Ritchie
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 765
Club RR Member Number: 12
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Apr 13, 2019 15:49:18 GMT
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Last year the Ford Motor Co. started importing the Mustang into Australia. In order to do so the Mustang had to undergo a standard safety and crash test evaluation to give it a safety rating - a rating of zero is the worst, and a rating of 5 is the best. The Mustang scored 2 out of a possible 5. Thus making the Mustang about the most unsafe new car you could buy in Australia. Most of the cheap Chinese vehicles did much better than that, and the vast majority of cars had a 4 or 5 star rating. So the Ford Mustang must rate as one of the most dangerous cars in the world, I would imagine. I cannot believe that a multinational company such as Ford would ever offer such an unsafe vehicle to the public for sale. And it is not like it is a cheap or slow car either. I found this in Quora. I have one of these and there has been a lot of discussion on the net about this. Basically, due to electronic safety aids now being taken into account for these tests and the Mustang has no emergency braking, lane assist and suchlike they were marked down considerably. Some people have also suggested that due to various European members being on the testing team and this was the first Mustang destined for the European market the testing might have been somewhat compromised. Make of that what you will. However, as I understand I don’t think there are any issues with the structural integrity of them and I would certainly rather bin mine into another car rather than be in another modern supermini or similar. Best option, don’t crash it. I certainly wouldn’t consider it “dangerous “.
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Apr 13, 2019 16:41:07 GMT
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When I was 18 I had a Bedford Beagle (think HA Viva Estate) which cracked a head, so I drove to work it for a week on mayonnaise in the sump until I could get to the scrappy on Saturday morning. They had a crunched Viva HB with a hot engine, all ancillaries included, £25 (this was the 70's). I took the engine out myself, with the 4 branch, and the twin carbs, everything in the price. I got it home swung it in, adjusted the chassis to get the manifold in, lashed up an exhaust, happy days. Would it start? Would it 8uggery. Then I discovered that the throttle linkages worked backwards to standard, no time to make a different quadrant, the pub was open. Stopping at a junction was throttle to the floor, to stop it revving its jakes off with the pedal up, brake, and clutch in to stop it stalling. 3 feet required or more dancing that James Brown. Changing gear was clutch and throttle both to the floor, very disconcerting. It was even worse collecting the car on Sunday morning with a hangover. Thank heavens I lived in the countryside.
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Last Edit: Apr 13, 2019 16:41:53 GMT by accord83
74 Mk1 Escort 1360, 1971 Vauxhall Victor SL2000 Estate.
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Apr 13, 2019 17:27:41 GMT
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Aside from my first car, a 1973 Fiat 126 that blew about all over the shop with strong crosswinds and lorries passing, feeble drum brakes all round and lousy demisting in winter (not to mention the throttle return spring snapping while flat-out along a dual carriageway, nearly sending me up the back of a lorry), probably the most dangerous was a 1995 Vauxhall Cavalier CDX, with the 2-litre Ecotec engine, and Siemens engine management.
The car would randomly abruptly cut out, usually at the worst possible times, such as going over railway level crossings, around fast blind A-road bends, etc. Try as I might, I could never cure the problem. Eventually, it overheated and the head gasket blew, so I got shot of it to some guys to break. Pity, as it was a pleasant enough drive otherwise.
A car that nearly caused me serious injury was a 1989 BMW 325i Sport, which was horribly rusty underneath the bodykit, but I'd been steadily patching it up, so it was structurally sound enough. It was the first car I'd ever owned/driven with an LSD, and the handling was a bit odd to say the least, in the wet particularly. One cold winter's day in February, I was heading down the Thanet Way to collect my brother from work, and it had just been raining torrentially, so I wasn't going particularly fast, cruising at approx. 70 mph on the inside lane of the dual carriageway.
As I got to unbeknown to me, a notorious accident blackspot at Dargate, I hit a standing lake of mud, water and ice draining off a field onto a sweeping downhill bend. As I hit it, the car aquaplaned and for some reason (I suspect down to the LSD) violently veered to the right, launching me into the central reservation crash barrier! It happened so fast, there was nothing I could do to try and save it, the car hit the barrier more or less square on, then bounced over to the verge on the other side, while I watched as following cars almost went into the side of me. The rear quarter whacked up against a large steel box thoughtfully placed on the verge.
Fortunately, I walked away without a scratch, other than some neck ache for a few days, but sadly, the car was a write-off. A few days later, when I went to the accident scene, a newish Fiat 500 had ended up on its roof in a nearby field.
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Apr 13, 2019 18:57:25 GMT
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This thing,being predominately plastic,used to understeer like a baby giraffe if you let the tank get lower than a quarter full. The Mingmong ditch finder tyres probably didn't help with this issue either!
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andyborris
Posted a lot
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Posts: 2,158
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Apr 13, 2019 20:04:10 GMT
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When I worked for a dodgy east end car dealer, I delivered a Vauxhall Ventora to a Irish publican in Neasden. This car had little in the way of brakes, tyre tread and a boat anchor of a truck 6 cylinder engine, the pub was full of IRA memorabilia and was quite intimidating to the 17 year old youth I was, it was about 10 pm when I arrived and the said publican wanted a test drive. So when the publican and 3 other equally drunk Irish gentleman grabbed me, put me in the car with them and set off down Neasden high street at about 95 mph on a rainy night, I really did think was going to die... Still a handsome car though.
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Last Edit: Apr 13, 2019 20:07:00 GMT by andyborris
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Apr 13, 2019 22:39:08 GMT
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Slightly different take on this - my current rally car. I spent 4 years building it exactly how I wanted it - light weight, the most amazing engine I've ever come across, handles like a dream. Significantly faster than I really want to drive it but it feels so good it just sucks you in. And that really is dangerous. (I won't mention that I've spent the last 2 years rebuilding it after spreading it thinly over a wide area of Cumbria - the only crash in nearly 30 years of rallying where I hurt myself...)
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fer4l
Posted a lot
Testing
Posts: 1,497
Club RR Member Number: 73
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Slightly different take on this - my current rally car. I spent 4 years building it exactly how I wanted it - light weight, the most amazing engine I've ever come across, handles like a dream. Significantly faster than I really want to drive it but it feels so good it just sucks you in. And that really is dangerous. (I won't mention that I've spent the last 2 years rebuilding it after spreading it thinly over a wide area of Cumbria - the only crash in nearly 30 years of rallying where I hurt myself...) Pics specs details please!
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Teaser for you ... And the obligatory engine bay shot ...
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Last Edit: Apr 14, 2019 9:06:47 GMT by rallyboy
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,191
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Dangerous? Well, that depends . I'll start with the worst . My dad never used to test drive cars before buying them. He thought he could 'tell' if the car was fine. I have always been the opposite. While I like to think I can 'tell', I'll tend to test drive any car where possible, even if it is being sold for peanuts. So, off a mate of his, he bought a 2006 VW Passat B6 1.9 TDI S. A base spec Passat, with a reliable PD engine. It'll be perfect right? WRONG! I couldn't go with him to collect the car, but he viewed it before with his mate apparently taking him for a spin. I knew it apparently needed a driveshaft, but that was about it and my dad liked it due to it looking shiny. When he collected it, he let me know how bad it was it. It was the first time he drove the car. When I drove it, it smoked like mental from the exhaust. The vibration wasn't a driveshaft, it was a massively misfiring engine! It idled as a well as a sloth moving, but touching the accelerator changed that! I didn't drive it far but I knew straight away the car had issues. Then I would come to drive me and a mate in it 200 miles the next day. What I didn't bank on was a mega mega mega twitchy back end. If you went over a bump on a corner above 40MPG it would violently lurch at the back from one side to the other in about 1/2 a second! Was it curse word scary? You bet! The passenger in the back almost got the train back due to how bad it was! It had the ESP, ABS and other warning lights come on whenever that 'twitch' happened, with the error codes to match. When I followed that Passat, I realised why ; Almsot all of the rear bushes were shot. I've seen them bad in cars before, but not to the extent where the car will crab on its own accord : Weissarch had nothing with his rear wheel steering compared to this! When we changed half of the rear suspension bushes at the back, it was fair to say it was no longer a deathtrap. We would end up changing the camshaft to solve the misfire, solving a number of random electrical issues, sticking door Bowden cables (the doors wouldn't always close) before we could see the 'light'. A nice B6 is a pleasant thing to drive! The pleasantness didn't last long. The Diff then exploded after all of that work. By that point, we did what we should have done when we bought the car. Parted it out and put it out of its misery. What a hateful POS that thing was. I've owned some bad cars in the past, but none quite as lethal as that. I have no idea how the 'mate' lived with that twitch for so long ; he used to take his wife and kids in the damn thing! There are more, but we'll see which ones I remember .
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Last Edit: Apr 14, 2019 9:25:41 GMT by ChasR
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Apr 14, 2019 11:08:53 GMT
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My friend had a habit of buying sporty but dodgy cars in the mid 90s, usually from used car dealers in East London. He bought a 1986 Escort XR3i which could only be described as "Nope". It was about 12 different shades of bright (sometimes matt) red and someone had add "XR3 INJECTION" in foot-high yellow vinyl letters on the doors and side panels. He let me have a go and I immediately told him to get rid of it. The brakes were an amusing lottery of "left, RIGHT! or nothing until you really stamped on the pedal". The handbrake was just a lever - it did nothing at all. There appeared to be a blanking plate where third gear once was (I never found third), and every corner made alarming clocking sounds whenever you went round a corner. I decided to have a closer look and saw cracking around each of the strut tops. Further inspection revealed filler - on all 4. That car was horrific. When said mate got rid of the XR3i (hateful, hateful POS) he part exchanged it for a Porsche 944S in 80s white from a dealer in Romford I think. This was actually quite a nice car to drive, but of course being in the price range he got it for, there were a few minor issues such as cosmetic bits and the occasional clonk here and there, but nothing serious. What made it dangerous were the electrics. We were 4 up on a country road and it was pitch black (no lights anywhere within about 2 miles!). So there I was, doing "60, officer" and I lost ALL the lights. No headlights, no sidelights, no rear lights, no dash lights. Absolutely forking terrifying. After driving it mainly during the day and only partially stopping the water ingress to the fusebox which caused the issue, he part-exed it for an E34 BMW 530i, which was lovely.
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Last Edit: Apr 14, 2019 11:12:26 GMT by mrbounce
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,834
Club RR Member Number: 174
Member is Online
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Apr 14, 2019 12:42:52 GMT
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My Granada. Was fine in the dry, nice even. In the wet it was absolutely lethal. Used to aquaplane on the floorpan so it would spin around a point roughly where the driver's seat was. Had several spinny excursions up motorway embankments in it.
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jonomisfit
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,748
Club RR Member Number: 49
Member is Online
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Apr 14, 2019 12:51:48 GMT
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Any land rover that's older than about a week.
There are only tenuous links between steering input and wheel responses!
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merryck
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 477
Club RR Member Number: 9
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Apr 14, 2019 13:47:09 GMT
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Any land rover that's older than about a week. There are only tenuous links between steering input and wheel responses! Mine certainly feels that way! I'd say most recently my Midget, when the steering column came loose from the rack, leaving me with a steering wheel spinning freely. Luckily I was able to slot it back on (No idea how I managed that) and pull over. Drove it home slowly, pushing down on the wheel! Had to cut the column so I could properly pinch it in with the bolt. Gave it some serious tugging before I was willing to drive it again!
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andyborris
Posted a lot
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Posts: 2,158
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Apr 14, 2019 17:09:22 GMT
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Away on a course in Wales, learning how to repair and service Sibe Gorman breathing equipment, I "persuaded" the barmaid of the pub I was staying to take me into Swansea on a "night" out. She drove an old Beetle, pub was up in the sheep farming hills, it was foggy and very dark when we left for Swansea. She drove as if she was leading the Carrera Pan America, but with the added nicety of pushing down the clutch on every corner. The lights also turned off every time she turned the steering wheel, I got a cab back.....alone! I know these aren't cars I've driven, I working up to that!
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Last Edit: Apr 14, 2019 17:10:20 GMT by andyborris
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Apr 14, 2019 18:10:59 GMT
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A police car.
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Apr 14, 2019 18:53:18 GMT
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My 1st 205 GTi came on Avon ZV1 (i think from memory) tyres. Great in the dry, understeered like fox picture in the wet.
Replaced these with Pirellis, much betterer.
My 2nd 205 GTi had a crack in the (wet liner) engine block. Initially it just leaked coolant. As the crack gradually got wider and wider, it would start to misfire over about 2k revs as the cylinder pressure lifted the head from the block. I was half expecting the engine to break in half and fall out of the car!!
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Paul Y
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,948
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Apr 14, 2019 21:18:27 GMT
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Told this story before but will give it another outing. My uncle is a classic car dealer, loves all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff and always had Interesting things in his warehouse. I used to go and collect cars for him, never knew what it was until I got there but mostly old jags and Porsche’s. One day he asks me to go and collect something “special” from down the M3, other side of Hook. Get to Hook station and get a cab out to one of the villages, pretty normal really. Met with the rather nice chap who asked me what time the transporter is meeting me as he had to go out. Transporter? Nah mate I am driving it back say I....very rare to see someone go that ashen that quickly.... So it was an F40 that supposedly had some engine mods done to it. I was probably in my early 20’s and it was like day one of the flood. No problem. It was lethal. Massive turbo lag followed by massive wheel spin and a ventilation system that didn’t meaning it was completely misted up. Did I say it was on semi slicks.... And that is how I ended up driving an F40 in the absolute pouring rain up the M3 at 40mph, because 2 minutes earlier I was traveling backward down the M3, slightly faster, after the turbos lit just as I hit some standing water..... Happy days. P.
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Apr 14, 2019 21:55:30 GMT
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1989 Suzuki Supercarry with knackered shocks.
Only car I darent drive at the posted speed limit. Feet 3 inches from outside.
Scared mate to death when I went around a corner on 3 wheels whilst doing a rolling burnout 😂
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Roach
Part of things
Posts: 717
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My 67... terrifying on the dual carriageway if it was windy... and if it was wet, zero chance of it staying in a straight line.
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Apr 15, 2019 15:34:59 GMT
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Most dangerous? well that would have been the covin 911 i picked up for my dad. Worse thing was, whoever built it had done a cracking job , all the proper badges, the correct wheels , dials and interior. It looked great, guards red, cream interior , turbo whale tail the lot.A bit like this And being a covin it was beetle based, so beetle 1200 brakes and suspension, 1200 beetle steering and gearbox and a HOOFING great 3.0l V6 essex lump bolted it to it. This thing would not stop and steer, it would understeer in a straight line, it would understeer under light acceleration, it would over heat under 30mph, and to make matters worse the positioning of the cut doen beetle pedals meant you need to have double jointed feet and ankles to press the pedals down properly.
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