Ping.
Christine!
Any Jaguar.
75 Fiat X1/9................Spent more time under in than in it. Never went anywhere in it without a full tool box...............
My stove.
It burns about half the things I try to cook.
I had a 1976 Olds Cutlass with an accelerator problem. Damn thing just kept speeding.
I will say the body on frame construction made that thing just rock solid.
As for possession, it was hands down the worst winter vehicle I’ve ever owned. Traded it within a year for something that could handle snow.
I’ll bite.
Years ago, as teenagers, my brother and I shared a $600 station wagon with a $99 paint job. It actually ran pretty good. But we tinkered with it constantly adding stereo systems, PA systems, etc. (usually bought at garage sales). The PA system was an AC powered system originally intended for a building, not a car.
Anyway, the car developed some “electrical problems” that could not be diagnosed. And we did spend too much money taking it to a mechanic trying to figure it out. Hit the horn and blinkers turned on but horn didn’t work. Sometimes turning the lights on would also turn the windshield wipers on. To turn them off, you would have to turn the wipers on and turn them off again. If that didn’t do it. Stop and restart the car (no kidding). The PA system and the living room speakers for the stereo worked fine though.
We didn’t tell my dad about all the problems because we figured we had somehow caused them. The first mechanic could find nothing wrong with the cars manufactured wiring (fuses and such) - $50. We took it to another mechanic and he discovered that “the polarity of the cars frame had been reversed and the grounding system in the car was no good.” He explained that he thought systems in the car were actually getting power through a now energized grounding network (through the frame of the car?). He actually showed us where he could read a current by touching a lead from his meter to the chrome bumper. We asked how to fix that. The guy said, “I have no idea. It would be a hunt and test project billed by the hour.”
We said thanks and paid the guy $100 for telling us the car was never going to work right again. I wasn’t as engineering savvy back then as I am today. But I am still stumped as to how this could happen without blowing fuses and causing significant issues for all systems. How does the battery not just drain out immediately?
BTW - I am NOT an electrical engineer and grounding is still a bit Voodoo to me.
Yes. In my experience, all German cars have some kind of demonic quirk that cannot be duplicated at the the service center (dealer), but recur the instant you pull out of or into your own driveway.
Eventually I wrote a letter to GM asking if the car had come with an optional cloaking device that was somehow being activated and whether there were any recall notices for it. They ever got back to me.
For later.
I had a 69 Camaro rustbucket with a 307. Many cold mornings in Michigan, there would not even be a click when turning the key. Don’t ask me now why I tried it, but I took a bucket of warm water and poured it on the side of the engine where the starter was - and it would start right up! Possessed? No. Finicky? Yes!
Two. I had a Camaro that would start cutting out and then surging on the freeway. It was like it would just lose it’s mind for a minute and quit working then bam! it would surge as it remembered. lol Dealer never could find anything wrong with it and I finally sold it.
Current Jaguar S Type. Have had it since 12k miles. Occasionally when I get in the digital readout on everything is gone. Just not there. Blank. After a few minutes it comes up. Dealer can’t find anything wrong with it. Everything else on the car works great and it has been a really good car.
Well, my wife always said (and still does) that our first car (which I had owned for several years before we married) hated her.
Only the one my wife drives...Is there a correlation?
Had an old K-Car that kept burning out the left side tail lights - turned out there was a faulty seam in the wheel well that allowed road water to force its way into the area from inside the trunk. Finally got it sealed up and the head gasket blew....right after the head liner started sagging, the rear wheel bearings went out and the right front CV-joint went. Damn that Lee Iacocca....
The broad phenomenon is termed “the perversity of the inanimate”, and applies to all man-made technology.
Had a 72 Charger that was NOT a morning person. It stalled at intersections if it was raining and in colder weather the brakes would freeze (in the early morning). I had to keep my foot on the brake and the accelerator to keep it running at stoplights on the way to work. In the winter, I had to pump the brakes for awhile before I could drive to work. It was fine any other time. I loved that car. It’s nickname was “Jaws”.
My first car was possessed by a benevolent soul. There were a few small incidents, but the one that convinced me was a big one.
My ex-husband was a lunatic. One evening he was driving down a narrow two lane road, and decided it was a good time to have an argument. The angrier he got, the faster he drove. The faster he drove, the more afraid I got. I was pleading for him to slow down, which only seemed to make him angrier. By the time he got up to about 120 mph, I was hysterical. I saw headlights up the road, and let out a blood curdling scream. Just then, the engine stopped. No sputtering. Just stopped, like someone had turned off the key. But no one had. The car quickly but smoothly glided to a stop, as though he was using the break. But he wasn’t. I looked down, and he was frantically pumping the accelerator. As the other car approached, he jerked the steering wheel to the left, but the car kept going straight, until it stopped. The other car sailed past us, and there we sat in the dark. He tried to restart the car, but got nothing. We had to have the car towed. By this time, he was more afraid than I was. He seemed to be tired of arguing.
It took the mechanic about a week to look it over. It started right up. He couldn’t find anything wrong with it. The engine never cut out like that again.
Or, perhaps, I'm the comm link: I tried hard -- and thought I had succeeded in ridding my self of language -- that I picked up while working on construction and in the military.
But whenever I crawl under -- or under the hood of -- any vehicle designed by US "auto engineers", It resurrects itself, and escapes -- with a vengeance -- wishing wrath and destruction upon all such so-called, "engineers".
Perhaps US-engineered vehicles are equipped with a "profanity detector"... '-)