What killed your car?

[Captain Muppet]

Hello,

Prompted by the "how often do you change your oil" thread I thought it'd be interesting* to see what actually kills your cars. Multi-entry poll for the event that caused you to kill your cars, not just sell it, but scrap it.

I’ve scraped the following: mk1 MR2 (crash), mk1 CRX (crash), BMW E34 535i (extreme depreciation – it was worth more scrapped than it was as a car thanks to the stupid scrappage scheme), BMW E30 325i (coolant system failure), FB RX7 (structural rust), another RX7 for the same reason, MX5 (rust was the thing on the list that I least wanted to fix).

If you had an engine go kablooie but don’t know what caused it then please ask an adult before voting so we don’t get the whole thing skewed by people who think a flat battery every winter or overheating a K-series** is down to rubbish oil.

Also any tuned engines are excluded. Once you deviate from standard you throw away the valididty of the manufacturer’s durability testing.

If you've never scrapped a car congratulate yourself on how lucky/successful you've been. If it wasn't for shedding, lending cars to my brother and loving cars so much I can't sell them, I'd be one of you.

* I'm an engineer so this may not be interesting to anyone else.

** Apparently the "K" stands for kettle.

ETA: stupid title spelling cockup. Nuts.

[Debaser]

Last car I scrapped was down to a failed MOT - cost to repair wasn't worth it (needed a new catalytic converter and the brakes were sticking and needed looking at).

[jof]

In chronological order...

Metro - terminal rust
Mk3 Escort - terminal rust
Mk1 Golf 1.3 - coolant system meltdown
Mk1 Golf GTI - ran out of talent in the wet
Mk1 Golf GTI - terminal rust
Shark nose 528i (don't do e numbers) -fuel lines, pas pump, air con, sump, coolant system all leaking and couldn't be bothered any more

Everything since has been just about economically viable to repair

[Jim AK]

Turbo failure.

Citroen Xantia TD @ 194000 miles. Uneconomical to repair & I was gutted I didn't get to see 200000 on the odometer.

[Tom8]

A range rover I had, the body wasn't actually attached to the chassis. How pleased I was when I found that out...

[decadent]

Crash damage for me (E36 325 coupe).

I would have to give years of neglect to lose a car to rust or mechanical failure and I would suspect I would have got rid of it out of boredom before that point too.

[mike-r]

One write off.

One caught fire due to an electrical fault in the engine bay. I'd sold it the day before (lucky for some) so I'm still counting it as mine.

[V8forweekends]

Only ever scrapped one car - a VW polo. It was for none of the above reasons. It was old and rusty but legal (just) but I simply didn't have time to muck about selling it (this was before Gumtree, ebay etc). I had paid £100, got 2+ years out of it and had no further use for it.

It was put back on the road.....

[A.J.M]

Crash damage ended ownership of one of my cars.
It went as a cat C and was out back on the road.

It was a really clean well cared for example, I was gutted I wasn't allowed to buy it back and fix it myself.

[redtwin]

I think I may need an adult here.

Where would faulty catalytic converters fit in the poll above?. Somehow "mechanical failure" doesn't seem suitable.

[Fittster]

Cost to get through MOT greater than car value.

[RizzoTheRat]

Boring car collection I know but...

Fiesta - Gearbox whining at 114k miles so sold it
ZX - Radius arm bearings at 196k miles, scrapped it as uneconomical to repair
306 - Heater matrix went at 130k miles so part-ex'd it
Yamaha TDM - Gearbox selector problem at 76k miles so sold it
Wife's Micra - Needed a load of welding so scrapped it (dunno the mileage, over 100k though)
Wife's Fiesta - Needed lots of small mechanical bits and welding at 130k so scrapped it.


All have had oil changes at the manufacturers recommended mileage, and the ZX and 306 had turbos (diesel), never had an engine or turbo problem except the TDM which is notorious for using oil and I let it get too low which increased it's thirst. Fixed that with new piston rings.

[Hooli]

Let me think of cars I didn't sell on...

Metro - cracked a ring, put a new lump in & crashed it.
Volvo 340 - scrapped it for being uttery st, it also bent the pushrods when you went over 50mph in top!
Mk2 Escort - blew it up, put a new lump in & crashed it.
Manta - rotten, very rotten.
Carlton - some tard reversed into it.
Sierra - some other tard changed lanes into it.
Merc 260e - forgot the rad cap & boiled it so the tappets collapsed.
Subaru Legacy 2.5 4cam - cracked head or block.

So basicly lots of me being st & blowing them up or crashing them & a couple of actual failures.

[beko1987]

Scrapped 2 cars so far:

Pug 206 - Was set on fire on my driveway, so called the first hi-ab people in the local paper to get rid as it made me sad walking past it.

And my old Puma. Still had an MOT on it but it wouldnt have passed another due to the rust. Stripped it out and sold it for spares, so only really the shell that went over the bridge. Remember pulling the carpet up and it being rusted to the floorpan, the car didnt leak either so it had been going from the outside in...

[kambites]

In the case of the Corrado, suspension wear - new bushes would have cost more than the car was worth.

[shalmaneser]

I've only scrapped one car - Nissan Micra with terminal rust at the base of the b-pillar. Pretty standard, apparently.

Two sold spares or repairs: 306 TD with a blown HG, one Rover 214 with some crash damage. Both put back on the road after I'd lost interest.

[TheAngryDog]

Pug 605 - rear ended at 60+mph - scrapped it proper.

[swisstoni]

I was shedding a Volvo 340 a long time ago and only gave it attention when a warning light told me to.
Unfortunately the oil warning light failed and I didn't notice. It eventually seized up on the North Circular.
I really liked the car so was a bit sad. Was built like tank and still had years in it.

[Ilikebeaver]

Out of 21 cars, none have ended up being scrapped.

However, one was written off and sold for parts. (E30 318is)

[TooMany2cvs]

I've never yet scrapped a car that wasn't bought solely for breaking for parts. Everything else has left me for further life elsewhere. And, when you consider the utter chod that I've always been driving around in, that's quite an achievement imho.

To give you an idea of the level of chod, the current nice-sensible-everyday is a '90 205, bought five years ago for £100...