7 Automotive Moments That Tested Our Patience

Cars are great, we all know that. But they can also be a real pain in the tuchus, trying our nerves and testing our patience with the stupid, unpredictable, annoying, and occasionally dangerous stuff they pull. Sometimes they leave us stranded. Sometimes they don’t even give us the chance to get stranded, because they just won’t start—or open. Sometimes, grrr, it’s that one damn screw. You know what we’re talking about. Here are seven instances that vexed us.

Wiring

“I want to push this thing off a cliff.” My cousin still laughs about my humorless comment about his truck from a few years ago. Several weekends into the rewiring of his ’79 Dodge truck, we’d barely made progress—we’d successfully complete a circuit for one thing and then something else would wonk out (a technical term). We finally got everything operational, but I am not sure I ever want to see a wiring chart again. — Eddy Eckart

Roadside Repairs

In 2001, my girlfriend (who is now my wife) and I had a traveling marketing job promoting Sanford’s new line of Liquid Sharpies, highlighters, and dry-erase markers. We traveled the country in a Ford F-350 dually towing a flatbed with a new Beetle on it, which was wrapped in Sharpie graphics, with three giant pens on the roof. Every week we were someplace else—hot air balloon festivals, craft shows, fairs, the French Quarter Fest in New Orleans, the Sharpie 500 at Bristol—to hand out free pens.

On one occasion, we were summoned to New York City to display the Beetle on a dock on the East River ahead of a Sanford company cruise. I had just paid the toll on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, and as I pulled away I dragged the left-side trailer tires against the high curb of the toll plaza, which shredded the sidewall of the leading one. All of which meant I had to change that tire on the side of the GWB, the world’s busiest bridge, with just the suggestion of a shoulder, as DGAF New York traffic whizzed by. I don’t recommend it. — Stefan Lombard

Hands down, the best way to test my patience was by using a power ratchet in my engine bay. I wrote the full details in a story published about three years ago, but the pain and anguish of wedging a ratchet between the body and an unscrewed bolt still resonates in my bones.

Resolving the issue wasn’t terrible, but the mere act of getting in such trouble makes you feel helpless and stupid. I’d like to think I have learned my lesson, but a shiver went down my spine earlier this year when I used the same ratchet to remove a smog pump. At least I looked behind the ratchet this time… — Sajeev Mehta

Shifty Business

This seems like a good place for my evergreen rant on electric windows (“I’ve never had to work on a wind-up window, but it seems like every car I’ve had with electric windows has given me fits!”), or how every V-8 I’ve owned had at least one inaccessible spark plug, proof positive that engineers who design motors, and engineers who design the rest of the car, never speak to each other. But let’s go with this one: I was driving my 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1, which I bought new, when I downshifted from third gear (it was a three-speed) into second. Just as I completed the shift, the clutch pedal made a THONG!  sound, and went straight to the floor. Somehow, I managed to drive home, which was 20 miles and about a hundred stoplights away.

Once there, it wasn’t difficult to locate the problem: The clutch rod, which is about as long as a new pencil and twice as big around, broke. Yes, I was young and stupid, but no, I didn’t abuse the car, knowing I could barely afford the payments working after school and on weekends, much less pay for repairs. A replacement rod wasn’t very expensive, or that difficult to install. I was puzzled, though, about what would cause the relatively thick, solid-metal rod, which activated the clutch, to just break in half. I was even more puzzled when the next one, and then the next one, broke. By clutch rod three, I was depressing the clutch pedal as delicately as a ballerina on one toe, and I always carried a spare rod and the proper wrenches with me. Other than that, I loved the car. But man, that was annoying. At least it had wind-up windows. — Steven Cole Smith

Door Handles

As a baseline, it’s never a mechanical item that causes frustration for me—engines, transmissions, brakes, steering, I know I’m in for a rock fight whenever I roll up my sleeves to tackle something on these systems.

But door handles? Shoot me. The little runabout that I bought from some friends a while back, a gold 2008 Hyundai Elantra, hadn’t had a working passenger door for more than a year. The outside handle was busted.

So I ordered parts and one night, in a fit of confidence, I watched a few YouTube videos and got to it. Door card off. Window detached from its guide and hung, precariously, with precisely 31 pieces of old electrical tape. Then two wood clamps, because I actually needed 33 pieces of electrical tape but was two short.

Four hours into slowly, deliberately disassembling the screws and plastic bits that ultimately were causing the door to not work, I snapped the head on a rusty 5-millimeter bolt. It was the last one that had to come out before I could start changing over the new parts.

The project ballooned to a three-day affair, but with Kyle’s help and some strong drill bits, we finally threw together a workable solution.

Never. Again. (Probably. Unless something else breaks and I’m too cheap to outsource the fix.) — Nathan Petroelje

Fab Work

Fabricating is fun. The ability to think of something in my head and then go into the garage and manipulate tools until the vision in my head is no longer just a vision but an actual, real thing? It’s fascinating.

It’s also one of the most hair-pulling experiences I’ve had in my shop in the past few years. Making the exhaust for the 1965 Chevrolet Corvair, specifically. After a couple different exhaust setups, I still hadn’t found the sound I wanted for the car, so I bought a welder, some tubing, and got started.

Much of the frustration is likely tied to only having a few of the correct tools to do this job and basically none of the experience. The final result is a bit of a letdown, but luckily it’s hidden under the car. I keep telling myself I’ll re-do it but… Haven’t yet, and probably never will. — Kyle Smith

Bodywork

When I was 16, my dad and I rebuilt a 1968 El Camino. This was the first time I did any sort of body work on a car. Sanding is always a test of patience. Sanding a giant, slab-sided ElCo with more surface area than an aircraft carrier will make you never wanna open another pack of 3M again. — Cameron Neveu