What damage did you do to your parents cars ?

What damage did you do to your parents cars ?

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J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,287 posts

199 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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I never drove their cars but I did do some damage,

My dad had his car repainted at work (Mk1 Capri) and it looked fantastic, all new badges and trim, for some reason we were jumping over a piece of wood on a couple of bricks in the road, I managed to get it wrong and crash my Raleigh Strika into the rear quarter of his car, he wasnt best please as you can imagine but could get it sorted fairly easily so I lived.

That car had teeth marks in the back of the vinyl seats as well from when he got it when I was about three, the seats edges were just so chewy.

A lad I know borrowed his dads new company Vauxhall Carlton, he took his halfwit GF up to the Cat and Fiddle pub in the Peak District and he had a bit much to drink so he let her drive back, it was an auto so perfect for someone who couldnt drive, she took to driving very quickly and loved it but got carried away, so much so she managed to leave the road and roll it.


mike9009

6,918 posts

242 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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I was three years old. My dad had a brand new Allegro estate with vinyl seats.

I was left in the car and wondered what the cigarette lighter was.

It made lovely little melted circles in the front seats.


We owned the car for nine years and I remember those circles quite vividly.

Dad was not happy! frown I would be livid if my kids did this to my new car - but I guess nowadays you wouldn't leave a three year old loose in a car.


anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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3 week old golf mk4, scratched all down one side on a bollard. Went to halfords to ask which t-cut would buff it out, he took one look and laughed, it was bad.

my brother reversing an astra(my mums) ripped passenger door off hinges, as i got it caught on conifers. we were on way to pick my mum from airport

TGTiff

407 posts

183 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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I rolled my old mans Alfasud when I was 17. He was not impressed!

echazfraz

772 posts

146 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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The amount of times that I could / should have damaged cars due to excess speed and youthful exuberance, beggars belief. The only two times that I've actually damaged cars, and speed really wasn't the main factor!

One

Tried to straight-line a roundabout in mum's Volvo 480 wedge in the dark and wet Renfrewshire night. Probably too fast I suppose but for the conditions and not "stupid fast".

Understeered, lift-off oversteered, 180-degree spin, took a gouge out of the front leading-edge by clipping some guard rail fence during the spin. My teenage memory would have it that I came to a stop dangling out over the edge of the roundabout hundreds of feet in the air, Italian Job-style. Think I was just up a kerb stone a bit.

Because the front of those was plastic (I think) it was plausible that some eejit had reversed into the car with, oh I don't know, their towbar, while parking. So this is what I told mum. She still to this day doesn't know that it was this actually this eejit.

Two

Wrapped my dad's 406 estate round someone's driveway gatepost. I missed the brake pedal as I tried to come to a stop at a T-junction. With no brakes I panicked, let the clutch out, stalled, all while turning the steering wheel.

Because I had stalled it the steering lock came on as I was manfully helmsmanning. Still to this day think I'd have made the turn had I not stalled and locked the steering wheel...hmmm.

With a locked steering wheel (and a tt behind it) I coasted into the wall. Bit of a bump, £3k worth of Peugeot repairs and god knows how much to repair the wall. I do know that the wall belonged to a local ahole who tried to have the builder inflate the cost of repair.

I maintained for a while that I had actually pressed the brake pedal and that the brakes had failed. I was too proud / embarrassed to admit that I'd just missed the pedal. Probably added to the cost of the claim anyway as they apparently had an assessor all over it trying to find fault with the brakes.

I wonder if this is why I got involved in crash testing...?

Blayney

2,948 posts

185 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Stripped a lot of teeth off the gears in my dad's mini. Might have been related to the big roundabout I'd just gone 270 degrees around trying to keep ahead of an Astra VXR. They gave me a bemused look as I coasted to the nearest layby with only 4th gear working.

Dad took it in good spirits... but it is his weekend car.

HTP99

22,443 posts

139 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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mike9009 said:
I was three years old. My dad had a brand new Allegro estate with vinyl seats.

I was left in the car and wondered what the cigarette lighter was.

It made lovely little melted circles in the front seats.


We owned the car for nine years and I remember those circles quite vividly.

Dad was not happy! frown I would be livid if my kids did this to my new car - but I guess nowadays you wouldn't leave a three year old loose in a car.
Lol, I did something similar in my dads Triumph, however I did it to his steering wheel and only once, I was older than three too.

He left me in the car as he popped out to get something, I pushed in the lighter, it popped out and for some reason I pushed it on to the steering wheel, I distinctly remember him driving off and feeling the indent straightaway, he turned to me and asked if I knew anything about it, I just played dumb and it was never mentioned again.

It's that sort of thing that I think I wish he was still alive as it would be fun see if he remembered and if he did, I could come clean!

Whilst not damage to his car, when I was younger I damaged the tent on holiday, using the car door.

The car was parked up to the side of the tent, I decided to swing the door open and closed, the door when open just reached the side of the tent, after a few opening and closing goes I heard a big rip; I'd only ripped a massive hole in the tent.

Fat Wolfie

137 posts

66 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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I was about 8, Dad had just rebuilt for me a Corgi motorcycle - a small wheeled folding motorbike based on the WW2 paratroopers Wellbyke that they used to drop from planes.

Anyhow, the first ride on it was up the drive, Dads car parked at the far end any maybe 50 feet away.

Dad says “ do you know what to do?” Me “yeah, sure”

Set off at what felt like 100mph, maybe 3 or 5 in reality, then discovered that I didn’t know how to stop....so ended up hitting the back of the car, denting the bumper, damaging the front mudguard on the bike, and fracturing my pride.

He wasn’t happy externally but think he was pissing himself inside.

Then fast forward another 12 years, and Dad had just bought a brand new VW camper, his price and joy. He only managed to get it following an inheritance from his dad so it was very important to him.

I asked him to transport an engine from a Honda CB500T that I’d taken out of my bike after it dropped a valve on the M6. So he had to transport it from Warrington down to Essex.

I hadn’t realised I should have dropped the oil out of it, so the fitted carpet in the back of the van was absolutely trashed as a couple of pints of oil leaked out in during the journey.

THAT did upset him, I actually feared for my physical safety for the first time in my life, and I felt dreadful as the problem was entirely of my making.

I did pay for a new carpet to be professionally fitted but I still felt shamed by my actions.

Durzel

12,232 posts

167 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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I somehow got insured on my Dad's 405 GLTD company car at 17 straight after I'd passed my test. Even had a letter that I would have to carry around with me stating that I was insured, as I got pulled over plenty of times for looking like I'd stolen it.

Ended up putting it backwards in a ditch one evening when I was distracted by a friend rolling a joint in the passenger seat, missed a car in front stopping and had to swerve around it at the last minute.

Never found out how much damage I had done, it got fixed pretty quickly as it was a fleet car, but I do know the sill at the bottom was quite badly bent.

For some reason they still continued to insure me on it, until one winter evening I skidded into a taxi on sheet ice due to poor anticipation of the conditions. frown

In retrospect I have no idea why they insured me on it.

Vanordinaire

3,701 posts

161 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Managed to bend the rear axle of my Dad's mk1 Cavalier while practicing my handbrake parking. Just held onto the slide a little too long and whacked the kerb with the wheel sideways.
He had the car another couple of years after that and never noticed the slight wobble on the rear left wheel. Sailed through it's MOT like that too. You could only notice it if you were driving behind it. My dad always wondered why he got the occasional flash from following drivers and his guilty teenage son wasn't about to own up.
His next car, a similar rwd Cavalier once ended up sitting completely unscathed in the middle of a local river following an enthusiastic 'rally' session along the riverside. Managed to tow it out with a tractor and had it sparkling clean and dried out before my Dad came home at the weekend. Never found out about that one either.

Turbotechnic

675 posts

75 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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I didn't damage my parent's car but I crashed my brother's mk1 Escort 1300e with him in it.

We were both young and the Escort was my brother's first car. It was parked up while he waited to pass his test. One day he wanted me to drive it with him as passenger to just give it a "clear out" because it had been laid up for a few weeks. It had been raining and I thought it would be a great idea to try and get the back end out on a wet roundabout... now at this point reality kicked in and rapidly realised a 1300cc Escort with an open diff and scabby old ditchfinders and lack of driving skill was not a good combination to try and go sideways! The roundabout spat us off and into a hedge we went. Luckily the car was repairable and I was an apprentice panel beater, so a deal was struck with my boss and many late nights later the old Escort was fixed and good as new just in time for when my brother passed his test.

littlebasher

3,767 posts

170 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Two spring to mind

My mums Fiesta 'L' reg Fiesta Ghia, It was 2 weeks old when my parents went on holiday and i decided to borrow it to get to work at McD's.
When i finished that night, i was giving someone a lift home who decided to take 4 large cups full of fresh orange juice home with them. Unfortunately for me, he put the drinks on the passenger seat while having a fag - then sat on them when he got in the car. No amount of air fresheners could get rid of the smell of sour orange, she even took it back to the dealer and complained about the smell ! She p/x it for another car far sooner than she would have liked.


Another one of their holidays saw me using my dads Rover 216 while they were away. The night before they returned, i was driving home in a thunderstorm when a bolt of lightning struck the road meters in front of the car. They may say that a car is a safe place to be in a thunderstorm, but i can assure you that miilions of volts in close proximity to a car really doesn't do the plastic body panels nor the wiring any good at all.


From then on, they always locked their keys away when they were on holiday. Pity, as my mum ended up getting a V6 Clio some years later.

Reciprocating mass

6,029 posts

240 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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I also burnt rings into my dads marina estate
purple vinyl seats with the cigar lighter,
but he was repaid when I burnt the same rings onto the end of my finger during the same operation.
Also bent the radio aerial on his mk1 cavalier whilst trying to stop myself going down the sloped drive whilst trying and failing to learn roller booting, never did get to grips with them and gave up after that
bking hehe

Edited by Reciprocating mass on Sunday 9th December 15:08

PowerslideSWE

1,116 posts

137 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Clipped a deer in my dad's then 4 year old still immaculate Audi 100 Turbo at what felt like Mach 2 but was more like 190 km/h, the impact made the engine stall so braking from that speed with no power steering or power assisted brakes were a bit exiting but I managed to pull to the side of the road without too much drama, in hindsight I'm glad I didnt try to re-start the engine while letting the clutch up at speed while in gear since all the accessory drives and such were jammed into the front of the engine, snapping the cambelt would likely have happened then.

Bonnet had a nice fold to it at the leading egde and all the lights were cracked and the front fenders were bent inwards along with the aforementioned stuff. Over £6000 to repair (in 1992) and a month in the workshop. Told dad, who was not impressed that I was going 100 km/h, 90 is the speed limit there, insurande covered it..

All worked out well in the end, moose are not un-common here and hitting one of those at the same speed would have been conciderably worse, most likely fatal.

deltashad

6,731 posts

196 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Scraped the side of dad's granada ghia x. He blamed it on his secretary and sacked her. I'm not saying how old I was at the time.

Nath88n

255 posts

164 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Dad let me borrow his car when I was 17.



He loved that car, one of the best he owned. I get reminded of this on occasion.


poing

8,743 posts

199 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Mondeo - hit a hare on the Autobahn while I was doing north of 130mph on New Years eve to get a Chinese takeaway. Takeaway was closed. The front bumper and lower part didn't look pretty afterwards.

Fiesta - technically this was mine as I "bought" it from my mother a few weeks prior, I've never actually paid for it, but on a Sunday drive hit a patch of diesel and parked the car on it's roof in the scenery.

LosingGrip

7,806 posts

158 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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deltashad said:
Scraped the side of dad's granada ghia x. He blamed it on his secretary and sacked her. I'm not saying how old I was at the time.
Im guessing it was fairly recently then? wink

My mum's (well my brothers) motorbility car had a blanket insurance policy. Long as it was being used for the benefit of him, anyone with a licence is insured.

Needed to pop to Tesco and mum asked if I would mind taking hers as it needed some diesel to take him to school during the week.

Off I went and put petrol in it. Only £5 but panicked and drove off before phoning...

Thinking about it, it would have been fine as it had a 80 litre tank, but I was only 17/18 and mum was worried as it was a motorbility car.

Plus side it turns out there is some insurance policy that they had for idiots like me. Excess was £75 and included a full tank of diesel! Result.


B17NNS

18,506 posts

246 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Reciprocating mass said:
I also burnt rings into my dads marina estate
purple vinyl seats with the cigar lighter
I did that too. Bronze Alegro shooting brake with brown velour though hehe

Oh, and spun and totalled my mums Mini Mayfair.


wibble cb

3,586 posts

206 months

Sunday 9th December 2018
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Not me, my brother, he reversed round a blind bend to get out of a long traffic queue, directly into my father who was driving towards that same junction in a company pickup, his bumper was slightly bent, My brothersTriumph Spitfire cracked its paint and took a dent in the rear wing, some sharp words were exchanged!