What's The Worst Place That You've Ever Broken Down In Your Car/Vehicle? Share Your Breakdown Tales

[Draggletail]

1 minute ago, cressida said:

Coming home from Southport,  car stopped on a long road,  terraced houses,  the man came out and invited the five of us into his house,  phoned AA for us,  I remember sitting on a long settle,  we were only kids - what stars that couple  were,  never forgotten it.

Nice memory, nice people that helped you. No mobile phones back then. I remember putting my head into the emergency phone box on Junction 36 to get help, the noise and proximity of ongoing traffic, I could hardly hear the conversation. Two days later I bought my first mobile phone.

[Draggletail]

10 minutes ago, Norbert said:

Car electrics went dead just as we started coming down Blue Bank the long steep 1in5 hill into Sleights nr Whitby. Brakes didn't work right and we white knuckled it all the way to the bridge over the river at the bottom, which as it happens is where our holiday let was. A local garage which looked like something from the 1940's got it fixed for us.

Lucky escape and very good fortune having a garage to sort the problem out at the end. A 'you couldn't make it up' sort of moment' 

[Annie Bynnol]

    M1/M6 Junction Northbound, hit large plastic barrel containing fuel.

    Stopped under M6 overbridge. Emergency telephone and mobile u/s because of traffic noise, traffic cameras could not see us under the M6 overbridge.

     No possibility getting off the motorway and HA patrol could not find us.

     Thank goodness for the hard shoulder.

[echo beach]

End of July 1966. Three mates and me set off in my NSU car for a fortnight camping on the Costa Brava.

Cue singing “We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two” just like Cliff and his Shadows……..but the shadows were looming closer than we imagined.

All went well until we reached Carcassonne when the head gasket blew. Into a garage. First delay and unforeseen expenditure.

Eventually fixed we reached our destination and had a brilliant holiday climaxing with watching England beat West Germany in the World Cup final in a hotel bar full of Germans.

But all good things must come to an end and so we set off back to Boulogne but only reached a small village south of Orleans when the head gasket blew again.

Second unscheduled stop. The next day I thumbed a lift into the city in a Citroen corrugated tin van with a French family and numerous farm animals.

Having arranged for the car to be recovered and repaired I hitched back in a Cadillac with a coloured American GI who was based locally.

Off we set again, broke and late for the ferry.

Eventually reaching Blighty we were on the homeward stretch but you guessed it just as we reached Watford Gap services it was third time unlucky. Same problem.

A quick ‘phone call home brought the rescue party of a mate’s dad and mine.

Towed back to Sheffield up the M1 which only reached Nottingham and then on the ordinary roads. 
I was the only driver, was so tired that I fell asleep at the wheel and ran over the tow rope.

At that point my mate’s dad took over driving.

Brilliant German engineering? Vorsprung  Durch Technik my posterior!

Not so much a holiday as an unforgettable adventure.😆

 

echo.

[Al Bundy]

Rush hour, Clapham Common on the massive roundabout in my old Triumph Dolomite. It caused chaos, it even made it onto the travel news on local radio.

 

I sold it not long after!

[carosio]

I was halfway down the Huddersfield slip-road which joined the M62 West in my Cortina 2litre GXL Mk3, when I saw smoke billowing out from the bonnet. What made things worse was that I was towing a 24ft 4-wheel trailer with a huge diesel sea boat on it (you could do that in those days). I pulled into the hard shoulder, whipped the bonnet open and saw a glowing red-hot cable connected to the battery, I grabbed it with bare hands and ripped it away.

 

The day before I had changed the headlight bulbs and it seems I hadnt located the holder correctly in the headlight, it had fallen out and the live pin had somhow connected to earth and short-circuited through the supply wire, but had not blown the fuse. I was carrying some spare cable so made a running repair, and carried on to my destination in South-West Scotland.

 

 

[Padders]

9 hours ago, echo beach said:

End of July 1966. Three mates and me set off in my NSU car for a fortnight camping on the Costa Brava.

Cue singing “We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two” just like Cliff and his Shadows……..but the shadows were looming closer than we imagined.

All went well until we reached Carcassonne when the head gasket blew. Into a garage. First delay and unforeseen expenditure.

Eventually fixed we reached our destination and had a brilliant holiday climaxing with watching England beat West Germany in the World Cup final in a hotel bar full of Germans.

But all good things must come to an end and so we set off back to Boulogne but only reached a small village south of Orleans when the head gasket blew again.

Second unscheduled stop. The next day I thumbed a lift into the city in a Citroen corrugated tin van with a French family and numerous farm animals.

Having arranged for the car to be recovered and repaired I hitched back in a Cadillac with a coloured American GI who was based locally.

Off we set again, broke and late for the ferry.

Eventually reaching Blighty we were on the homeward stretch but you guessed it just as we reached Watford Gap services it was third time unlucky. Same problem.

A quick ‘phone call home brought the rescue party of a mate’s dad and mine.

Towed back to Sheffield up the M1 which only reached Nottingham and then on the ordinary roads. 
I was the only driver, was so tired that I fell asleep at the wheel and ran over the tow rope.

At that point my mate’s dad took over driving.

Brilliant German engineering? Vorsprung  Durch Technik my posterior!

Not so much a holiday as an unforgettable adventure.😆

 

echo.

Enjoyed reading that Echo, very amusing.

Quite a coincident, 3 head gaskets blown, and 4 head gaskets sat in the car...

[redruby]

Coming back via the scenic route from Manchester airport, the car broke down near a rather posh area much favoured by professional footballers.  It was Saturday early evening and the breakdown guy obviously cba and as it turned out incorrectly (or purposely) misdiagnosed the problem. For some bizarre reason he took us a mile or from our car to a poncy pub restaurant type place so we could wine and dine whilst  we waited for a recovery vehicle to take us home.  Well the restaurant was shut and we heard nothing more about the recovery vehicle after some time waiting so called the breakdown company.  They didn’t seem to know what was going on but said they’d sent someone.  So we then had to walk the mile or so back down the narrow road with no footpath to car.  The recovery vehicle turned up, this was a different guy, he correctly identified the issue and got us home.  Note made to self never to use the breakdown service using a flag of a certain colour ever again.  

[Draggletail]

16 hours ago, Annie Bynnol said:

    M1/M6 Junction Northbound, hit large plastic barrel containing fuel.

    Stopped under M6 overbridge. Emergency telephone and mobile u/s because of traffic noise, traffic cameras could not see us under the M6 overbridge.

     No possibility getting off the motorway and HA patrol could not find us.

     Thank goodness for the hard shoulder.

Nightmare! How did it all work out in the end?

[Draggletail]

16 hours ago, echo beach said:

End of July 1966. Three mates and me set off in my NSU car for a fortnight camping on the Costa Brava.

Cue singing “We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two” just like Cliff and his Shadows……..but the shadows were looming closer than we imagined.

All went well until we reached Carcassonne when the head gasket blew. Into a garage. First delay and unforeseen expenditure.

Eventually fixed we reached our destination and had a brilliant holiday climaxing with watching England beat West Germany in the World Cup final in a hotel bar full of Germans.

But all good things must come to an end and so we set off back to Boulogne but only reached a small village south of Orleans when the head gasket blew again.

Second unscheduled stop. The next day I thumbed a lift into the city in a Citroen corrugated tin van with a French family and numerous farm animals.

Having arranged for the car to be recovered and repaired I hitched back in a Cadillac with a coloured American GI who was based locally.

Off we set again, broke and late for the ferry.

Eventually reaching Blighty we were on the homeward stretch but you guessed it just as we reached Watford Gap services it was third time unlucky. Same problem.

A quick ‘phone call home brought the rescue party of a mate’s dad and mine.

Towed back to Sheffield up the M1 which only reached Nottingham and then on the ordinary roads. 
I was the only driver, was so tired that I fell asleep at the wheel and ran over the tow rope.

At that point my mate’s dad took over driving.

Brilliant German engineering? Vorsprung  Durch Technik my posterior!

Not so much a holiday as an unforgettable adventure.😆

 

echo.

What an adventure and life experience! Shame about the three blown head gaskets. I had it happen to me, twice with the same vehicle. I think it's quite common, the mechanics aren't interested in what caused the head gasket to blow but are happy to do the repairs. Maybe it's not possible to pin down the exact cause.