jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, I've heard several stories about things like that happening. It is said that when a car was being made for a boss, the workers would make it less than perfect. You've probably heard that you don't want to buy a car made on a Friday or a Monday. I doubt there's much truth to that warning these days, though.

Then there are the surgeons who leave instruments inside their patients. Imagine getting a bill for a $500 toll that was left inside you.

There was an actor in westerns who died because a surgeon left something inside him. Okay, I seem to be wrong about that, but I was close. The actor was Jeff Chandler, and after his death, his family received $1.5 million from a malpractice suit. So someone screwed up, he died, and a lawsuit resulted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Chandler

mindzye Loc: WV

Original car - '65 Mustang. Developed a rattle at 70. (mph) "}
Turned the radio up......

SteveR Loc: Michigan

My Astro Van developed a thump at about 65. Couldn't figure out what it was until a tire man told me that one of my rear tires had a bulge in it. After I replaced it, the thump went away.

Burtzy Loc: Bronx N.Y. & Simi Valley, CA

Reminds me of the old story about an airline pilot who complained to the maintenance crew: "Something loose in cockpit." The next day, the maintenance crew reported back: "Something tightened in cockpit."

JBRIII

My father had a new car that acted strange. Took it back znd dealer new the answer right off, a missing vacuum plug on the engine. They new because they just finished reassembling a car torn down like the cartoon..

neillaubenthal

I had a Ford Probe back in the early 90s made by Mazda that had a rattle in the sunroof…took six trips before they identified the problem. I could faithfully reproduce the rattle on demand on only one road we took on our commute home but nowhere else. Finally had to take the tech for a ride on that road so he could hear it and he found it in 10 minutes. They kept taking it for test rode near the dealership but not on that road. I never did figure out what it was about that road…wasn’t any more or less bumpy that every other road but it only happened at a certain speed so that might have been some sort of resonance.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Well, that may be true but it is just the kind of thing a bored/practical joker on the assembly line might do. Maybe it wasn't a coke bottle or maybe it wasn't a nickel but something metal in a glass bottle with a note.

JBRIII

Had an oil filter on a new car that required a hammar and long bar to hammar it off. All that was left by that time was the metal rim of the filter. Since I used the end of the driveway to work on it off could not drive it somewhere for others to do it by then. Dad figured some jerk used seeze all on it.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

I, and my wife, bought a Dodge 600 new in 1986. Relatively few and minor problems until around '92 or 93 Our eldest son was several miles from home when the engine began making a very loud banging sound. He continued to drive it home and when he was a couple blocks from home my wife heard the noise and said, "Somebody threw a rod." A couple minutes later our son drove in making that noise. What happened? The car left the factory without an oil pressure sending unit in the engine. The place for it apparently had a plug in it that was to be removed but never was and the sensor unit was never installed.

raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

One of my great uncles bought a new car in the early 60's that seemed to be a bit more peppy than it should be. That thing flew on cross country trips. He worked in St Louis and at least two weekends a month drove to our home town in Western Kentucky, usually south on Friday nights and North Sunday nights so open roads with little traffic. One Illinois trooper he often had coffee with at the halfway point suggested they see how it compared to the trooper's pursuit car. It walked off and left the trooper behind.
Then a few months after he got it (he had paid in full for the car) he was contacted by the company HQ in Michigan. They wanted the car back. It seems a NASCAR driver ordered a factory built race car for the "factory street legal" class races (they built them back then) and was killed before taking delivery. His wife cancelled the order and someone at the factory just sent the car back to the regular assembly line to be finished (motor, trans, suspension, frame and roll bar cage were done so they added a four door body, seats etc. and it got put on a truck to a dealer in St Louis where my uncle bought it. When someone at the factory couldn't find it for a sale to another race driver they tracked the paper work and wanted my uncle to trade it for fully a loaded version of the same car without the racing features and special engine. Our home town lawyer answered them: 1. he paid in full the price asked 2. he had a receipt marked "paid in full" 3. it was now registered in his name in Kentucky. You want it that bad, see you in court, in Kentucky! Nothing else was heard from them. Riding in that thing was really fun. And people it outran were always surprised because it looked stock and was what the factory called peach something or other but my Grandmother and Great Aunt called "titty pink". My uncle wasn't too crazy about the color when he bought it but it was the only unsold one of that model on the lot and he wanted a new car "NOW" so he took it.

gastech1949 Loc: Imperial Beach, CA.

My Grandfather owned an auto repair shop and had a customer that brought their car in because it had developed a rattle at low speed. Grandpa drove the car around the block, came back and took all 4 hubcaps off to remove the marbles that some of the neighborhood boys had put in them. (The customer was known as the local grouch and lived 2 blocks away from Grandpa) Grandpa didn't charge him and told me not to tell anyone else about it. This was 1961 in Los Angeles.

Abo

Good one...

A friend bought a very lightly used Torana GTR-XU1 off a Holden
dealer made specifically for the CEO of that dealership.

It too was a "full race"
version of the model... we drove that unit at 7000 plus rpm nearly every time
we went out in it for years.
Often the speedo needle on that little Holden went past 120MPH then all
the way across the odometer at the bottom of the instrument and
held firm on the back of the pin at zero MPH.

It met it's demise when a "hay truck" backed out
of a farm on a dirt road in front of it. I wasnt in the car at the time, but
was amazed that my friend walked away from the utterly mangled wreckage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObV_OGO55HQ

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Both my father and his younger brother did a stint or two as a race driver. For a while my Dad was the relief driver for the US Mid-Western Champion NASCAR Street legal driver. While I was in the Army in Vietnam in the Mid 60's my younger brother got a hopped up Chevy Chevelle and one Friday night he and a cousin got busted for street racing. The Chief of Police called Dad to come get them (Dad and the Chief were in the same Shriner/Masonic Lodge). The next day Dad put them in the car and drove from St Ann Missouri across the Mississippi to Illinois to one of the top Nascar tracks in the country at the time where they were holding qualification time trials for a big race that weekend. He knew the track owner from a hunting club they both belonged to. The boys and Dad were fitted for flame proof overalls and helmets and then they went out on the track, with Dad making them drive FAST (well that was what got them in trouble). Both spun out on a turn their first lap. Dad put them in the back seat, pulled the seat and shoulder belts as tight as they would go (those old style belts were not spring loaded like modern ones) and he took the wheel then told the flag man to give him two practice laps and drop the flag for a timed 3 lap qualification run. Well Dad wasn't trying for the most efficient run, he was trying for "fear factor"=drifting through the turns sideways, going high on the banked turns and coming down onto the straight-away with the tachometer red-lined etc. He did notice that he was passing the other cars on the track and the boys in the back seat were rather "tense" in the rearview mirror. Eyes like silver dollars and the complexion of Casper the Friendly Ghost. Three laps and the flag dropped and he had been timed. Dad took two laps to slow down and pull off the track into the pits. When he pulled in a couple of guys ran up yelling that he did the fastest 3 laps all week and did he want to enter that car in one of the preliminary races that weekend, or even the main event. He turned them down.
Then he had a heart to heart talk with the boys about speed and all they could do was nod. He arranged for them to come over and drive on the track when they felt the need-for-speed. They never did it and neither of them got so much as a parking ticket after that. They admitted they were afraid he would take them for another ride if they got in any trouble involving a motor vehicle.
I wish I had been there to see it. My Brother's face as Dad told me the story when I was home on leave was a lot of fun in itself.

Abo

Sounds like your dad knew how to pedal a car .

Unlike your father, mine had very average driving skills, despite that, he had a heavy right foot.

My mother however was an artist behind the steering wheel... smooth and profoundly
accurate... very fast too when she wanted (relative to other road users).