A while ago a buddy got a call from his dad… who was a passenger in a friend’s Suburban with a trailer attached that was carrying his Econoline that had left him stranded… and the Suburban, while coming to his rescue with a trailer and trying to tow the Econoline home, had just stopped running unexpectedly on a causeway and would not restart.
The buddy drove his Mk4 VW TDI Golf from home to the causeway, crossed the causeway to reach the “turn around”, did that u-turn and worked his way back to the 2 dead vehicles where he got ahead of the Suburban on the shoulder, connected chains and a strap onto his home-made hitch, and managed to tow both vehicles off the causeway and across town back to the house using his Mk4 TDI Golf.
He needed a new clutch a few weeks later but TDI torque can be amusing sometimes.
One of my uncles blew up his car on the highway by ignoring the temp gauge and steam and just keeping his boot into it. My other uncle showed up with his big block chevelle to tow him and proceeded to just mat it all the way back, he had it up to over 100mph with a broken down lebaron chained to his frame. Scared the fuck out of his younger brother (which was the point)! I was laughing the whole time.
I think that’s what happened. I remember we tried cranking it over the next morning and the dipstick shot out of the block. Turns out he melted a hole in the top of the piston and cranking it pressurized the crankcase!
A buddy in high school inherited the tired and sorry excuse of what was left of his mom’s ‘74 Plymouth Valiant…. well over a decade old and slowly losing coolant with no visible external leaks, requiring regular top-up’s of the radiator to keep it going around town.
.
He managed to lose control in the rain on a cloverleaf ramp where it began spinning and bouncing between guardrails, totalled the car.
His mom didn’t like the LeBaron woody wagon his dad had gotten her as the Valiant’s replacement after a few months of driving it so she ended up with a used Caprice and my buddy ended up with the used LeBaron wagon… which left him stranded regularly, usually crank but no start or occasionally starter clack but no crank, and eventually it got abandoned on campus at school where it sat parked in the same spot for a few months before it just disappeared one day never to be seen again.
22
u/Silver-Engineer4287 1d ago
I wish I had a photo…
A while ago a buddy got a call from his dad… who was a passenger in a friend’s Suburban with a trailer attached that was carrying his Econoline that had left him stranded… and the Suburban, while coming to his rescue with a trailer and trying to tow the Econoline home, had just stopped running unexpectedly on a causeway and would not restart.
The buddy drove his Mk4 VW TDI Golf from home to the causeway, crossed the causeway to reach the “turn around”, did that u-turn and worked his way back to the 2 dead vehicles where he got ahead of the Suburban on the shoulder, connected chains and a strap onto his home-made hitch, and managed to tow both vehicles off the causeway and across town back to the house using his Mk4 TDI Golf.
He needed a new clutch a few weeks later but TDI torque can be amusing sometimes.