These Are The Worst Things That Have Ever Happened To Your Cars

Last week we asked you to share the worst thing that’s ever happened to a car you’ve owned, and as it turns out, you all have some nasty luck. From bad breakdowns to fires to toddler vomit to rotting meat, your cars have Been Through It. This is a selection of a few of my favorite answers, but honestly the audience shared so many harrowing anecdotes that I implore you to go back and read through some of the other answers; they’re sure to leave you cringing in sympathy. 

I said the worst thing to happen to a car that I’ve owned was when my catalytic converter got stolen off my second-generation Honda CR-V, but that seems like a cake walk compared to a lot of the things that our readers have been unfortunate enough to go through. That said, it was still pretty devastating, and it resulted in me having to make the tough choice to sell the car rather than pay the several thousands of dollars to get a new cat installed on my 20-year-old, high-mileage, lightly crashed brown Honda. These are a few of my favorite answers, but if you feel left out, go ahead and leave your story in the comments below. 

My mother left a raw roasting chicken in the trunk and the bag over labor day weekend with the car outside while we were out of town. When we returned after 4 days we arrived to see the back of the car absolutely pumping with flies and an odor that would peel your flesh off your bones. As a 16 year old I had to hold the hose at the back of the car to suppress the bugs and the smell while my dad opened the trunk to find mass of purdue chicken bag and maggots on a soup of filth.

We had to get the chicken out of the huge trunk of the 1993 Mercury Grand marquis and strip all the material out of the trunk to clean it. The real issue was that the car had a velour cloth interior (car was cranberry red inside and out). Even years after airing that car out and scrubbing everything on a hot day you could smell rotten meat.

I eventually wrapped that car around 2 trees on a rainy day (RWD with no weight in back made that car a nightmare in snow) and the tow truck driver even commented that they wouldn’t be able to salvage anything from the interior because of that smell of “someone dying in there”.

Submitted by: lenny greenfield

I got a bonus at work that was just enough to finish paying off my 1998 Honda Prelude. I went to the credit union that same day and paid the car off. The next morning I woke up to find a tow truck driving off with my car on the back. I immediately called the bank and found out that the teller had accidentally issued a repo order instead of a lien release. I had a friend drive me to the tow yard that had my Prelude only to find out the tow truck driver hadn’t strapped the car down and it rolled off the flat bed when he went around a corner and it was totaled.

Submitted by: Tom Brennecke

I had a 1979 Mercedes 240d (in dark green with color matched hub caps) that I had parked on the street after work. The next morning I discovered that over night someone had plowed into the back of the car, hitting it hard enough to knock it up onto the side walk. The left rear fender was mashed… total hit and run, I loved that car, I was gutted.

Submitted by: Matt Pipes

3 y/o projectile vomiting all over the backseat of my wife’s brand new Acadia, the weekend before Christmas, about 3 months after we bought it. It got everywhere, with the worst being in the seat rails (since I hadn’t installed the WeatherTech yet as it was a Xmas present). Still smelled mildly of spoiled milk when we sold it 7 years later.

Submitted by: 86eldorado

My car with 200k miles had the transmission drop out in the middle of an intersection, during rush hour, while I was waiting to make a left turn. Had to hop out and push the car while everyone was just honking rather than anyone offering to help.

Didnt help my generally disdain for people.

Submitted by: Not Me

My ’62 Chevy wagon had a small telephone pole sticking in the roof and a few windows broken including the windshield after I returned from a trip. A tornado had hit the airport parking lot. I had to drive 90 miles with a missing windshield in cold weather. When I hit 30 mph, shards of broken glass started hitting me in the face.

Submitted by: Jerome Whittle

My wife’s work gave her tickets to the Royals game with a parking pass. Four tickets, so it was the two of us, a friend of ours, and her three-year-old son (his first baseball game!)

Halfway through the fourth inning, someone from the Royals came up to our seats. “Excuse me, is your car a burgundy Nissan Maxima?”

It was.

“Can you come with us, please?”

My wife and I left our friend and her son to watch the game, following the Royals employee out to the parking lot… where our car was on fire. Not raging, but there were flames licking out from under the hood. I was able to get the car unlocked and pop the hood; when the fire department arrived, they put out the fire.

The Royals guy was still standing with us. “Wow, that’s a real shame, that’s a nice car. By the way, Kauffman Stadium and the Kansas City Royals are not liable for any damage to a vehicle parked on our property.”

Eventually, the firefighters showed me that had dumped hot coals next to our Maxima, which started the fire. Apparently a tailgater was in too much of a rush to empty their grill into the designated disposal boxes and just dumped it on the ground next to us.

The Royals guy gave us tickets to an upcoming game and vouchers for free food and drinks. Dazed, my wife and I went back to our seats.

I remember sitting, staring at the game in front of me. My wife turned to me and asked, “I can’t pay attention to what’s going on. Are we winning or losing?”

“Losing. In every possible way tonight, we are losing.”

Submitted by: Jason Shepherd

’86 Nissan pulsar in late ’90s. Driving home from college late at night through rural area. Pre-cellphone area. Going up a steep hill, and it sounds like a rabid squirrel was dosed with speed and let loose in a cabinet of pots and pans – assumed it was the clutch letting loose. Coast to a stop near the only driveway I’ve seen in miles and start walking down a long driveway at 1 a.m. hoping not to get shot. Look back and the grill is glowing. Connecting rod had broken and punched a hole in the block and the oil caught fire.

2 hours from home, but it took my parents 6 hours to find me because it was a stretch where the road had multiple numbers and split in like 5 different ways, and they couldn’t figure out which of the options I had broken down on.

close second – driving on freeway in a late 70’s mgb when a pickup in front has a 3 foot long 2×4 bounce out of the trailer, bounce on the road, and head straight at my head. I let go of the steering wheel, ducked to the passenger side, and heard it hit the top of the windshield and then the back deck. never did fix the windshield.

Or . . . power shifting an 80’s S-10 b/c the clutch cable broke so the clutch could not be disengaged. At stops, had to either run the stop sign, or, put it in neutral, push it to get it rolling, jump in and grind hard into fourth, then immediately drop gears once it was under way.

Submitted by: Blank Slate

It was born a Chrysler.

Submitted by: AdamBarts

In college back in the 1970s I bought a 1965 Citroen ID19 (a decontented version of the DS19) for $250. I street parked it in Chicago and on really cold nights left it unlocked because the locks would freeze. While I was on an overnight trip with my brother (in his car) my sister called me in the morning and said my car was all burned up. The police theorized that some homeless person had sought overnight refuge from the cold and accidently set it on fire with a cigarette. The pillowy seats were gone, leaving only blackened springs, as was the roof, which I had not realized was made of plastic. The guy probably saved me from my own foolishness in buying an old, uncommon, complicated money pit.

Submitted by: John King

Got a brand new Infiniti G35 Coupe 6MT with the Brembo package. It was beautiful – All black with gold Brembo calipers. I’d had it about 36 hours and was leaving my parents house with a friend following me. On our street, about 10 houses down there was a four-way stop. I stopped, but my friend in his clapped out Isuzu dropped a CD and bent down to retrieve it and did not stop. Thought the car was totaled. His Isuzu looked like almost nothing had happened, but the entire rear end of my G35 was destroyed. Took 4 months to repair because the car was so new there weren’t many replacement parts for it. Absolutely tore me up, and I think about it every time I get into a car.

Submitted by: Paul Pettitt

I had one of those inline glass fuel filters fail while starting my car inside my 1-car attached garage. I had a small exhaust leak so I decided to look under the car when it was running inside the garage to see if I could see what part of the exhaust system was leaking. Then I noticed little drops of fire falling from the back of the engine. I quickly jumped back in, shut the car off, put it in neutral, and pushed hard with my left foot on the garage floor so the car rolled out into the driveway.

I did not have a fire extinguisher at the time (I have them in all our vehicles now) so I had to grab a heavy Mexican blanket off a shelf in the garage, open the hood, and use the blanket to smother the fire behind the carburetor. I had two friends visiting at the time and as soon as they noticed the car was on fire… They ran outside across the street and let me deal with the fire by myself.

Once the fire was out I pushed the car off to the side of the driveway. Later that week I went to a junkyard and found the wiring harness that had burned, as well as a new distributor cap & rotor. I bought a new set of 8 spark plug wires and some new fuel lines, along with a different style of fuel filter.

I drove the car to one of the friend’s house and he was amazed that I got it back together and drivable in only a week’s time. No thanks to him and my other friend.

Submitted by: Anonymous Person