Posted on 10/20/2017 6:23:43 AM PDT by Army Air Corps
Calling all Freeper Motorheads! Have y'all ever owned a vehicle that you could just swear was possessed on some level? Was there some puzzling quirk that vexed you, and seemed to defeat every attempt to remedy? Let's talk vehicles that seemed to be possessed.
Must have had an electric fuel pump cut-off switch under the dash....like I did.
;>)
Only Fords.
It then goes quiet.
It did this before and worked up to the alarm going off for no reason.
I had to take it in for something else and they had to pull the fuses. When I got it back, it was cured.
Now it is starting up again.
I am thinking of going and pulling the fuses again just to see if that cures it.
Bought it in 1979 from a retired German couple in Pirmasens, Germany.
Only used to go to and from church on every other Sunday.
Didn't mention that church was in Rota, Spain!
Things I found out AFTER I bought it:
Speedo was altered...later REAL mileage was estimated at over 300000 km, versus 40000 shown. Seasoned VW mechanic marveled at the fact that it was still running.
Sunroof leaked and drain channels were plugged with rust...resulting in a bath (usually a COLD one) when stopping in reverse, from collected water splashing out of channel.
Wiring at some time had been redone...using one color of wire...red. No easy way to trace any electrical route.
EVERY lug on drivers side wheels stripped. They had been replaced with some sort of oversized bolt, installed with 5000 psi air wrench, I think. Once they were out, they were never going to go back in. Had to replace wheels, drums, etc.
Radio worked, when it wanted to. Woken by Polizei one night, about 2 AM, warned to turn off loud radio of my car, parked on the street. I had NOT turned it on, much less tuned it to Disco Synthesized AM crap station out of Frankfurt, at FULL BLAST. That happened at least 6-8 more times...once while driving down the A-6...scaring the fecal matter out of me. Did I mention that was the ONLY station it would receive?
Rear engine cover (trunk lid/hood...?) removed itself from car once on the A-6...never found by me, but returned to me by Polizei, along with ticket for 40 DM, traced through US Forces green tag...too late, since I had already bought a new-used one and replaced tag.
Heater never worked. Typical of VW's...but at least some heat comes out of most...that one: nothing, nada, zip. My wife packed at least 4 blankets for every trip she accompanied me on and I scraped ice off the INSIDE windshield every morning to get to work.
When I finally broke down and replaced the worn out engine (it actually used more OIL than gas), mechanic discovered old one was held in by two bolts. As opposed to the four it should have had.
No spring left in drivers seat...literally, no springs...someone had replaced the inner works of the seat with an office chair bottom. Looked amazingly like original, but worked like a cement block. I never knew the difference, until my wife pointed it out...and I replaced it with a junkyard seat...which was Lazy-Boy comfort compared to the old one.
Headlights had a tendency to "wig-wag"...imagine an emergency vehicle of today...another legacy of the "red wire only" rewiring job, I suppose, which I was never able to correct.
Many, many more incidents, but one good thing came from it all...paid $750 US equivalent for it, sold it for nearly $2000 US equivalent, after driving it for nearly three years.
(But I did have to put a rebuilt engine in it, for around $300 US)
My wife absolutely refused to drive it...so I had to invest in a good used Merc for her...a 250D...never had a problem with it.
Resold to a soldier for what I bought it for when we left.
I never, not once, had the thought of owning a damned VW go through my mind since that time.
Even now, I think, were someone to GIVE me a new Tiquan...I'd sell it and buy a DODGE or something...anything, anything but a damned VW.
It had a bad ground if I were guessing.
Could be, but the right taillight worked just fine for the new owner who did nothing to address the issue.
That ol’ gal had been rode hard, and put-up wet.
That's because it actually didn't happen. The $100 you spent was to someone who didn't know what he was talking about.
Most cars especially of the vintage you described, can develop problems where the ground wires connect to the frame and body. This happens especially quickly where road salt is commonly used. This means that ground (-12v at the battery) really isn't -12v, it's somewhere higher than that, depending on how good the connection is where you're measuring it, and how good the connection is at the battery. This can vary depending whatever the electrical draw is and whatever the generator (alternator) is providing. The only effective long term fix is to remove and wire brush every ground connection on the vehicle. You really only need to do it to the bad ones, but you really can't tell which is good and which is bad.
Does re-possessed count?
That’s funny ;-)
I love those old cars. My dad had a Lincoln from about 1950.
It was an awesome car! 8 track player, leather bucket seats, automatic windows.
As teenagers, my older by one year brother and I had to share it and, me being a chick, I didn’t get to fully appreciate driving it until my he moved away for school. Then it was all mine!!
The night before he left, he was partying with his buddies and “someone must have smashed into the passenger side door when I wasn’t looking” happened and left me to get it fixed! Which I did (well, my Dad did).
I drove that car my entire teen years. Wish I still had it.
Wow! Before the end, I was going to guess it threw a rod through the block and busted the steering linkage and bent a brake line.
But then it would not have started back up.
My car always runs better if I give it a car wash.
Growing up we had a 60 Plymouth station wagon. It might start. It might not. My father was best at getting it to start but often even he could not win. Sister drove it a while and often had to call for rescue. Temperatures below 30 degrees were particularly treacherous but no temperature was truly safe.
It also had the push button automatic. With no Park. I guess you were supposed to engage the parking break when parking on a slope. That didn’t really work either, no matter how many times my father adjusted it. And someone would inevitably drive off with it engaged anyway. He just kept a 6x6 block in the back for us kids to shove under the wheel if we had to park on a slope.
We also had a ‘60 VW Beetle. If you removed the radio fuse from the fusebox under the hood the engine would stop running. Reinsert it and it ran fine.
I had a faulty relay that controlled two gears on the transmission (reverse and second) and the fuel pump. It would not go completely open, just not pass enough current and it only did this intermittently. So I had a car that would not turn over when it felt like it, or it would buck and stall in reverse also when it felt like it. It took about two months before the problem set a code. This was before OBD II, so I had to short two wires on the interface and watch a flashing light on the dash to get a code. I got the code and looked it up in the Hayne’s manual. The explanation was cryptic. I called the dealership and they told me to get lost. Thankfully I was able to find the answer on an Internet forum. I found a replacement relay from a surplus electronics store for $2.50.
Curious, was your invisible car’s color a dark burgundy?
I had one in college. I’d totaled my nice little Ford Fiesta Ghia in a snowstorm, had nothing to drive and could not afford to replace it even with the (too small) insurance payout. My dad took pity, said he’d get me a car and did. A 1980 AMC Spirit hatchback. Not bad looking, slow as Christmas with a fairly agricultural four cylinder and a four speed manual, but it did run pretty reliably. It did, however, have electrical gremlins that were impossible to predict. It was bad enough that every light in the car would shut off for several seconds, then turn back on again. That was a thrill on curvy mountain roads at night, lol. Never had an accident in it despite that problem, and despite the car being notoriously tail-happy to the point that spinning out on wet pavement was a very real possibility even with the anemic four cylinder engine.
Actually it was white. Will never own a white car again.
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