Awkward

[325_driver 422]

Alright, so after the rangi mod thread i guess i find my self writing this, because i ask my self "there is no way in hell any one else would find them selves in this situations"

For instance, there have been plenty of instances, that im sure all e30 drivers have come to understand, e.g. towing, awkward break downs, and the places you never thought possible the car would come screeching to a halt.

For those people that live in tauranga, there is a turn off to tauriko crossing a passing lane / merging lane onto a state high way. And i was unlucky enough while towing my brother home in his e30 for the tow rope to break mid crossing. So after curbing the 4X4 in a seriously awkward place, running back over the state highway to push the e30 across the state highway to a safe location !

What i find astonishing, is that the people driving along the highway who could clearly see this, didnt slow down, they just keep driving, if not faster.

There have been plenty more breakdowns off memory, but i think it would be entertaining to hear some other awkward situations others have been in.

[huff3r 347]

Ok hows this then.

Xmas eve 2008, driving the E30 up to Opunake from Wellington. The traffic is backed up at the passing lanes at Mackays crossing/just before 'pram. I get to the merge where im blocking both lanes of traffic and stall the car. It won't start. Batterys dead. Have to jump out, and in front of two HUGE queues of traffic push my car to the side of the road, and wait 1hr for the AA to come save me.

And for all that. The bolt on the battery negative terminal was missing, causing it to not charge properly.

Awkward much?

[Lucan 196]

Out on a date, was planning to go home with her but battery was dead....

[Braeden320 0]

About to drive off the car ferry onto Waiheke Island, Right at the front. Battery dead as a doorknob. Had a quite a few people get shitty.

Note: Batterys are very expensive on Waiheke Island

[melowpuf 19]

Not in an e30.. but driving home from Lyttleton through the tunnel.. get 3/4 of the way through and my van "ran out of diesel". luckily it was 2am and there was no traffic... rolled all the way back to lyttleton backwards...

Another time.. same van.. drove down a boat ramp along the beach a little bit.. talking away and one our conversations was.. what would you do if you got a flat battery right here right now?? (another 2am adventure). went to start up and well what do ya know.. ended up about 3 metres away from the water after our previously discussed plan of roll starting down the beach didnt work. No one in sight for a jump start.. hrmm ah there was a truck further up the hill.. no lights on in the house.. its a bit rude to wake them at this hour.. ill borrow the battery on the truck (every intention to return it after jump starting). ran back got a cresent, ran back up.. was about to start removing the battery and YAY a car is coming..

standing in the middle of the road shirtless waving them down with a big screw driver and cresent in my hands.. once the glare from the headlights faded.. oh its a Police car.. umm err "What are you doing??" welllll my van has a flat battery down on the beach and the tide is now about 1 metre away from its wheels I have come to borrow this battery to jump start it.. "You're what???".. umm I'm not a bad person really... "I think you better get in the back seat".. can we please go get my shirt from my van down on the beach?..

they drove me down to the beach and saw our predicament. The cop was like "whoahhhh how many tickets are we going to be writing tonight?? is it warranted and rego'd?" yes of course it is Couldnt get the patrol car down the side to put jumper leads on because the water was too close.. by this time another police car turns up to see what the commotion was.. YESSSS 2 police cars now.. the older cop gets out "hey I used to drive one of these back in the 80's as a Paddywagon"..

"Umm soo yeah do you want a tow truck to come pull you off the beach?" Ok, please sir. oh wait do you have a jump pack? I've seen them on motorway patrol.. "No the 'Sergeant??' has it tonight, I'll see if he's in the area" So a 3rd cop car with flashing lights and everything comes zooming down the road with a jump pack.. the water was touching the passenger side wheels by this stage.. walk around in the water.. lift the carpets up to get to the battery, Reliable "Mary" started first crank of the engine as per usual.. much to the amazement of the crowd of Police and I drive off the beach..

Lesson learnt.. when driving onto beaches at 2am take a spare battery..

Ducatiss might remember "Mary". I drove to his house in the middle of no where (Roxburgh) and towed an e30 back to Chch..

[kingkarl 136]

Our old boat trailer snapped a pretty major structural component leaving us stranded on a thin shoulder on one of the countries most dangerous state highways. We had to get in a spare trailer and roll the boat off of the broken trailer onto the road and then back onto the replacement trailer.

Balancing a boat on a couple of old tyres with cars whizzing past you about a metre away at 100k+ isn't that fun.

[_ethrty-Andy_ 2132]

crashed into a parked car outside school about a month after i got the E30. had been driving on tarmac and paddocks since i was 10 but always front wheel drives. not used to rear wheel drive and its obvious what happened there

Another time, also outside school this time right outside the principals office, the bolt on the brake caliper decides to come out and when i touch the brakes the caliper flicked up and ran a groove around this inside of one of my Hartges. Luckily there was an assembly first thing so noone knew about it except my mate who helped tome to mad mish it home to get the spare wheel (cant remember why it wasnt in the back of the car)

Also car wouldnt start after the wellington Bimmersport meet (not the most recent one), suspected it was the wiring for the auto selector (this was post manual conversion), and it was and started right up dont know if anyone noticed that haha

[ducatiss 1]

Yes, I do remember that van - it was quite a memorable van really lol

Ducatiss might remember "Mary". I drove to his house in the middle of no where (Roxburgh) and towed an e30 back to Chch..

[Cale 36]

Most relevant to this forum, was probably when my mighty M40 overheated on the Bimmersport ANZAC cruise a few years ago.

All ~30(?) cars park up in the paddock and I (along with everyone else) notice steam billowing from under my bonnet. Glenn said, "oh, so it was you who left the big trail of coolant back there..."

[antil33t 90]

I have this friend who likes to take pictures of my misfortune.

Also there was this time when my my car overheated going up the Southern Motorway (into Dunedin) and it was billowing out all sorts of smoke... Then chocolate sawce came out.

Oh, can't forget this one haha

Edited April 11, 2010 by antil33t

[325_driver 422]

Lesson learnt.. when driving onto beaches at 2am take a spare battery..

Ducatiss might remember "Mary". I drove to his house in the middle of no where (Roxburgh) and towed an e30 back to Chch..

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG !!!!! that brightens up my day, i have had similar predicaments with similar awkward factor, but it is so good to hear funny things like that.

there was a stage where i carried round sufficient tools in nearly every car to do a engine transplant, had the hoist folded up nicely, car jack, 2 X sizzor jacks, full tool kit. O and then when something finally does go wrong, flat tyre . . .. and the spare tyre had oddly gone missing

[325_driver 422]

Balancing a boat on a couple of old tyres with cars whizzing past you about a metre away at 100k+ isn't that fun.

Un

Be

Leiv

Able

[Wom 0]

I was taking this girl I was interested in for a hoon in my old Camry (yea real cool car, honest).

Was giving the car a bit of a trash over the rural back hill roads behind Upper Hutt (Whitemans - Mangaroa - Maymorn for any locals).

Get almost towards the end of the road and back to civilisation, when I notice that the temp gauge is rather high; I pull over and notice that there's a huge trail of coolant behind me, and a lot of steam coming out the bonnet.

We were stranded for an hour while I waited for the thing to cool down so I could drive her to the train station so she could get home.

How embarrassing

Edited April 12, 2010 by Wom

[39KiwiTouring 2]

Running out of pertorl on the Akl harbour bridge in my 77 EB1 civic automatic at 5.56pm on Friday night with no reg and the wof ran out on the Wednesday, lucky the black power were behind me in there beaten up old XE ute who just gave me the brutal bumper to bumper push, saved a ticket I suppose.

[Forrest 35]

Wrote off my old E30 in front of a bus stop/front of a high school just as the kids were leaving for the day, my biggest FML moment ever.

Also once had a babe in my old E30 parked up somewhere, had a mare and left windscreen wipers going, flat battery then had to explain to AA dude where I was in the middle of no where, took him 45 min to find me lol.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Hellpina

[antony 0]

^ lol, you should of got a mate to help, high fives all round.

Burning my face and hand trying to relieve pressure on the header tank and having to miss 2 weeks of uni was embarassing having to explain to everyone.

[3series 0]

stayed late at unitec, do get a decent load of my design assignment done, was pretty wrapped as it was due the following friday. Was about 9:30, pitch black, late night lectures had finished about 20mins earlier. Get to my car, the only one left apart from a charade sporting 3 wheels and a concrete block. Jump in the car, turn the key.... riiirrr rirrr rirrr..... dim lights... son of a b*tch!! ... was not pleased. Okay, turned off radio, made sure aircon was off, lights off, all that sorta thing. Rirrrrr rirrrrrrrrrr...... sh*t... okay.. so the carpark was on a bit of a camber, I thought okay, its an auto, this prob wont work.... but ... let it start rolling forward, started cranking as it was rolling and low and behold it started up... dont ask me how, I was shocked, drove home after, mustve charged on the way home as it started fine the next day.

[Guest Simon*]

We were stranded for an hour while I waited for the thing to cool down so I could drive her to the train station so she could get home.

How embarrassing

You could have put that hour to good use if you ask me

[e30ftw 410]

Used to be a pizza delivery boy. One time delivering out the back of Havelock north, I was cruising down the street trying to find the number. Pretty easy to find, odds on one side evens on the other. So It was on my side of the road so I was looking as the numbers go up and up then oopps went abit far just missed their driveway... So I popped it into reverse, reversed back to the house, half went up on their driveway and other half on the footpath... then BOOOM the back of the car dropped down and slammed to the ground. I was like WTF hopped out and looked behind me.. Oh what do ya know, I reversed abit too far

I textd for some help, Went in and gave them their pizza and then he came out and was like 'Ummmmmmmm, what have u done here?'. Open diff + back chassis liying on the ground and the wheel far from the ground meant it wasn't going Anywhere. And the downwards cliff was very steep to so I didn't like the guys idea of just reversing it back (with my mate and his tow rope) as the car probably would have slid to its doom.. So we ended up using like 2 car jacks alot of lifting, sitting on the back and heaps of wood under the wheel going back and forth trying to make a ramp but most of the time the wheel would flick the wood and send it flying off behind it. Eventually got there in the end though, After about an hour mucking around with it. Had to thank the guy for it and offered him the meal for free but he refused and said he was in need of a good workout before he digs into the pizza haha.

Edited April 12, 2010 by e30ftw

[HaNs 226]

Used to be a pizza delivery boy. One time delivering out the back of Havelock north, I was cruising down the street trying to find the number. Pretty easy to find, odds on one side evens on the other. So It was on my side of the road so I was looking as the numbers go up and up then oopps went abit far just missed their driveway... So I popped it into reverse, reversed back to the house, half went up on their driveway and other half on the footpath... then BOOOM the back of the car dropped down and slammed to the ground. I was like WTF hopped out and looked behind me.. Oh what do ya know, I reversed abit too far

I textd for some help, Went in and gave them their pizza and then he came out and was like 'Ummmmmmmm, what have u done here?'. Open diff + back chassis liying on the ground and the wheel far from the ground meant it wasn't going Anywhere. And the downwards cliff was very steep to so I didn't like the guys idea of just reversing it back (with my mate and his tow rope) as the car probably would have slid to its doom.. So we ended up using like 2 car jacks alot of lifting, sitting on the back and heaps of wood under the wheel going back and forth trying to make a ramp but most of the time the wheel would flick the wood and send it flying off behind it. Eventually got there in the end though, After about an hour mucking around with it. Had to thank the guy for it and offered him the meal for free but he refused and said he was in need of a good workout before he digs into the pizza haha.

We had a plumber do that one day in his ute, 500mm drop so back wheels where off the around. He chucked it in 4wd and dropped the clutch and it pulled it self back up! The edge of the concrete doesnt look too flash now.

[e30plz 1]

Used to be a pizza delivery boy.

Haha >_<

Reminds me of a delivery at night on a really steep driveway where I somehow forgot to put on the handbrake.

Sat down with my feet out the door to grab some change from the ash tray and accidentally hit it out of park into neutral. Went flying backwards hanging out the door, removing half their garden then over the top of the retaining wall/massive rocks.. They were on their deck watching, pretty scary/awkward..

[Wom 0]

You could have put that hour to good use if you ask me

well yea that's a given

[edit] I must've done something right because it's our anniversary today

Edited April 13, 2010 by Wom

[huff3r 347]

We had a plumber do that one day in his ute, 500mm drop so back wheels where off the around. He chucked it in 4wd and dropped the clutch and it pulled it self back up! The edge of the concrete doesnt look too flash now.

Ive done that before with my old telstar too.. 3 guys lifting the back and we got it back onto the road (only benefit of FWD)

[M3NTIL 0]

haha reminds me about my mates integra when he jacked his car up on the grass to adjust the suspension and he didn't put blocks on the front wheel and the car fell off the jack......

[pjay 8]

Jacking up a car on grass.. Lol.

I did that once and it um.. Sank..