What's the worst deathtrap you've ever driven on the road?

[mercrocker]

Not really death trap material but I did patiently wait one afternoon whilst a mate drained the oil on his MkIV Zodiac before doing my own oil change on a Mk1 Mini - with his old oil. Left the filter on as I couldn't afford that either.....

Mind you I crashed the bloody thing before it got a chance to fuck the gearbox or run a bearing...

[Warren t claim]

Not really death trap material but I did patiently wait one afternoon whilst a mate drained the oil on his MkIV Zodiac before doing my own oil change on a Mk1 Mini - with his old oil. Left the filter on as I couldn't afford that either.....

Mind you I crashed the bloody thing before it got a chance to fuck the gearbox or run a bearing...

One of my old neighbours used oil scavenged from the local tip in his BX diesel.

[Hooli]

Not really death trap material but I did patiently wait one afternoon whilst a mate drained the oil on his MkIV Zodiac before doing my own oil change on a Mk1 Mini - with his old oil. Left the filter on as I couldn't afford that either.....

Mind you I crashed the bloody thing before it got a chance to fuck the gearbox or run a bearing...

One of my old neighbours used oil scavenged from the local tip in his BX diesel.

As fuel or for the engine?

[Warren t claim]

Not really death trap material but I did patiently wait one afternoon whilst a mate drained the oil on his MkIV Zodiac before doing my own oil change on a Mk1 Mini - with his old oil. Left the filter on as I couldn't afford that either.....

Mind you I crashed the bloody thing before it got a chance to fuck the gearbox or run a bearing...

One of my old neighbours used oil scavenged from the local tip in his BX diesel.

As fuel or for the engine?

The engine. Only the finest Repsol gas oil went into the tank.

[SubPar]

I once drove a couple of miles on a completely destroyed wheel bearing.

My first car, a Peugeot 306, had a noisy left rear wheel bearing so I was on my way to a mate's house to fix it, as he had a garage we could work in. About 2 miles away it completely gave up. The wheel (and entire brake drum) was wobbling around so much the tyre was hitting the arch liner.

I limped it the last couple of miles veeery slowly then when we took the wheel off and undid the 32mm nut on the stub axle, bits of bearing just landed on the floor with a lovely tinkling noise.


Before that, when I passed my test in 2005, I was let loose on the roads in the farm workhorse Series 3 Land Rover! Yes, continuing that theme!
The thing needed about an eighth of a turn each way on the wheel to keep it straight (so not as bad as some mentioned in here already) and the brakes were horrific. All round drums with seemingly no servo assistance. I'm not a large guy, so I would regularly stand so hard on the brake pedal I'd lift myself off the seat and still be praying to any deity that listened that it would stop. The fucking thing somehow had an MOT too.
I also remember replacing the passenger footwell with a bit of pop riveted and siliconed in aluminium sheet. Legit farmyard repair!

[Hooli]

I once drove a couple of miles on a completely destroyed wheel bearing.

That's reminded me of a good'un!

My Suzuki SJ410. I'd been green laning around Dorking in it, there used to be a surprising number of tracks around there you could drive. The OSF wheel bearing had given up & was making a hell of a noise so I was driving it home carefully at 35-40mph down the A24, trying to get back to Worthing.

Got to just before Buck Barn traffic lights & the OSF wheel locked solid without further warning. Obviously the car swerved right rather quickly & would have rolled except I had the sense to stamp on the brakes & lock the other front wheel to match. I ended up half on the central reservation & had to force it to crawl the rest of the way off the road. Bloody lucky nothing was beside me at the time really.

I fitted a worn wheel bearing I had in the boot as an emergency spare & drove it home. Then fitted a new wheel bearing once I got one.

[59Impala]

I think that my first car wasn't actually a deathtrap but probably wasn't far from being one. Back in 1972 I passed my test (where did 50 years go?) and I only wanted an Anglia 105E. Armed with my 90 quid budget I went looking for one with my dad driving me around in the Mk3 Cortina. Most of them (well all really) were heaps of shit but we went to look at a grey 1962 Deluxe which didn't look too bad. My dad had a look, did a test drive and said I could buy it which I did for 90 quid. Well it turned out that it wasn't as nice as it looked. The first indication was when I noticed that the windscreen leaked on the passenger side so I lifted up the lovely patterned household carpet to discover a hole in the floor, not a huge one but still a hole. Then whilst at a friend's I thought the OSR tyre had a puncture so got the jack out, started to jack it up and nothing happened except crunchy metal noises. Sigh. Anyway it turned out that the tyre just needed air which was good as my friend said that your spare wheel is for a 100E. Luckily back then there was a free supply of spare parts from dumped cars and vans so one was liberated. Then we noticed that there was a large-ish plate bolted to the left side of the boot floor, yep it was a repair* for the rotten spring hanger. Then the exhaust broke in half etc etc. To its credit it took all the abuse an idiot 17yo me could throw at it and it was reliable but one day I came home from work and my parents, evidently worried about me killing myself in the Anglia, told me that they had bought me a car. That's nice I said what is it? A 1968 Mk2 Cortina 1300. We got you a loan for it so in fact I had apparently bought a newer car without knowing or being consulted about it. Another sigh. Naturally soon after purchase the Cortina lost its brakes when the master cylinder died, that was fun.