Yesterday I told you I didn’t really know what day it was, and I wasn’t kidding. I’m not going to be able to write a real update today, I’m afraid. Sorry about that. My grandmother’s dementia didn’t kick-in until she was almost eighty… I think it’s starting a little early in my case.
I had a pretty good Question of the Day penciled in for this one. At least I think it’s good; sometimes it’s difficult to predict. I’d like to know: What’s the worst car you’ve ever owned? What was wrong with it? Why has it gone down in history as The Worst?
Mine, of course, was that rolling basket of turds known as the Chevy Blazer. Longtime readers lived through the nightmare with me. It was a total and complete hunk o’ junk. The repair costs were higher than the monthly payments, I think. The electrical system was jacked-up, from day one, and the engine gave me a lot of trouble too. And the thing was practically new when I bought it.
So, that’s my worst. What’s yours? And if you’ve never had a bad car (you fancy-pants bastard), just tell us about the worst car you’ve ever ridden in.
Also, I’ve watched the video at the other end of today’s Further Evidence link, roughly ten times. I find it to be hilarious, for some reason. I’d like to get your thoughts on it. Watch the fat guy in the blue and white striped shirt, he makes several appearances. UPDATE: I just found a longer version, with additional footage at the end, here.
And I’ll probably be back on Sunday. Have a great rest of the week, my friends!
My dad used to fix cars as a hobby. So, I would kind of hang around while he was fiddling under the hood of one car or another (this was in the 70’s, and the only car I remember “learning” anything about was a Buick Sklylark…go figure).
I also remember my Dad telling me in a very serious tone of voice: “Promise me…Don’t EVER buy a Ford. It stands for Fix Or Repair Daily”.
And so, I’ve never bought a Ford.
R.I.P, Dad. 9/8/1943 – 5/8/2003
I always heard it as “Found On Road Dead”.
…or in your rear view mirror, “Driver Returns On Foot!”
I found out the hard way. Always listen to dad!
F—ked on Race Day…
I know that these are reserved for people who have the brains to send Jeff an extra email but I came across this while cleaning my email.
From Roughly 11-10-08 according to the comments:
Nossy carried in a box of exotic beers, and we immediately broke into those babies, while the translucents raised a ruckus downstairs in the family room. Toney and I chose a pale ale each (forgive me, but I can’t remember what kind), and Eninen shared something that looked like a pub glass full of fresh-squeezed diarrhea.
Someone mentioned the short bus up a ways and it reminded me of an incident I experienced earlier in the day. I was rounding the corner inside the local community college when suddenly I was met with a gang composed solely of “special” kids. They were strutting down the hall like young toughs in a Pat Benatar video.
The leader wore a tight plaid shirt and his upper teeth were rocking a serious Frank Lloyd Wright cantilever. Rolling closely behind was his second in command, a five foot Fat Albert who was whipping around a yo-yo quite menacingly while his eyes went off in two different directions (which, when you think about it, makes his frenetic yo-yo-ing quite impressive).
The rest of the gang was a flurry of high waters, thick glasses, and bowling shoes. I wish I could be more descriptive but you see, the Yo-Yo of Doom was quite hypnotic. I kept thinking of GoGo Yubari and her deadly mace in Kill Bill. Thankfully they let me pass without employing the dreaded “Death by Duncan” maneuver.
And that was the highlight of my day.
Gretchen: You just made my day!
“…strutting down the hall like young toughs in a Pat Benatar video.” is quite possibly the best line I’ve read all week. Kudos, madam!
Seriously, they had rhythm! Granted for one or two of them it might have just been epilepsy. But yeah, I had “Love is a Battlefield” stuck in my head the rest of the day.
LMFAO!!!!
Worst ever was a 1988 Chevrolet Blazer. Bought it from a local dentist who had ALL the receipts from EVERY service and repair made on the vehicle. Hey, I thought the ream of paper he handed me just meant he couldn’t do the slightest bit of maintenance by himself. Little did I know that I was purchasing a car that was posessed by Satan!
Ironically, my favorite vehicle was a 1984 S-10 pickup, followed closely by a 1982 Pinto wagon that I drove for nearly 200,000 miles.
I currently drive a 2000 Dodge 4WD that has never let me downn, except for a broken power steering hose last winter, and a 2009 Toyota Matrix…which isn’t as bad of car as one would think to have in Nome, Alaska.
Only owned three cars:
’78 Mercury Cougar — a fucking land yacht that drank gasoline like I drink beer. Met a sad end at the hands of one of my cousins.
2003 VW Golf — maintenance nightmare but a nice car. The ex stole it when she took off.
1995 Ford F-150 — still have it, drives like a tractor but that’s how trucks should handle. Not the best thing for city driving, but I’m keeping the fucker. 6 cylinder, 5 speed manual transmission. Yee fucking haw.
Rat Bastard: 1995 Ford F-one-fitty. That’s what I want. Can be a little older too. Big tires, jacked up. Yeah..I’m a redneck…what of it? 🙂
Mine is total redneck, bikerchick…
Does that mean you have the “Cowboy Up” sticker in the back window! ***Giggle Snort***
An Irishman walks into a bar….
My worst car was an 82 Chevy Citation. Besides the fact that it had a vertical radio, it had a serious oil leak. It would sling oil all over everything under the hood. When I was stopped at a red light smoke would come from under the hood on all four sides.
If I sat there for an extended period of time, smoke would come through the vents. People would point and yell, you’re overheating. I would smile and wave, much to their confusion.
It did not like to idle. So I would have to keep one foot on the gas and the other on the brake to keep it running while idling.
I also had a 82 Chevy Chevette that went through starters every six months.
I know your pain all to well about the Citation. Did you know that Radio Shack was one of the only companies to make an after-market radio with cassette that fit the Citation? I kept burning out the “California Emmisions” control regulator.
Got nothing on the car question, but I wanted to comment on the ship video.
While in the Navy, we once were in a storm and a 4-drawer filing cabinet broke loose (it was welded) and started slamming around our main equipment room. It was too dangerous to go down there until the weather smoothed-out. I can only imagine what a fork lift slamming back and forth would be like!
My biggest POS was also my favorite car ever….
It was a 1983 Mustang GT, with the police interceptor engine in it. The interior was a nightmare the T-tops whislted and like Aqua’s 89 Mustang had bizzaro electrical issues until we figured out that the computer chip housing let the chipsets over heat, we put an after market “racing” chipset in it and solved that problem.
That car was amazing though. If you left it in first gear it would drive 15mph without even putting your foot near the gas pedal. You could roast the tires through 3rd gear. We even clocked a 26 second mile with the T-tops out on I-75 through the middle of Altanta. I will say this though, when you did get it over 100Mph it was scary. It felt like any minute the flux capacitor was going to engage and we would see the future either that or the thing was going to fly apart and leave you with the steering wheel and the seat.
I like a guy who knows how to burn his rubber….
is that before, during, or after sex? 🙂
I like a guy who knows how to burn his rubber…
f’n computer’s burnin rubber…Grrr
What do I think of the new reply to comments? I think I’ll let Mr Horse speak for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ3acvz5LfI&feature=related
So you believe that the cockroaches enter, but they cannot leave? :^)
We need a 4chan* style reply. Reply gets added to ‘the bottom’ with a reference link back to the replied to message. That an option Jeff?
*if yer sensitive, don’t visit 4chan. On second thought, what the hell, go for it.
Chuck did you feel a chill about an hour ago? That was me driving past belpre.
i saw the black cloud.
For 2 years of high school, I had ’78 Chevy Vega…turquoise with a black & yellow “racing” stripe.
At a stoplight going uphill on a wet road, I would stand on the accelerator & pop the clutch, & it still wouldn’t peel out. It would just lunge & lumber it’s way up to speed.
It was a hatchback though, so I could drive out in the woods, pop the hatch, & lay the back seat down to get my fuck on. Picking up girls in it was the hard part.
Back home for now and headed back to Cincy in a week or so. I’ll be commenting and commenting on comments “down here” as always. I like the commenting on comments commenting thing and to go back up to the repyl boxes thing and keep a commenting on comments thread going is…well..it.kinda falls into the “fuckit bin” for me.
If anyone has any idea of what I just wrote…please let me know. Airports, Airlines and Alcohol had me in therir grips yesterday and I’m now embracing one of the three.
You mean like this?
Fucking Tabernac…yeah…like that. Just because I do this once doesn’t mean I like it and is by no means a life style change.
It’s ok to be reply-curious now that don’t ask don’t tell has been ruled unconstitutional.
There’s no real harm in making replies and putting things in your ass.
The worst car I ever owned was a 1986 Chevrolet Chevette. Not only did it blow up, twice, it did a whopping 40 miles an hour down hill and was so ugly that the birds wouldn’t even shit on it.
I had an Oldsmobile Cutlass once. I paid $600 for it. The body color was tan but the front-end was green because it had been wrecked. Whenever you let off the gas it would die. Once while at a red light it died and I had to jump out and jiggle the cables to the battery to get it to start back up. In my haste I didn’t shut the hood good enough and it came flying up and smashed into the windshield while I was going down the highway. It was bent beyond repair so I just took the hood off and left the engine exposed.
One other time the belt broke and this lady stopped to help me. She gave me her pantyhose to use as a makeshift belt. It worked. I never did get a real belt, just used the pantyhose for the next several months.
That piece of shit used more oil than it did gas.
I had a brown 4 door Ford Escort hatch-back. It was diesel and a stick shift. We called it “brown lightning” as a joke. The only door that would open from the outside was the rear passanger door. And the fuel indicator was broken. It was a real crap shoot as to how far I could go without running out of fuel. Sometimes I’d stop at a gas station and after putting seventeen cents in the tank it would overflow. Other times it cost thirty bucks. I kept a milk jug full of diesel in the trunk just in case.
You couldn’t just start the thing up and go either. You had to hold the key in a certain position for what seemed like forever while the “plugs heated up”, whatever the fuck that means.
I had an AMC Hornet back during the ancient 70s. Can’t remember what year model it was,but I DO remember it was some godawful green color and had a manual transmission on the column. There was some issue with the driver’s side door opening from the inside. I have a great recollection of kicking the door open and then slamming so hard in a fit of car rage that the window shattered. I was one young, broke bitch so I had to drive like that until it finally died. As I recall, I left it where it quit and my Dad sold it for junk. God, I hated that car.
Oh. And the job I applied for (with 25 years experience) went to a recent Devry grad. Kid probably can’t tell a memory stick from a video card. Why do employers do that? An A+ cert is a fucking joke.
Yes, I’m bitter.
That fucking kid is a shitcock! I hope he gets zits and DDD breast. May he never feel comfortable taking off his shirt at the beach.
Chuck…get out your geetar and do some high test shredding. Play some blues and bark at the moon. You still know how to do that…right? The kid went from sucking out septic tanks to kissing asses. Fuck him and them.
Im a Volkswagen/Audi mechanic by trade, and I thought for sure there would be more than a few VW / Audi on this list. Glad thats not the case. V.A.G. products is all I’ve ever driven, The worst one of those was a 1987 Audi 4000. I dont remember how I got it , maybe part of a trade or maybe a $200 dollar special. The A/C never worked and one by one the windows quit working, It poured every fluid it had. Then the guages quit, I never felt like fixing it, I gave it to a friend who drove it for a few years with all the broke shit on it, I think he threw it away.
>V.A.G. products is all I’ve ever driven<
So you're not gay…
Vicki – my sister had a hornet and my brother owned a GREMLIN!!!! Pieces of tin…
Chuck – the Devry kid was probably just cheaper to which it sometimes just comes down. Hang in there bro’. Take it seriously but not personally. They’ve shown their thought process and decision making skills; you wouldn’t have wanted to work there anyways knowing how lacking they are in those two regards. F’em. Tough news Chuck but regroup and keep goin’.
The weather was bee-eee-eee-YOOTiful today.. so I finally mowed the lawn… if you know what I mean…
I had the sheep eat the lawn if you know what I mean. I gave it a little trim if you know what I mean. I paid attention to the patch… I gave the mower a push… I did some ‘scapin’ …. I cleaned up around the bush… I made sure everything was nice and tidy if you know what I mean… I gave the growth the once over… I wanted it to look good for when people see it if you know what I mean… I spent a lot of time going back and forth… I made sure to work the area well…I wanted to make sure the back looked as good as the front if your know what I mean… I was really panting hard when i was working on it … at one point I had to take a break if you know what I mean… when it was done, I stood back and admired how it looked… if you know what I mean.
@hot fuzz – what do you mean?
My first vehicle was an ’94 Ford Bronco II. If it weren’t my first taste of real freedom, I probably wouldn’t have loved it so much.
After school, I would crank Queensryche or Maiden through my tape deck and try to maintain some kind of cool factor, all the while waiting for all my friends to pull away. This was so that none of them would see me pop the carb and pin the butterfly back with a clothespin, start the ignition and race back to the carb before it set my truck on fire. Take it to someone who knew what the fuck about its inner workings, though, and it would start every time, without so much as a spritz of starting fluid. No A/C and rusted like a sonovabitch, but I found a shade of Krylon spray paint that matched it perfectly, so every few months it was sand and spray time.
I had a ’78 AM General postal Jeep, which cost about $350 and I thought would make a nice backup. Despite having right-hand drive, no air OR heat, “backbreaker” seat belt, a horrifying amount of play in the steering wheel and only one seat, it at least had the decency to start Every. Fucking. Time. Even if it gets about 3 MPG (straight 6 w/ 2-barrel carb) with about 400,000 miles logged, it is still up for farm-related duties to this day.