Longest you went without doing that repair...

[Railrust]

I've met some curious car owners over the years, people that will easily drive 50,000 miles with a component failing/failed. I'm not talking "dangerous" - although I guess any neglect can be dangerous - I'm talking...hey I'm going to drive it till the wheels fall off...then 50,000 miles later that little noise they were hearing, ends up being a transfer case that they let run bone dry (and to the tune of a $2,500 repair). And that same guy once asked me if he could just disconnect the driveshaft and drive around with the rear wheels instead (it was a primarily front wheel drive AWD vehicle). And I just changed the spark plugs in this thing...161,000 miles, original plugs, misfire....intake had to come off. The gap on these plugs were probably 120 thousands of an inch. He wisely decided to change all of the coils back there while we were in there.

I did once see a guy take his brakes to the limit...guy came in and said...I've been using my e brake to stop my truck...then he says...when that doesn't work I've been hitting small trees to slow it down. Truth. There was no pads left. Gone. Caliper pistons were stopping the truck. The pistons themselves were halfway worn, the rotor fell apart in two pieces...one part looked like a skinny little Frisbee, the other was worn through the cooling fins. Now this obviously was a dangerous situation.

But I do find these "tests" of vehicle maintenance/durability interesting. I've seen some cars and trucks be able to go years with serious neglect. And on the flip side I've also seen owners that will replace anything and everything when it shows to tinniest bit of wear or noise.

What's the longest you've gone without doing that repair? How well did your vehicle hold up?

 

[CharBaby]

I have one BIL that never fixes anything on his cars unless it absolutely needs to be fixed in order to drive the car, or to pass state vehicle inspection. If the car starts and runs, he's good to go. And he buys nice cars too. The upper end of Toyota(Camry/Avalon) or Nissan(Murano's) or Lexus, BMWs.

He once said to me(jokingly) "that you fuss too much over my vehicles".

I said back to him, "I know, I know, your cars are just an appliance to you".

He replied with, "they're not even that, they're no more than a wheelbarrow to me".

 

[NYEngineer]

My stepson is the king of that. He called me last Friday afternoon asking where to put antifreeze in his car. He was minutes away from leaving for a five hour trip. I asked how much he added. He said about 3/4 of a gallon. I said don't you think maybe you should figure out where it's going before you drive five hours upstate and back? Nope. Gotta go,. I absolutely can't believe he made it back. Car ended up needing a thermostat and water pump.

Couple years ago I was looking at something under his hood. I looked at his battery and asked what year was this car built? 2008. I said that's the ORIGINAL battery. You need to change that. He carried on and on about how I change things unnecessarily and have no idea what I'm talking about. Two weeks later, on Mother's Day, we had reservations someplace and he calls and says I need a ride. My car won't start. I said to him now, wouldn't it have been better to fix this at OUR convenience and not in an emergency?
He never learns.

Last winter, somehow I noticed his cooling fan wasn't coming on. I said you need to fix that. He says why? Then he called me an hour later from a car wash and says it was fine while driving along but went into the red while I was on line in the car wash. God bless him.

 

[joekingcorvette]

Yes, I know someone with a Buick that needs either a water pump or intake gaskets because I added almost a gallon of anti freeze to it. The car is driven about 1,000 miles a year and the owner doesn't really want to fix it due to being elderly and doesn't really care.

 

[Railrust]

Originally Posted by NYEngineer
My stepson is the king of that. He called me last Friday afternoon asking where to put antifreeze in his car. He was minutes away from leaving for a five hour trip. I asked how much he added. He said about 3/4 of a gallon. I said don't you think maybe you should figure out where it's going before you drive five hours upstate and back? Nope. Gotta go,. I absolutely can't believe he made it back. Car ended up needing a thermostat and water pump.

Couple years ago I was looking at something under his hood. I looked at his battery and asked what year was this car built? 2008. I said that's the ORIGINAL battery. You need to change that. He carried on and on about how I change things unnecessarily and have no idea what I'm talking about. Two weeks later, on Mother's Day, we had reservations someplace and he calls and says I need a ride. My car won't start. I said to him now, wouldn't it have been better to fix this at OUR convenience and not in an emergency?
He never learns.

Last winter, somehow I noticed his cooling fan wasn't coming on. I said you need to fix that. He says why? Then he called me an hour later from a car wash and says it was fine while driving along but went into the red while I was on line in the car wash. God bless him.


Haha!

My brother in law had a Dodge Ram - he pulls up to my house and the thing is just whining like crazy - no power steering fluid, so I add some and tell him he needs a rack and a pump...a year later he pulls up and it's whining again...he never bothered to fix any of it. And he said his last oil change was 50,000 miles ago. The following year he pulled up in a new Toyota...I feel bad for that new toyota.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

1.5 years with bad A/C living in Houston Texas.

A temporary repair to the vacuum system which controlled the vents failed. I would have AC but when under throttle it would only blow through the defrost vents. I was finally able to scrounge up some extra cash to have it repaired but [censored] it was hot during that summer, running around in a suit trying to sell insurance as a 24 yr old.

 

[jeepman3071]

I have a friend with a 2001 Ford F-350 7.3 PowerStroke. The truck is rusting apart and has 270k+ miles on it. He said that for a few weeks he was getting really terrible fuel mileage. He brings the truck over and before he even parks it in my driveway I can smell diesel fuel. He had a trail behind him of fuel on the ground, and the entire engine bay, underneath, and sides of the truck were covered in fuel. Apparently a fuel line developed a pin hole and was spraying everywhere once the key was turned to the on position. I'm not sure how the truck didn't burn down, we figure he was driving like that for 2-3 weeks.

I try to address problems right away on my vehicles, because I drive an hour each way for work everyday, most of it back country roads. I also take road trips into the mountains where I'm usually far away from civilization or cell service. Breakdowns happen, and I prepare for them the best I can, but I'd rather not be stranded because of something I easily could have fixed or prevented.

 

[edwardh1]

my BIL never changes oil just trades every few years

 

[SeaJay]

Two types of drivers. Those who fix things before they are broke. And those who wait for things to break before fixing.

Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Some view a vehicle as a prize possession to fawn and fuss over. Others view a vehicle as a tool to do what they need it to do and nothing more. Each of these two types of drivers think that the other type are nuts.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I went about a year with a severely blown out exhaust manifold on my truck. cracked between 1 and 2, rotted completely out between 2 and 3 and the ear was broken off on 4 so the corner was completely gone.

I had a post on here about it , but as soon as it would hit closed loop, it would max out the fuel trim on bank 1 and run on 4 cylinders. I could smell the raw fuel on the passenger side. But it was always a pain , because it would start running on 4 cylinders right as I would start to hit US11 any time I drove it. I would have to sit for a minute or two trying to get it to run right, then it would figure itself out (assuming running on some sort of default strategy as emergency ?) and run okay.

It gradually got worse too. One of the times towing my Jeep to an off road park with it and got 4 MPG. Really had to have my foot in it because the AFR was way off and it was down on power. On one of the hills, my friend noticed the floor was getting really hot on his side.

 

[supton]

Had a friend in high school, we went somewhere and his truck started knocking. He pulled over and dumped in 5 or 6 quarts of oil. I was a bit surprised as he did this without checking the dipstick. When asked, he said that was what he did: when it started knocking, that was the sign it was low. He did that for 20k he said, no problems. I think he drove it for at least another year. Dodge 318, tough motors.

Dad's Astrovan had one of the plastic tanks on the radiator, and it started leaking. So he left the radiator cap loose, so it wouldn't develop pressure, and that slowed the leak down. Few years later, on a long drive I got to be the one to replace it, far far from home.

My old Jetta had one of the cooling fans go out, it was dead for a couple years at least, but since it didn't overheat, and the a/c still worked, I felt no compunction to replace. Sold it that way too. Towards the end I stopped fixing things as I knew the end was nigh.

 

[Dave Sherman]

I probably went a couple months with a bad thermostat. Car ran fine, never overheated. No temperature gauge, so I had no indication anything was wrong. Never triggered a check engine light either, but this was an OBD 1 so maybe it wouldn't have. It was actually when I noticed the torque converter locked and unlocked, seemingly at random. Then I started noticing the heater wasn't very warm when we got into the colder months. When I got stuck in a line at a tollbooth, the heater went from barely warm to sauna level, and when I pulled away the torque converter worked normally. Then the heater cooled down again and the torque converter unlocked. Say, I think I know what's happening now...

 

[Pew]

I went approximately 8 months while car was hitting boost cut (~33psi on stock 3-bar MAP sensor). Engine popped after that, got a new engine, didn't get a retune, and the second engine popped about 6 months after that again.

Learned fast.

 

[Alfred_B]

When you drive a German car, it is prudent to leave one item broken and not fixed. Because the moment you fix everything, something else will break.

 

[WyrTwister]

Originally Posted by NYEngineer
My stepson is the king of that. He called me last Friday afternoon asking where to put antifreeze in his car. He was minutes away from leaving for a five hour trip. I asked how much he added. He said about 3/4 of a gallon. I said don't you think maybe you should figure out where it's going before you drive five hours upstate and back? Nope. Gotta go,. I absolutely can't believe he made it back. Car ended up needing a thermostat and water pump.

Couple years ago I was looking at something under his hood. I looked at his battery and asked what year was this car built? 2008. I said that's the ORIGINAL battery. You need to change that. He carried on and on about how I change things unnecessarily and have no idea what I'm talking about. Two weeks later, on Mother's Day, we had reservations someplace and he calls and says I need a ride. My car won't start. I said to him now, wouldn't it have been better to fix this at OUR convenience and not in an emergency?
He never learns.

Last winter, somehow I noticed his cooling fan wasn't coming on. I said you need to fix that. He says why? Then he called me an hour later from a car wash and says it was fine while driving along but went into the red while I was on line in the car wash. God bless him.


Can not fix stupid . :-(

 

[Railrust]

Originally Posted by SeaJay
Two types of drivers. Those who fix things before they are broke. And those who wait for things to break before fixing.

Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Some view a vehicle as a prize possession to fawn and fuss over. Others view a vehicle as a tool to do what they need it to do and nothing more. Each of these two types of drivers think that the other type are nuts.


I'll tell you what, you're absolutely right. I've seen both and both have their pluses and minuses. I definitely lean towards over maintaining my vehicles, but sometimes you still get burned and wonder why you're engine is burning a quart every 1,000 miles, when you've always always changed the oil every 5,000 miles using a high quality synthetic.

But I'll always over maintain...I actually tend to enjoy it for some reason. I think it's because I like to think I had a hand in keeping my car running longer (and better).

 

[javacontour]

I have to raise my own hand and say I missed the failing tie rod on my 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis...

Fortunately, it happened at the end of my driveway, so I finagled the car back up there and replaced both ends and the adjusting sleeve as it was so rusted as to make alignment almost impossible.

Then I took it to my local mechanic and had them check out the rest of the car. I'd had the idler arm in my garage for a few months, but I missed that the tie rod end was getting ready to go. So my mechanic replaced that, and both upper ball joints. The lowers were fine according to the shop, so we'll do that some other time.

The car only has 103k on it, but it's 20 years old.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted by javacontour
I have to raise my own hand and say I missed the failing tie rod on my 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis...

Doah!

This spring I went to do a tire rotation and found a busted sway bar end link. I had spent the last month thinking that my car was leaning a lot in the turns--but it's a Camry, they just do that, right? Go figure, with a new set of links it started cornering better.

 

[Railrust]

Originally Posted by supton
Had a friend in high school, we went somewhere and his truck started knocking. He pulled over and dumped in 5 or 6 quarts of oil. I was a bit surprised as he did this without checking the dipstick. When asked, he said that was what he did: when it started knocking, that was the sign it was low. He did that for 20k he said, no problems. I think he drove it for at least another year. Dodge 318, tough motors.

Dad's Astrovan had one of the plastic tanks on the radiator, and it started leaking. So he left the radiator cap loose, so it wouldn't develop pressure, and that slowed the leak down. Few years later, on a long drive I got to be the one to replace it, far far from home.

My old Jetta had one of the cooling fans go out, it was dead for a couple years at least, but since it didn't overheat, and the a/c still worked, I felt no compunction to replace. Sold it that way too. Towards the end I stopped fixing things as I knew the end was nigh.

I had a side tank leak on me once...JB Welded it and it never leaked again. JB Welded a gas tank once too, three years later it's still going strong.

 

[brages]

I had 1998 Ranger and I replaced the light bulbs behind the instrument panel, but I never bothered to do the ones behind the climate control.

I replaced it with a 1997 and I fixed the bulbs a couple of weeks ago for its climate control. I am starting to hate when little things are messed up, especially stuff that easy to fix.

I had a 1998 Accord and one row of climate lights lit up, but the lower row didn't. I knew the identities of the three buttons without looking, and I never fixed it.

I just replaced climate bulbs on our 2010 Odyssey. Sunroof switch needs new bulbs too, though.

Our old 06 Odyssey had a dome light in the back that you had to whack pretty hard to get to turn on sometimes. But I fixed that on our 2010 (just needed a new bulb).

There's a pattern here, I guess?




I had a 1986 Jetta Diesel and it had leaky axle seals. Never fixed em, and it lost enough transmission fluid to kill the synchros for third gear. Worked fine if you double-clutched, though.

I've become much more of a keep-things-fixed person, though. If you neglect the little stuff, after a few years, you have a dozen little things wrong.