Why do some people blow stuff up?

And others don't?

I have witnessed this for years. There are some people that, no matter what they drive, it's only a (ussually short) matter of time before they blow it up.

Growing up, we all raced around, all did the same stupid stuff together, yet there was always one, or two guys, always the same ones, that went through motors, trannies, diffs, etc. doing exactly the ssame stuff.

In 30 years of driving like a complete idiot, I've only ever blown up one motor, and it was semi-deliberate. I totally abuse stuff, and never have problems. I have 2 sons, who are carrying on the tradition. One has never hurt a thing. The other has blown up his bike, ATV, front diff., and just recently the motor in his car (which was in the family for 10 yrs. without problems).

Is it just me? Has anybody else noticed this?

You abuse it, but I'm assuming you do the maintenance, put in the right parts/stronger parts, and investigate those odd noises that pop up. They don't.

Not just you; I've noticed it too, but I'm at a loss to explain why. Maybe it's a karma thing that has nothing to do with the mechanical aspect.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the little things: over-revving the engine at start up and not allowing it to warm up before thrashing.. holding the redline just that split second too long.. not getting the clutch in all the way before forcing the shift.. lack of regular maintenance, etc.

I know one fellow in particular who wears his track record of hooning engines like it was some bizzare sort of badge of honor. He brags that he's blown the engine in most every car he's ever owned, which are quite a few by now, considering his strage obsession with crankcase ventilation. For obvious reasons, I never observed his driving style personally.. I refuse to ride with him!

It's a mystery; some people are just hell on equipment..

I have a cousin like that.. he has destroyed every car he has ever owned.. from a Volvo 142gt (yes, a GT) up to a nice e32 7 series. Right now he is into a p71 phase.. and those cars seem to be holding up well under his abuse

Some people have mechanical sympathy and some don't. I had a beater VW cabriolet that I used as a commuter car for a couple years. It needed some tinkering to keep it going here and there, but nothing too terrible....except if my son drove it - it would break almost everytime he would drive it. Stall and not start or rear brake cylinder let loose, etc.

He is not a car nut - which may be a good thing as it would be a very expensive hobby for him.

I had a brother in law like that. I'm not sure how he did it, but he killed just about every car/truck/motorized device he ever owned. It was never clear what happened to them either, they just 'blew up' and he'd push them out back behind the shed. One of his sons seems to be carrying on the tradition.

You are probably right about the mechanical sympathy bit. I am not sure my cousin has sympathy for ANYTHING (that includes people)

and I rememeber my first fiat.. I could not let ANYBODY else drive that car. If they did, something would break. The funniest was a friend I let drive her, I sat in the passengerside and we went all the way to his house drama free. He shut her down, handed me the keys, and then got out.

He gently closed the door.. and the glass in the mirror fell out and shattered on the ground

I think is has to do with knowing how much stuff is flying around in a engine or transmission and listening or feeling it thrash around and knowing when to quit pushing.

Three rules I follow religiously:

1: Don't over twist it. Ever. Not necessarily by the tach, but by listening to the engine.

2: Don't over heat it. Ever.

3: Keep it well lubed. Always.

I have blow one engine. It had almost 300K on it. Sometimes they are just done no matter what you do.

Every engine I have owned let you know when they had had enough. Either by a sound or a feel. You just knew it had reached its limit and if you pushed it a little more it was going to bite back. Some people are deaf to those little signs. I have ridden with some of them. It makes your skin crawl when they keep pushing long after they should have shifted. The engine has no more to give but they keep the hammer down oblivious the the warning signs. They know if they snatch the shifter it will grind into second, but they snatch it anyways. You got to pay attention to the little thing that let you know you're doing it wrong, or pay for the parts to fix it.

I'm sort of fall into the "I break things no matter what I do" group. Nothing so dramatic as engine explosions (although that would be pretty cool). It seems to be fading, but I used to not be able to do anything to a car without something (usually unrelated) breaking soon afterwards.

I've never blown anything up, which I sometimes find surprising. I once had an oil cooler line split on my AE86, just as I was leaving the driveway to go to a track day 200 km away. I didn't notice and kept driving as it let out all my oil. There must have been a check valve or something in there as it stopped peeing a few hundred meters down the street (I later measured this by following the line of oil on the road!) and made it to the track with ~1 L of oil left in the sump.

In the paddock I checked the oil (luckily! Still had no clue that anything was wrong!), found the problem, looped the good line and bypassed the cooler, refilled it with oil, and even got a couple lapping sessions out of it. Never saw any evidence that it had suffered oil starvation.

About a year later I had my ST184 Celica out lapping on the same track. Brought it into the paddock at the end of the day and shut it down too hot, causing a pinhole leak in one of the radiator endtanks (which had been steadily getting worse over the day) to rupture into a full-fledged hole and let out most of my coolant as steam. (That was the same time I did this to it, but never mind!) I scrounged as many empty water bottles as I could, filled them from the tap, and drove it home, pausing every 20 minutes or so to refill the coolant. It did overheat a few times on the way (judged by the water boiling instantly as I filled it), but I made it. After I replaced the rad there was a brand new miss throughout the rev range and it was significantly down on power, which did not make me happy at all; I was sure I'd done evil things deep in the bowels of the motor. That is until I replaced the plugs and ignition wires which made everything fine again. Huh? That car had over 300 000 km at the time and flew through its next emissions check easily. I had it for another year or so and never saw any problems.

With our 944S my dad and I actually drove it a bit (not officially, just up & down the street stuff) with a broken balance shaft belt when we first got it and hadn't done the front end service yet. This wouldn't normally be a problem bit it's right next to the timing belt and could have easily taken that with it when it snapped. Yikes!

This post was supposed to be a two line comment but I kept thinking of more and more stories where I should have blown up a car but didn't as I was writing. Sheesh...

I have a friend who destroys stuff. I believe he surfs these boards even He'll try to blame me for selling him POS's that I've beaten on, but the fact of the matter is that I've never broken a car we couldn't fix that day, and I've put a SERIOUS hurtin' on a LOT of cars

His jdam wrx wagon actually seems to be holding up though: first day he had it, awd 5K rpm clutch dump, TWICE. I'm still surprised he hasn't broke it yet

There are a few cars that I owned that should have blown up but didn't. But I've blown up a lot of engines, more than my fair share. Not sure why, I have the oil changed at regular intervals, I check it all the time and most of the cars I've had don't lend themselves to a heavy foot. I am the schleprock of engines. Here is my sorry track record, not a badge of honor, just being honest, I see a pattern here by the way:

76 Ford Granada, inline 6: Grandpa gave it to me. I noticed it was down on power and getting worse shortly after taking possession. Then it blew. I blame Grandpa.

76 Ford Station Wagon 400 V-8: Engine ran great. Was driving home and called my wife to tell her I would be there shortly. She answers and doesn't even say hello, just asks "Did the car blow up". I laughed and hung up. 2 minutes later the engine blew up. She hated the station wagon so I blame her for that one, she put some sort of wifey curse on me.

76 Ford Quadravan: Bought used off Ebay, drove it about 400 miles home, no problems, blew up about 10 months later.

Basically, stay away from 76 fords if you want my advice.

1979 Ford PU: Bought for $600 bucks lasted 6 years before engine started to knock.

2002 Ford Contour SVT: Blew up after going around hard right hand bend. Found out others with this car had the same problem. I swear I wasn't going that fast. I swear!

Non Ford Blow ups:

1979 Olds Delta 88: Car I had in college. Engine blew. I'm innocent I tell ya.

2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee: Was driving fast to get to the hospital, wife was having a baby (she was already there) Loud noise from engine compartment, engine knocked till I got to the hospital.

1989 GMC suburban 4x4: Engine blew, had it rebuilt, then the trans blew about 2 weeks ago.

Great cars that I owned that did not blow up:

(2) 69 Olds Delta 88's Volkswagon Scirroco with over 300,000 miles Early 80's Tercel with about 300,000 miles 1989 Honda Civic 1971 Porsche 914 1996 Z28 Camaro 1986 Ford Mustang GT. Can't believe it didn't blow up. 2002 Ford Explorer, haven't blown it up... yet.

So my score is 9 wins, 8 losses.

In 1991 I bought a 1986 Civic Si with weak syncros and a soft clutch, showing 87K miles. Drove it for 5.5 years, put 55K miles on it. Syncro grind went away in the fist year, all by itself. Autocrossed it, drove it hard. Finally sold it and told the buyer, a young kid, that the clutch was soft but I'd never had to change it.

He blew the clutch in week.

You can't teach mechanical sympathy.

David

DWNSHFT wrote: You can't teach mechanical sympathy.

That's it in a nutshell. /thread

I usually retire cars due to apathy or general crappiness, not from catastrophic failure.

I've blown an engine, only one, and it was my fault (9psi, 160k mile D15B2, did a top speed run with it). Other than that, I have that 'Mechanical Sympathy'.

I've ridden with a few people who just don't have it, and one guy who has the ability to totally ignore it. Both situations are highly stressful, listening to the engine & transmission scream in pain, and they are totally oblivious.

The one who ignores it, I helped him swap 7 engines in 12 weeks. Every one for rod knock. Every one had Mobile 1 & OEM oil filters. It was a 240sx drift car, burning through N/A KA24DE's. He didn't care because he had a garage full, and his abuse was a spectacular & thrilling ride at the rev limiter. What they lacked in power, he made up for in clutch kicks. KA24DE's are NOT high RPM engines, and if you want yours to last, put it in a truck, where it belongs.

We need some computer sympathy here-or was I the only one with the 502 error for a few hours tonight?

Maybe the IT guy just has that luck?

I had the same problem, had it a few other times too. not sure what the deal is, maybe I blew up the server by responding to this thread?

Yeah, something on here definitely blew up. The main page still isn't up.

Next Challenge: Solid white car, Number 502, sponsored by Bad Gateway Racing.

There was a period of time where any thing i drove that wasn't my 93 toyota truck would blow up. oddly enough, that truck has over 400k on it, and has been knocking for 2 years now, but still starts up every morning and gets my dad to work.

My last one was my XP car. Inadaquate intercooler + bad radiator + state championship = blown headgasket, broken piston, and 2nd place

zipty842 wrote: My last one was my XP car.

For some reason I thought you were going to say it was blue and had "screen of death" painted on the side

ROFL

Why do I want to build a car with those themes?

Oh, yeah, I'm a geek with a complete set of Star Trek.

I've blown up a 93 Corolla with a 7afe single cam (Oil passages were SCREWED, mechanic said there wasn't a lot of oil it it, I said no E36 M3, it's all over 35w) a 1995 TSi AWD (Durrrrr crankwalk, and AWD clutch drops took care of the trans for me) threw a trans out of a 350$ Escort (It was an auto, torque converter was shot, and it would have cost me more to have the car repaired than to crush it) and had a motor mount fail on my 2007 Mazdaspeed3...... that was a TSB my local dealer failed to complete, they didn't ask a whole lot of questions even with my custom intake mani with the giant race shop plate welded to it. My cars have an alarming habit of ending up on a flatbed. I fear for the poor Miata that ever ends up in my possession.

mndsm wrote: I fear for the poor Miata that ever ends up in my possession.

LS1 + spare diff = end fear