What your Most embarrassing break down?

[Eeyore]

My brakes once stopped working.... that was fun. And because we were n00bs back then we just poured it into the reservoir and hoped it would fix itself... it didnt so my dad drove it home on the handbrake.

[daniel909]

^ hahaha some great stories hear lad keep them coming in

[deggerz]

Had 2 nice looking ladies in the car showing off a little, I dropped the clutch and the plate just shattered, they had to walk home whilst I somehow limped it home

[Hajman]

Left my lights on whilst at work. Got a charge from rac and proceeded to do it again the next day.
What a spanner

This was on my old pooo with no warning beep

[nominous]

Just outside of Sofia, Bulgaria with my Astra, heading for a campsite in the pitch black and knackered after a day of driving, pulled off the "motorway" on to on a slip road to be confronted with a brick wall where the campsite had duly been closed. Literally !
Panicingly beached the car just off the side of the road and couldn't get it off again.

One nice fellow stopped and we progressed through the languages neither of us had in common.
Bulgarian, Russian, English, settling on broken French and German.
We tried to push it out but not much use.

Luckily the police turned up.
They took the piss out of me a little (drinking, drugs, sleeping, all with hand signals as still no common language) then flagged down a passing artic truck.
They had to pass on the first one they stopped as not the right type or something?!?
Second one was stopped, quick laugh as they explained as he probably was shitting himself over being pulled over... Roped up the car to the front of it and he pulled me out backwards.
Everyone shook hands and were very friendly, no doubt laughing at the silly tit with the steering wheel on the wrong side that couldn't drive.

All in 20mins. No chance of that happening over here.
Would be road closed and hours delay before common sense dropped by the traffic wombles.




Then a little later in the journey, on another day mind, ran out of fuel searching for a petrol station that would take a card as had crossed the border to Romania with no local cash.
Flagged a lift some 15miles to the nearest one with jerry can in tow. No worries.
Getting back however zero luck. Walked about 3 miles with can in tow. 20ltr container with about 15ltr in it.
Finally someone stopped for me.
On a moped. And this was a big dude.

Not being a slight build either, here are two fat blokes on a 50cc with gears ?!? with 15ltr in tow cos sod all place to carry it, not exactly bombing down the road.
Hills were hilarious.
I thought I'd have to get off and walk it, but by god he thrashed the hell out of it and somehow we made it back to the car.
Once again language wasn't common. I tired to offer him some cash with my much thanks, but he gave me a look of disgust and rode off (and I wasn't being stingy!).




Snapped the plug off the end of the clutch cable on the astra one time.
Had to drive it home 20 miles, urban, without a clutch which was fun.
Mainly setting off from the lights by having it in gear and starting it, else it would not go in from idle.
Other than starts, quite easy.




Accidentally put 20quids worth of petrol in the astra.
Had run out of veg and it'd been so long since I'd put diesel into it (years) that having driving the petrol CRX, I was just on auto pilot and picked the petrol pump.
Got quite far before there was a problem.
Figured out the issue once I undid the injectors nuts - thought it was air issue.
Luckily broke down outside an Aldi.
Tripped in and bought a lot of veg. Brimmed the tank, bled the pump through, fired up and continued on my merry way




On a CRX mk2. Night before a an epic trip to Norway from Harrogate via Harwich & Denmark as the more direct Newcastle ferry had been fire damaged, I snapped the bleed nipple off the cooling system.
Christ knows why I chose a Saturday evening to do that. So first thing Sunday morning was buying chemical metal and two hours later thanks to a hair drier, the bolt was holding enough that a spirited drive to Harwich meant we didn't miss the ferry.
Knowing better than to mess with it (sure...), whilst waiting for the connection from Denmark to Norway, I noticed it weeping and cracked the bloody thing off again. Cue more chem metal but sadly this time it didn't hold. So ended up sleeping in it till morning whilst it dried fully before getting to destination and doing a proper bodge fix.




Lastly, hardly embarrassing, but might have been for the breakdown guy.
I blew the engine on a mk1 CRX around Applecross on a car club outing. It was starting to go and I figured might as well let it as was going to do an engine swap anyway.
Rang the breakdown folks. They arranged to collect it and deliver it all the way back to Harrogate where I was at the time.
So left the keys in it under the visor in a layby, and I went shotgun in another car, opened the beers and continued on the road trip.
Managed to persuade a lad to sell me his CRX by plying him with beer (he said it was a death trap, I needed a car) he was replacing with a teg and drove that back home at the end of the trip.
She was beyond repair but still had a MOT ticket.
Turned up at home a few days later and there it was with the key through the letterbox.

Took the death CRX around Germany and Czech. Inc a stint on the autobahn to find the top speed
That didn't break down, tho it was mainly held together with structural filler.
Broke it for parts after.

[procta]

only one I have had, was the rover, filling up with petrol, and it kept going, the pipe on the fuel neck decided to pop off didn't it, so it decided to dump about 20 quids worth a petrol on the floor!!
I had to tell the lasses behind the counter, and I managed to pop the pipe back on, After that, i am very wary now everytime i fill up!

[Lecktorious]

Dying of a hangover, I decided to get a McDonalds curer. Once in the drive-through I remembered my cooling fans weren't working. Cue turning cabin fans on and hoping the car wouldn't cook itself. It didn't, as I had to turn the ignition off, only to find it wouldn't start again. After a few vain moments of cranking it over I had to admit defeat and push it out of the drive-through

Still went back and got my McChicken sandwich meal though

[woody]

What's funny is that Peugeot pe emptied these events happening and there for fitted gas struts to the bonnet knowing opening and closing would be a constant affair thus making life Easyer for day to day use. Got a love the French.

[Petebob]

2 weeks before, I put a new clutch in the wife's Seat and broke the coil's king lead connector. It was a Sunday and the only car "working" so I glued it.

It worked fine for a fortnight. But after it had been raining all day the car cut out right in the middle of the A46/Carholme Road Roundabout. So had to get out & push. pi55 wet through checking for common things I ended up calling RAC out as the fuel pump was noisy the days prior.

Poor guy got soaked testing both ends and finally squirted contact spray into HT leads.

Returned to us and said it was the coil, someone had bodged it

Best part was he had a coil for £79! next day I picked one up for £11.99

[toseland]

Overtightened wheel bolts...

nearside wheel bolts stripped and all flew off at 70mph (in my last vitara) on the A470

wheel decided it didnt want to be attached to the car any more and wobbled off... in the outside lane at 6pm

rolled up the embankment on the side of the road i calmly pulled over LIKE A BOSS (grayston wheel spacers on the car meant the brake disk was held in place by the extended stud bolts)

Wheel, like something out of laural and hardy, calmly rolled back down the bank and stopped resting against the rear wheel of the car..

left car there, went to see Iron man 3 at the cinema (was only half a mile walk from the car) returned after the film to find 4 coppers stood around the vehicle looking at it, saying they had watched it happen on CCTV and wondered where i had been..

werent happy with the explaination..

[1616six]

Coming home from holiday in my Diablo ph1..loaded & two mountain bikes hanging off the bike rack, plodding along the inside lane when a barry boy'd Corsa B came flying past me.. I didn't like the fact he'd overtaken, booted it hard into the outside lane, JUST as I got past him I popped one of the boost pipes off my fmic, so I ended up in a cloud of smoke, in the outside lane, being undertaken by a corsa b with a laughing chav in it.

[Nathan1305]

Only type of breakdown I've had was the day of pugfest I bought my DT with the hope of taking it their, I was so happy I thought great I have a nice low 3dr black DT I can finally fit in haha, got it home from wales and thought great I have a few hours till I need to be at pugfest I'll swap some bits over from my previous car (1.4) I took the steering couling off to find a bodged imobilizer which had snapped the wires as I took the surround off. I thought nothing of this and proceeded to get my new car ready for the event. I spend a good 4 hours changing bits and making it look nice and presentable little to my knowladge did I relies that the immobiliser actually cut off my fuel to the engine so when we finally packed the car and was ready for a great weekend I tried starting the car and nothing.... It just turned over but never fired. My heart sank and I felt so low. So I had to come to the show in my blue standard 306 which was about a 1000ft higher than the rest of the cars their.

Moral of the story don't f*ck around with you're car the morning of an event.

[mr_fish]

Moral of the story don't f*ck around with you're car the morning of an event.

Unlucky you couldn't bring your new car to pugfest.

FCS 2013 I had the engine & gearbox out on the floor, the day before I was heading up. Was a late night then fitting it back into the car!

[Toms306]

Moral of that story is don't fit aftermarket immobilisers lol!

[Nathan1305]

Moral of the story don't f*ck around with you're car the morning of an event.

Unlucky you couldn't bring your new car to pugfest.

FCS 2013 I had the engine & gearbox out on the floor, the day before I was heading up. Was a late night then fitting it back into the car!

Yeah really wish I could, and oh wow haha that's pushing it

Moral of that story is don't fit aftermarket immobilisers lol!

Yep! Whoever fitted it before I had the car is a nob, I've got rid of it now and all is well