(click on image to view larger)Jennifer writes to us: Saw this at a hotel in Virginia. It's not a great photo but it says "DTH TRAP" - I used to have a similar car, so I can sympathize.
You know, I drove a car like this throughout my high school days (However, it wasn't a Mercedes). The air conditioning broke one week into owning it, and the windows would only go down if you stood outside of the car with your hands on opposite sides of the window and forced it down. The seat belt would randomly unhinge and fly off. The transmission would frequently stop working in the middle of driving. I had to drive it in reverse to the mechanic once, because that is the only gear that worked. It's like it was trying to kill me. I'm surprised it didn't light itself on fire at some point.
Anyone else ever drive a Death Trap?
15 comments:
My 1991 Cavalier burst into flames on the side of the freeway. Not fun.
My 1990 Ford Escort caught on fire in a mall parking lot, directly across the street from a police station. Got to ride home in a police car after that one. I think my second most memorable driving experience was overheating while waiting at the border crossing and having to push my car into Canada.
WV egrating: irritating online, as in "those blinking 'you're the 1,000,000th visitor!' sure are egrating."
Is that a '79 Mercedes? Because I have one of those! I've not had any problems in it-if anything, I feel safer in it than I have in any other car I've ever had. 1995 Mazda with the brake failure, I'm lookin' at you...
Ahhh... I had a car nick-named "The Brown Bomb". It was an AMC hatchback from the 80s. The driver seat was broken and had to be propped up with a 2x4 wedged into the back seat behind it. I'm sure that was safe. It regularly died at the intersection on the way to school each morning.
my '92 dodge spirit is currently sitting in the Lowes parking lot with the gear shift stuck in between neutral and D1. keys stuck in ignition. and parking brake on to keep it from rolling away. all of my stuff locked inside. luckily i have a spare key...but no spare vehicle. :(
this is 3 weeks after i had to replace the fuel line because it started spewing gasoline on the highway. but tow trucks in my area are plentiful, so it only took 10 minutes to get it towed to the shop...
looking for something new, now. i can't deal with fixing whatever's wrong because the car's only worth about $150 and i've already put half that much into it this month...and i doubt this time will only be that cheap...
fml
WV: beamm--as in "beam-me up scotty" because i have no other mode of transportation...
It's good to know I'm not the first to drive a death trap. Keep the stories coming. They're great!
My husband used to own a little orange car. Not sure of the make or model. All I remember is that he called it "the Flaming Carrot" for a darned good reason.
My first car was a '94 Cavalier. Not only did I have to buy a gallon of coolant a week, but I had my brake cylinders practically explode TWICE while driving. The car would not stop, even with the E-Break. I had to honk at people to get out of the way in order to make it home. Yikes!
Lauren F
No deathmobiles, but I have had a "Fill up the oil and check the gas" old klunker.
I had a 96 S-10 that did the same thing as the 2nd Annoymous' Cavalier did: it would always leak engine coolant into the cab and leave puddles of what looked like the liquid inside of a glowstick all over the passenger side.
I'm a bit late, but my first car was a bit scary, much as I loved it. (It was a Ford Contour...can't recall the year offhand). It had a short somewhere in the electrical system so it had a tendency to burn through batteries at an alarming rate. The dashboard came off twice. I think my mechanic finally super glued it down. Toward the end of my ownership of it, it picked up a fun habit of doing NOTHING when I pushed the gas pedal - which was quite hazardous when pulling onto the freeway or a busy street. Of course it would NEVER do that when I had it in the shop. I think they thought I was a compulsive liar...finally I decided it was time to sell and let it become somebody else's problem.
Now I have Adam Sandler's POS Car song stuck in my head. You Tube if you don't know the one I'm talking about...
Too mand POS cars to list. The best was the '82 Escort with electrical shorts, oil leaks and overheating issues. When I traded it in it had 2 nails in the front tire that must have been picked up on the drive over to the dealer...
Wow, not as bad as some...but my '97 Pontiac Grand Am (affectionately named "Alex") has recently been fond of breaking down practically each month...something different each time. I've had this car for two years, and so far we've fixed:
-front brakes
-rear brakes (about 3 months later...)
-coolant system
-random engine leaks
-gauges (speedometer, RPMs, etc, they just randomly stopped working one day...I ended up just buying gas when my light came on...that one was annoying)
-ignition (key got stuck in it...it turned out to be some electrical problem)
-misfiring pistons...twice...
and the check engine light randomly comes on. It usually goes off again, but it's annoying.
Fortunately, the car was free (inherited it from my grandmother when she moved from Illinois to New York), so it was semi-worth it to fix it...though we could have bought a decent used car at this rate.
I'm not complaining, because I have a car...and some of my friends don't. That bit, at least, is worth it.
I had I 1966 Ford Galaxie 500, with the 390 Engline.
Total death trap - fast as all get-out, but before they had power brakes. Considering it was 2 tons of steel (empty weight) once you got that sucker going it was all dandy until you had to stop...
...but on the plus side, my thighs were like ROCKS back then thanks to no power brakes. ;) It was like driving the ultimate thighmaster. SQUEEEE!
Tsk, tsk, ...surely you remember the Chevette (aka the Beast)? How can you top that? From its light switch ignition, hatch prop, and rod inserted in the gearing, to its "hollowed out to the springs" driver's seat and bald tires, it was a driving deathtrap. The odometer didn't work, the speedometer didn't work, dash lights were intermittent, the left turn signal was stuck, and the radio would only play one station. But strap a brick of shooting firecrackers to the hood and drive it down the main thoroughfare on the 4th of July or run into a flaming gingerbread house, it was a fun car!
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