Broken Cars

[molehill]

Anyone else suffering "Mechanical Mulfunctions" on their vehicles due to the cold?

One car wouldn't start as battery quickly faded to nothing this morning. A battery I put in new 4 weeks ago and we both thought wasn't as strong as it should have been - a dud in other words

Took out battery (in -16c) put in boot of other car, dig car out of snow and get it onto road. 200yards and knackered with frozen deisel. Abandoned in farm entrance down the road.

What next????

[Alf]

The electrics on my wife's car started playing up. The speedometer stopped working then the ABS light came on (not normally a problem as standard braking is still there) but then the brake light came on with the ABS which means stop immediately as your whole braking system has failed They had been running fine up to that point so switched everything off and cleared all slush from round wheels switched on engine and gave the wheels a good spin and all lights went off and speedo started working again with no further problems since. I think it was maybe salty slush build up behind wheels and brakes causing contact problems?.

[mr brightside]

My winter car is a Volvo 240glt with the Bosch K-Jetronic mechanical fuel injection which is one of the most reliable systems around, however the fuel metering head freezes up somehow if the temp goes below -5. The freezing point of petrol is -60 so there must be a small amount of condensation in the system somewhere. I have to pour a watering can of hot water over it to get it running. The freezing point of diesel is around -9.5 so hot water may help also.

[Boy Wonder]

Brokenn drive shaft in the Batmobile on New Years Day - don't think I can blame the cold, more like the 140,000 previous miles! At least it was only 10metres from home, rather than 10 miles

[IanDarkpeak]

Brokenn drive shaft in the Batmobile on New Years Day - don't think I can blame the cold, more like the 140,000 previous miles! At least it was only 10metres from home, rather than 10 miles

We had the "Engine Management warning light" pop up on the way home from France last week. Quick check of leads and turned car on and off No joy. Read the cars bible and it said it was an emmissions problem. Advised caution and drive slowly.

We dropped the car in at the local garage after 500 miles at 70-80mph. Garage found no fault and presumed the very cold temps in the alps caused the problem.

[dominion]

Someone at work said yesterday that they needed to get their car into the garage as the windscreen washer wasn't working....

[Wheeze]

We had the "Engine Management warning light" pop up on the way home from France last week. Quick check of leads and turned car on and off No joy. Read the cars bible and it said it was an emmissions problem. Advised caution and drive slowly.

We dropped the car in at the local garage after 500 miles at 70-80mph. Garage found no fault and presumed the very cold temps in the alps caused the problem.

Alpine driving is fun ain't it? We had the joy of a snapped snow chain which thrashed around in the wheel arch neatly severing the brake/abs/esp cable. The dashboard lit up like a christmas tree forcing a halt on a busy main street on a hill in the middle of town....at 5pm!
Scrabbled around in the dark and slush trying to free the chain and assess the damage, got swore at by locals who assumed I had stopped in the middle of the road to put the stoopid things on!!!...got the chain off eventually and ascertained that, thankfully, the flexible brake hose had survived and then limped on with one snow chain and one madly spinning wheel. Joy!

Hey Moley, bet its been REAL brass monkeys in Tylwch!

[Trimm Trab]

Thanks to the Japanese's obsession with making sportsbikes as small and light as possible, the battery on my GSX-R would probably be better suited to a wristwatch than an internal combustion engine. I thus expected it would be as dead as a dodo after I'd left it for two weeks in the bitter cold over Xmas and new year...but it started first time! Was pleasantly surprised at that. However I bought a car today and despite a thorough inspection and test drive, I now think I might have bought a dud, so swings and roundabouts.

[Wheeze]

Now then TT, a proper northern lad like you should never be seen on anything less than Norton Commando or a BSA A65...guaranteed to start when that jap-crap will have rusted away to dust! Damn sewing machines!

[JohnK]

To date my Classic mini has given no problems on the 40 mile round trip to work
Good simple no technology motoring , can`t beat it.

ROVER would still be with us today if they had bought the mini up to date, and did a re -market instead they flogged the name to BMW, who build a nasty complicated pretender that bears no resemblance to the real thing.

My wifes renault threw a wobbler this week though on her 4 mile commute, which not suprisingly baffled the Technicians with the car on the expensive Diagnostics Machine for 2hrs before a Faulty key Blip was diagnosed so a three figure bill for a new key and recode, what a total and utter con modern characterless cars are.