 2007

hmmm, as a yoof, and only a few months after passing my test, i found myself in a rover 200 sport (the one with the gay orange front), thats how i learned to wheel spin and generally make ones self look like a nob, and mostly i didn't even mean to!

The fiat was fun to abuse as it wasn't hired out in my name so didn't really care!

i think the most fun so far in a hire vehicle might have been this past weekend in a 15 seat 07 plate minibus with no clutch pedal! Had managed to get some speed up having rescued it from the bottom of a big hill (where a youngster had got it stuck and mullered the hydraulic clutch) anyways took it to a big public car park, in the dark, never seen the car park before, took the entrance at a good 30+mph thinking i could keep up momentum, to find it had a rather acute entrance angle! Obviously brakeing wasn't going to work out, so hand brake it was!

So back end side wasy in 2 tonnes of van with 8x 4.5meter plastic boats strapped to the roof! INTERESTING

i wont mention the kerb in the middle of it, but there was a hint of 'this is not going well'

Anyways the journey home, 160 ish miles of it, from Harrogate to liverpool, all the way in 5th gear including 7 roundabouts, 2 sets of traffic lights, and 4 overtakes!!(only two gear changes at a roundabout). Was good till i got to town, too many traffic lights so had to use the gears, managed to use the gears twice before i lost the clutch completely and came the last two miles in first gear at 10mph and 5500rpm!!!! ah

mickey taker · Post by **mickey taker** » 14 Nov 2007

when the trajet was being serviced we had a hyundai getz and I thrashed it everywhere despite having 17 miles on the clock .

nearly came unstuck when I was returning it though ,

I overtook another trajet and saw the stealerships salesman glaring at me from the drivers seat ,

he was taking a potential buyer out for a test drive and I did carve him up a bit .

totally forgot the getz was covered in the stealerships graphics ,:oops:

I got it back paid for the service and got out of there before he even got back

David · Post by **David** » 14 Nov 2007

That reminds me of the time a friend had a "recon" engine in a 205GTi. It ran, but it was down on power, up on fuel consumption and was generally a bag of shit. He'd taken it back several times under warranty, but they just didn't want to know. He asked if I could do something to it to allow him to claim a new engine under warranty.

Cue a 205 being driven down the motorway, 2am, at well over 90, slipped into 2nd and bring the clutch up. Car went from 90 to 50 in about 0.0002 seconds, there was a big bag and oil started to run up the windscreen. Pull over, open the bonnet, errrr.... well there's a bit of piston... and here's an injector.... oooh look! a piece of exhaust manifold! Where the hell is the head??

Answer? in several hundred pieces all over the motorway. oops!

It did get him his new engine though, so it was worth the wait for the RAC to come along and remove us from the M27. The comment from the RAC man when he opened the bonnet... "Fuck me, what on earth happened here?!"

Stinkwheel(Matt) · Post by **Stinkwheel(Matt)** » 14 Nov 2007

Urm, generally my own cars i have abused.............

Managed to loose the back end on a wet roundabout, fully mount the kerb and bounce down again, missing a lamppost my milimeters, all in the 75 2CV.

I tried to blow up the same car, came down the A14 kept my foot in as hard asi could down a big hill the speedo read near 90 and the engine was going mental, its made a sort of big end noise since then, still goes though

I hit a 100mph once in the black GSA that stu had off me (you didnt read that stu) which is going some for one of those.

And i had a maestro 1300 van for a bit whicj jumped out of 2nd sometimes, so that got over-revved evrytime it did, oh and i drove it back from oxford stuck in 3rd

stu · Post by **stu** » 14 Nov 2007

I love this thread

I once drove a Rover 2200TC from Petts Wood to Leeds Castle in about 20 minutes - less than half the time Google Maps suggests.

I'd lost a coach load of Russians. The group leader had got on, counted her students and told the driver to go ahead. Fifteen minutes later I arrived with the tickets to find the coach wasn't there.

I figured out what had happened and gave pursuit. I arrived in the castle car park at the same time as the coach

Fine engine, the Rover 2200TC. Fine car, too.

stinkwheel wrote:I hit a 100mph once in the black GSA that stu had off me (you didnt read that stu) which is going some for one of those.

The fifth gear in GSAs is surprisingly high. I saw an indicated 100 in that and the other GSA I had

On the other hand, since I've been using sat navs I've noticed that all speedos under-read - so we were probably only doing 95

mickey taker · Post by **mickey taker** » 14 Nov 2007

first time I went over the ton in a car was in a P6 rover as a passenger on the A1.
it was a 3500 V8 though the guy kept on going until he hit 120 then had to back off because of traffic

David · Post by **David** » 14 Nov 2007

The other major abuse that I've given vehicles in the past was the works van that I drove for a while when I did a couple of months work for a motor factor as a delivery driver.

Depending on what mood I was in I'd either use the clutch OR the gearbox. Never both. Either leave it in 4th all the time, with accelerator foot flat on the floor and using the clutch to maintain about 3500rpm, or (once moving) use my left foot to change gear with. *crunch*... that'll be 3rd then! By the time I'd done just 3000 miles in it, the clutch was completely knackered, and the gearbox was sounding really unhealthy. The engine on the other hand was fine. DW8 engines appear to have inherited the XUD's ability to brush off fairly heavy abuse!

Madcav · Post by **Madcav** » 14 Nov 2007

I did everything possible to destroy various tyre fitting vans when i worjked for a certain company. I discovered that running them everywhere with as much weight on as possible, screaming through the gears and not using 5th at all meant a) I got more 'Tiger Tokens' to get tat from the petrol station and b) meant the vans fucked up far quicker. Another lad had his and my van 'modified' which consisted (iirc) of cutting in to a blue plastic cover on the fuel pump, screwing it off, removing a 13mm locking nut, slackening a 19mm nut behind it and doing the 13mm up again and pissing about with the accelerator stop thingy (all that from memory and someone else's description btw). Anyhow the vans went absolute fuck after that, one blew up before the end of it's official working life and the other was shagged by the time we finished with it.
On top of that I hammered the Iveco Cargo I had as a works vanm for a few years and (being an Iveco) I had some ace results in things breaking/falling off/packing up. One time I'd gone from here to Dolgellau (Gwyndaf Evan's Ford garage as it goes) full tilt all the way. Got there and could smell something extremely hot and got one of his mechanics to take a look. the whole disc and various other bits were glowing like I've never seen anything glow before.
Hammered my beloved Cav Mk2 (1.8 SRi) every single day and raced absolutely anybody and everybody, usually against some poncey dude in an MR2 on the M53 every morning and he never once got past me. The Cav was thrashed on every single hjourney it had with me in two or three years and was always hitting the rev limit before booting away in the next gear. I also crashed it twice and my maintainance comprised of putting petrol in it and fuck all else. The best thing was it never, ever failed to start, packed up, rattled or caused me agro. In many ways my favourite car ever and I still miss it.

Stinkwheel(Matt) · Post by **Stinkwheel(Matt)** » 14 Nov 2007

I forgot works van..............

We had an old transit (i say old it was ages ago, so it was fairly new) we used to collect and deliver customers bikes in. When it was empty we used to try and get the back end out coming out of roundabouts or tight corners.

Usually only managed it in the wet. only crashed it a bit a couple of times.

mickey taker · Post by **mickey taker** » 14 Nov 2007

oh works vans , I crashed mine 3 times in as many months and they kept rebuilding the bastard thing ,

it was a renault bloody kangoo

stu · Post by **stu** » 14 Nov 2007

Matt, how do you crash something "a bit"?

Stinkwheel(Matt) · Post by **Stinkwheel(Matt)** » 15 Nov 2007

Matt, how do you crash something "a bit"?

Easy

You know when you have a bit of a moment (to use a biker phrase) ??

Well a bit of a crash is one you can reverse away from and never tell anyone who wasnt present about, with limited damage to your vehicle that you can sort of blag your way out of if anyone happens to notice it.

stu · Post by **stu** » 15 Nov 2007

I actually did LOL at that!

In that case, we "had a but of a moment" in the XM on the way back from France last week. We'd paid a road toll and were set to rejoin the autoroute. So I did what you're meant to do and floored it.

Sadly I'd forgotten about the Short Twisty French Sliproads of Death, realised too late that I was going far too fast to take the bend and braked. There was a sickening moment when 40 litres of wine and three suitcases tried to overtake me, but then suddenly the car squatted down and settled into its new direction - all without smacking into any of the other cars from the other lanes.

stu · Post by **stu** » 15 Nov 2007

...I also reversed it straight into a wooden fence a couple of days ago, when reversing into a bay in a car park and trying to line it up neatly with the cars alongside (one of those stretched Meganes and something equally forgettable).

No damage to the car

Post by **Vanny** » 15 Nov 2007

ford 05 minibus, just been driving round town, its not wet, but its not dry, its rear wheel drive, i've been playing computer games involving lots of power sliding, i think i can make the transit minibus powerslide again if i want to

fucking hrie cars are the fastest thing in the world!

stu · Post by **stu** » 15 Nov 2007

fucking hrie cars are the fastest thing in the world!

Except new-shape Astras.

I did try to drive it like a hire car. But the torque steer frightened me too much. I don't want to exit this life going sideways through an oncoming vehicle in a nondescript boring-mobile

David · Post by **David** » 15 Nov 2007

Wasn't it a lowly 1.4? Given your previous vehicular experience I doubt you've ever come across serious torque steer before now.

Try an astra 2.0 turbo with 240hp. Go on, I dare you!

I have, and it was fucking scary I can tell you.

Madcav · Post by **Madcav** » 15 Nov 2007

And if you like torque steer, diesels and fun to drive then please try a Nova 1.5TD (Isuzu engine) if you get the chance. Mine was an absolute hoot to drive and was ace at baiting far newer, far fancier cars both petrol and diesel. If I could get one I really, really would have a Nova TD as a track day car.

*Oh, Iveco Daily 2.8TD on a roundabout in the wet trying to get the turbo to kick in whilst welting it is to be recommended.

The most abuse you've given a car.