When i was a kid i was walking home from school one day, I hear this
awful sound in the street next to me and see a fairly full gas tank,
sloshing out gas, sliding along behind a clapped-out old station wagon
which soon came to a halt with the gas tank not far behind (which for
some reason did not blow up). I am standing there watching this
spectacle, the woman gets out of the car, walks back and looks at the
gas tank and looks at me, and says, "Did I lose my gas tank?" So, I was
maybe 12 or so, but had the presence to reply, "Yeah, sure looks like
it." She says to me ( a 12yo), "What should I do?" and I say, "Looks
like you probably need a ride and a new car." (I was a smartass even
then) She just looked at me and walked off, as did I.
On a more personal note, yesterday my wife and I were doing errands in
the Suburban. After going a few miles, one rear brake starts grinding
like crazy. I ask her if she has noticed that sound (she mostly drives
the Suburban) and she says maybe but she doesn't know what various
sounds are. OK. I asked if she had noticed anything else, she said she
had smelled something that was like a burning smell at some point. I
did not even ask why she had not mentioned this. We get to our
destination, I look at the brake disc, sure enough it is really hot and
ground down, brake caliper seized. I had redone the brakes a coupla
months ago when the other side seized (I think it was the rear too, will
have to check), guess I should have done both calipers. Now, another
set of pads and another new caliper...
--R (who has in the intervening years learned through aversion therapy
not to be much of a smartass to my wife)
On 11/7/14 2:22 PM, Randy Bennell via Mercedes wrote:
My wife saw something similar this last week. She saw a car with the
passenger front wheel wobbling back and forth about 6 inches and the
passenger leaning out the window, half out of the car, trying to see
why the car was shaking. This was in the city and I assume the driver
must have clobbered a curb quite hard.
A few years back my sister in law came over and once in the house,
asked if I would look at her car as it seemed odd on the drive over
from her place. It was a Maza 626 so still a rear drive.
The rear driver's side tire was so flat it was off the rim. I jacked
it up and had to use a rope wrapped around the middle and twisted to
get it back on the bead so that I could re-inflate it.
She is also the one who parked that car in her parking spot and then
the next time she backed it out of the parking spot, it acted odd. It
would only turn in the one direction and not in the other. She called
her brother to ask him to look at it. He did and discovered that the
steering box was no longer attached to the frame. The car was so rusty
that the uni-body frame had disintigrated where the box mounted.
That was a blue car. She later had a brown one that was the same year
and model. There was no floor left in it by the time she gave it up.
She had 2X4s lenthwise under the driver's seat so that it would not
fall out onto the road. I was concerned that she might literally go
through the floor if she hit a bad pothole or rough railway tracks and
kill herself.
That is long ago and she has a good job and a new vehicle now.
RB
On 07/11/2014 1:12 PM, Mitch Haley via Mercedes wrote:
Curt Raymond via Mercedes wrote:
Most people are clueless. I bet you take a glance at the car when
you get in, a coworker drove to work with a tire so soft that when
she hit a speed bump it came off the rim.
Some people seem to work at being clueless.
I noticed the car in front of me on the freeway ramp had a ferocious
wobble in the driver's front wheel. (if you can see it from 100'
away, it's BAD)
I was going to pull alongside her on the freeway and try to get her
attention, but she outran me. I gave up at 65mph (55mph national
speed limit). Less than a mile later I saw her wheel bounce down the
median. Fortunately it didn't make ti into oncoming traffic. Her
brake lights would come on, there'd be a shower of sparks from the LF
brake disk, then she'd get off the brakes, then back on the brakes
and another shower of sparks...
Mitch.
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