This Is The Closest Our Readers Have Come To Torture Testing Their Cars

Driving is so much fun, but sometimes things get a bit out of hand. Oftentimes, the line between “wow this is such a fun road” and “uh-oh” can be thinner than we think. That’s when we transition away from going for a drive, and into the realm of torture testing. Prior to reaching dealer lots, modern cars go through countless hours of computer-modeled torture tests and countless miles of real-world durability testing to ensure you don’t end up with a lemon, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try our hand at this kind of stuff post-purchase. I figured our enthusiast audience has done its fair share of vehicular torture, and I wasn’t wrong. Here are a few of my favorite anecdotes from the Jalopnik audience’s closest experiences to torture testing their cars. 

I said the closest I came to torture testing a car was the several occasions I took my 2003 Honda CR-V mudding, off-roading, and out onto sand. That poor car was made for interstate travel and urban excursions, not true all-terrain traverses, and yet it took all the abuse I dished out with aplomb. What a car. Anyway, these are your answers. 

not mine, but my buddy in highschool. He (his parents) had an 86 accord that had been abused by a succession of three brothers learning to drive on rough thunder bay roads and winters. It was so beat that when they went shopping for a replacement no one would give them more than scrap cost + a dollar despite it running pretty well. so my buddy gave his dad a $5 and said we’d take it to the yard and ‘make some memories’ before she went out to pasture.

Did you know an 86 accord can off road in a shale pit pretty good? or that a foot and a half or air at 50mph wont shatter the suspension?

After about 4 hours of the worst 4 teenagers could throw at it, that honda puttered happily to the scrap yard with about 50lbs of dirt, gravel and grime, a missing rear bumper and a few potted plants worth of weed and grass stuck in ever place.

Submitted by: JaredOfLondon

How to torture test a slightly modified 3rd Gen 4Runner. This was when I was still living in Cote d’Ivoire and driving a 4Runner that was modified with better tires and shocks to handle both offroading and the awful condition of the roads. The map is the route from Abidjan to the heart of where the Dogon people live in Mali, Bandiagara. The cliffs to the east of there are a UNESCO World Heritage site as some of them live in these beautiful and striking cliffside dwellings, and the doors and shutters used to keep the sun and dust out are carved in very intricate patterns and figures (there’s a Dogon door on my wall at home.) Getting there is a torture test, and I wouldn’t consider doing it in anything but a truck or SUV. The drive starts in what remains of the tropical rain forests around Abidjan. North of the capital Yamoussoukro, the land changes and becomes savannah and scrubland. North of that starts the Sahel, the welcome mat of the Sahara. The roads tend to be in terrible shape, dust and trash is blowing around everywhere, and it’s highly recommended at each stop to check your air filter. That continues into Mali. The main difference is that, and I remember this road fondly, the roads (at that time) probably weren’t paved in 30 years. And further north in Mali starts the Sahara. There was more than once between the poor fuel, the road conditions, and the heat left wondering if this was a mistake even though I was prepared. In 2026, though, stay out of Mali.

Submitted by: Xavier96

Back in the late 80’s I worked at a summer camp that was located on a private inholding within a wilderness area, and the only way in was up a 7-mile jeep road. The last mile included a long, steep, rocky stretch that was even a challenge for trucks with 4 wheel drive and a granny gear. I had a ’75 Corolla Wagon that had neither, but it crawled up that slope many times with 4 people and all their gear on board. I also drove that car all around the US, including 38 states, Alaska, Canada and Mexico. Best $500 car I’ve ever owned.

Submitted by: Norm DePlume

Sometimes I drive in Quebec.

Submitted yb: HerculesRockefeller

Driving the million dollar highway in Colorado between Silverton and Ouray in a 2nd Gen Prius loaded with two kids, a roof box, and camping supplies.

The horsepower math of that road is brutal on that Prius. Under normal conditions it makes 110 combined hp. 35 of that is from electric and the battery pack is essentially depleted after the first half mile. Down to 75 hp. Except you are at significant altitude. Ouray is 7000+ feet and Silverton is 9000+ feet. Red Mountain Psss is just over 11,000 feet. Probably under 50 hp at certain points while struggling up a steep grade. That little engine was screaming to sustain a 45 mph max speed. Roof box didn’t help either as it destroyed the slippery aerodynamics of that little car.

That was a great trip!

Submitted by: Weirdisgood

I ran over a dead deer that was lying in the middle of the road. Didn’t see it until it was too late to swerve. It didn’t drive very well after that. Thankfully, it was a Pontiac Sunfire rental, and when I dropped it off, the guy took me to the airport in that very same Sunfire. All while driving, there would be these clunk sounds when turning… or accelerating… or stopping.

Finally, the guy goes, “Sound like the frame is damaged”

To which I replied, “Yeah. It’s been doing that.”

And that was the absolute last I heard about it. Thankfully no charges showed up on my credit card and no nasty letter came to my house seeking recompense.

Submitted by: Dallas Thomas

When I was in Portland, Maine, I had this road with a 25-degree incline that I used as my private on-road dyno. Straight uphill for five blocks with minimal intersections on the right and pretty visible cross-traffic.

I’d stop at the base of the hill, then mash the throttle. With a stopwatch, I could do consistent A to B comparisons of any performance mod that I made for my cars and my friends’ vehicles, and get measurable real world results by pushing a car to maximum acceleration. It wasn’t so much grueling as it was demanding, but it was a hard and easily reproducible test that ran even the quickest cars to their performance limits with minimal risk to innocent civilians.

Submitted by: jrhmobile

Not my personal car, but I used to van pool in a Ford Transit. The commute was 90 miles from Palm Springs to a prison near the Arizona state line. On the way back, there was a massive accident that completely blocked the westbound section of I10. So my choice was either sit still for anywhere from 4-7 hours until the freeway opened back up (there were ZERO side streets or service roads once you pass a certain point), or take the van off-road, through the desert, until we reconnected with the freeway. I chose to send it. Mind you, it was well over 100°, and the desert alongside the road was completely unmarked. No signposts, and you could BARELY see tracks where other people had been off-road. Luckily it was a fully loaded 12 passenger van, so the extra weight gave us some decent traffic. I was able to drift the van a bit in some spots, and never got stuck. We got home safe, van undamaged, and hours of our lives saved.

Submitted by: MrMcGeein3D