Reminiscing: Stupid Things you did to/with your Car when You were Young

[Danny]

Road trip to see a buddy in college 2-3 hours away, driving through some pretty rural areas around midnight in the '66 beetle. Kept catching a flickering reflection in my rearveiw mirror. Happened enough times to get me thinking about the engine being on fire, then heard an odd noise and pulled over. Middle of nowhere. Jump out with the engine still running, run to the rear and no fire. Didn't think it was but still relieved.
Walk back to the drivers door and its locked. Both doors are locked. The engine is on.

I have a swiss army knife and spend the next 20 minutes removing the popout rear side window from the outside. Crawl in, unlock the door, and spend 10 minutes reinstalling the popout. Thoroughly pissed at myself, i hop in the car and race down the road feeling a cool swirling breeze ?? Look up at my wide open folding sunroof....

Same thing happened to me while in the mountain's enjoying the twisty roads with a buddy. Had to kick a window to break it, replaced it with a picknpull window a few days later. Oops.

[decay]

We went to the local TJ Maxx with my old truck and decided running down shopping cars was a good idea. Ran over line of like 5 and bolted because that was where the "illegal" street racing was going on and the cops showed.

a buddy of mine and i used to go "shopping cart bowling" with his dodge van. it's all fun and games until you put one into the side of a police car.

[SubDad]

Borrowed the company car, a big Pontiac station wagon. Coming off a curve we (the car and I) tried to leap the airport perimeter fence which was quite high, and didn't quite clear. Drove the wreck back to the office with dragging bumpers, smashed windows and a bent B pillar. Talked to the company receptionist, she gave me a cigarette because "They're good for stress" and went to talk to the Boss for me. I knew I'd be fired because that morning the Boss had seen me driving a fuel truck on the airport taxiway while standing on the gas tank beside the cab. (I had places to be, things to do and the windshield was iced up.)
Boss gave me a week off without pay to practice smoking and I've been smoking ever since.

[Wh33lhop]

Same thing happened to me while in the mountain's enjoying the twisty roads with a buddy. Had to kick a window to break it, replaced it with a picknpull window a few days later. Oops.

You broke a window by kicking it? Danny the hulk.

[CRH_E30]

Got the E30 to 112mph on a backroad in Palmdale, and hit a very large dip in the road. Landing felt smooth so I kept going. Got home and found out I broke both engine mounts, blew the rear shocks a couple days later, and the fan split 2 coolant hoses due to the engine moving so much.

I suck up seat cushions and slow down for every crack in the road now.

[jeffnhiscars]

This is easy. A friend of mine had rolled his 65 Beetle which fried the engine and it had been sitting repaired at a VW dealer for a year cause he didnt have the cash to pay the shop bill. I hitch hiked to Michigan in January, paid the $256 to cover the reman engine & labor then found 3 "friends" to share gas.

I think we had head lights, but no turn signals, heat or wipers. We hit a blizzard in West Pa so we opened the sunroof and the passenger cleaned the snow of the windshield with a hand held wiper blade.

We DID wind up in a ditch, we DID get picked up by the State Troopers and we DID wind up in jail as vagrants.

3 months later I hitch hiked back to Pa to get the car from the shop. Made it home that time.

Life was great

[Strelok]

About two months after I bought my E30, front suspension was worn to shit, one of my calipers wasn't working as well as the other, master cylinder was on its way out, etc.. I took it to an indicated 140mph on the highway at like 3 in the morning. It was not as scary as you'd think. Car was super stable and did not feel like it would fall apart. Not that I'd ever do it again..

Fast forward about 1.5 years...same E30. It was raining outside, and I decided I wanted to pull a hektik skid on a narrow, sweeping turn near my house. I put it in second, clutch kicked it, and promptly spun out and hopped the curb. Destroyed my right rear weave, bent the trailing arm and my subframe.

[5Toes]

This thread is great. I havent done a bunch of stupid shit yet.. but I do turn 18 soon.. Ill do something big then

Duct tape idea is awesome, will report back how it works for me!

[LJ851]

^ Don't let us down , Toes. I see a bright future for you in this thread.

[LJ851]

I have not told many people about this but i owned a miata once.

[e30vert]

Spun a 78 Cadillac Coupe De Ville (huge boat anchor of a vehicle) in a full 360 coming off an onramp on Highway 280 onto De Anza Blvd. It was wet that day and I figured the rear end would get a little squirrly if I pegged the gas right at the turn going onto De Anza Blvd. Ended up deer in headlights style right in front of a bunch of on coming cars. Just waved and slowly pulled out of their lanes and drove on. Whew!

When working on the rear brake drums of my Super Bettle I tourqued the bid nut that holds the brake drum onto the axle (driver side) and could not find the cotter key to put through the axle to prevent the nut from backing off. Figured I would just drive it to the auto parts store and buy some cotter pins. Almost made it. Was doing 45 and the driver side rear tire with brake drum attached came off. Car dropped onto axle and pitched to the left hard. I then stared out the passenger window as the tire and drum kept rolling down the street. It hit a parked car on the right side of the street which redirected its path of travel towards an intersection filled with cars passing. Tire almost kills a kid on a bike that was crossing at the light on that intersecting street. Then TBONES the passenger side of a vehicle and it was a huge center punch boom! Heard it from about a block away inside the car. Nobody hurt - very lucky. Insurance covered the person car that the wheel took out. Was a complete cluster fuck of a day just because of one simple cotter pin!

Drove my 1989 Jeep Wrangler to Lake Tahoe from the bay area. Had a trailer with my Raptor 660 loaded on it. Roads had tons of snow! Was stopped by chain control and had to put chains on my 4 Wheel Drive Lifted very capable Jeep Wheeler! Its a law if towing a trailer through snowy conditions. Color me surprised. Puchased and installed chains. Drove for an hour and a 1/2 and the snow as not as plentiful on the road. Pulled over on a somewhat steep downhill as I wanted to jump out and check to make sure the chains were on well and I was not going to get any chain slap. It was freezing so I jumped out real fast. So fast that I did not put the Jeep in gear or depress the emergency brake.

As I got out the vehicle and trailer began rolling downhill almost immediately. As it passed me I thought I was dreaming and stood for a quick second - dumbstruck! Then I frikken began running like Carl Lewis down the hill as fast as I could cause there was a left hand swooper coming up and nobody was driving. Amazingly thanks to adrenaline I caught up to the Jeep and launched onto the side boards and into the cab in time to jam my foot on the brakes. Jeep and trailer slid to a stop. Sat there for at least 5 min in disbelief.

Ive got more but those are the ones that come to mind.

[Chriskbmx]

haha i have had some very crazy incidents

first one that comes to mind would be in my 1993 saab convertable. 5speed over 250,000 miles. super super cool car. so i buy this call for only 300$ it needed a basket load of stuff, but what it needed most was an exhaust. So i take it to the very local mechanic out in bumm f@ck PA and get an exhaust put on for super cheap. well fast forward a year and the exhaust around the muffler started to rust out, go figure. well one night i am hanging out with some friends and as a joke i was gonna race this honda. well we make a few pulls up the local strip and we come to this one light. Well i was very ready for this light. holding it right at 2500rpm and as soon as the light started to dim to turn green i droped that clutch. Right after that moment the car got ear piercing loud. I didn't really think much about it for about 500feet and i look back to see my muffler on the ground and 3 cars had ran over it. I was laughing so hard and all i could thing was holy S#$t. so we go and pick it up and to this day i get made fun of about it.

After that we went through the gettysburg pa in the middle of tourist season and we would go through the squire toward steinware ave, drop it into first and scare the s#$t out of people as we bounced it off the rev limiter. it was quite the experience as the car would back fire, and flames would shoot out the back.

Another time in my red 318is i bought i thought i would be a funny guy with my friend. Well i live in the middle of no where. nearest neighber is over 1/2mile away. well i come to this stop light at this four way. i slowly cross the street still in first and dump the clutch and get on the brake. im sitting there just ripping up these tires and then out of know where my car stats bouncy off the rev limmiter and the tires stop turning. At this point i am paniking. so i go and get the four wheeler, install the nice little tow hook for the front and i tow it up the hill, with my buddy driving the car. i get it up the hill and into my driveway to find that i ripped the diff out of the subframe and snapped both axles. all i could do was laugh so hard and think holy s@#t this is crazy. so i ending up putting 2 axles in. haha good times.

[mulletman]

When I was 16 or 17, I was doing sweet drifts in my 2WD Toyota truck with an open diff. I managed to pick a narrow road with an off-camber corner that drops down a hill at the same time.... I crossed over both lanes, and went through the ditch on the other side of the road. I nailed a mailbox, the truck bounced off the top of a stump that was hidden in the ditch, and ended up running through a chain link fence. I had to get towed out. The only non-cosmetic damage was a punctured tire!

I still have that truck, by the way. It was the first car I've ever had, and it's been awesome. It's also been airborne a few times and used as a projectile to slam through big piles of snow.

[flyboyx]

This thread is great. I havent done a bunch of stupid shit yet.. but I do turn 18 soon.. Ill do something big then

Duct tape idea is awesome, will report back how it works for me!

you should do it now and get it out of your system. that way when you turn 18, it will be expunged from your record.

[lambo]

I don't think I have done anything stupid...yet...