Non Ford Ranger Horror Stories - Page 3

Skylark65 · #31 01-24-2011, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clinton

Holy shit...THAT is bad!

yup, he said they noticed a big cloud behind the truck about a mile from home and the truck quit right at the end of their driveway.

...and that's just messed up with the duramaxipad!

i remembered another one, my mom's first car she got used in '78, it was a '77 trans am S/E ( smoky & the bandit clone), T tops, 4 speed, black & gold disco paint

the dealership she bought it from put tires on it, and never tightened the lug nuts properly! so heading down I 81 about a month after getting the car she had been noticing a ticking noise, and next thing she knows the drivers side rear wheel flies off the car at 80 MPH, spun out good and avoided being a new grille guard for a peterbuilt by a few feet.

MikeLoco · #32 01-25-2011, 03:57 PM

Dodge Dog right? They suck. I have an 87' dakota sitting out at the fence. I mean, thats a good lil beaner truck. haha. Old, beat up body but a good engine in it. Hardly no miles on it. none at all. I stuck a JVC stereo in it after tearin out the ol` "Realistic" or whatever the brand was. a cassette player. Its a 5 speed clutch

Rango88 · #33 01-26-2011, 04:47 AM

This is the Story of my belated 92 Honda Accord EX-R. The car was beast, stock it could keep up with modern day celicas, but it was used and abused by brother who was a carpenter. He would tow a trailer that I believe was over the towing capacity of the Accord.

When I got it after my P.O.S. Grand am (went from a 1999 Grand with 173K kms to a 1992 Accord with 287k Kms) it was already on its last days. Tranny wouldn't down shift from 3 to 2 without jittering like bucking horse. Head Gasket had blown since the The Head had warped. I had to have the head machine (therefore increasing the compression

more power lol).

On its last days, the car would endlessly vibrate at any speed over 60 Kms. I asked my Dad if he could check it out. He took it for a test drive and determined that Cylinder 2 was not working. He pulled out the spark for Cyl. 2 and the car was still running but the compression was off. So he removed each spark plug one by one until no. 3 and he engine quit and never started again no matter what we did. $1400 for a new engine, yeah right, no thanks I think I will buy a new car instead.

I don't blame the car, it had a tough run and still lasted until 317K kms.

Rango88 · #34 04-02-2011, 01:47 PM

Just drove a 2007 Chev Malibu 3.5L V6 LTZ, man whata p.o.s, the car has 57,000 Kms on the odo and the cars idle flunctuate so badly it feels like its going to stall. it varies from 1200 Rpm to below 400 Rpm it starts to sputter and then kick back up again, perhaps it needs a tune but man, thats rough lol

Fordzilla80 · #35 04-02-2011, 01:50 PM

Rangers can do the same thing man when the IAC fails. My truck has done that twice now.

Rango88 · #36 04-02-2011, 01:52 PM

but a such low kms? I think thats sureal

djfllmn · #37 04-02-2011, 02:12 PM

my dads 05 VW Passat...bought it with 50K on it in Feb. 09...total piece of crap...my dad puts on about 3K a month...it also has the sludge prone 1.8T...and you all know how VW parts are

both half shafts at 75K
new EGR system at 80K
Charcoal Cannister at 95K
and I'm still chasing a problem with the secondary air injection system and the multi-function switch is on its way out

edgeman4.0 · #38 04-02-2011, 02:23 PM

I had a jeep before my ranger, it ran great and never gave me any troubles. I miss it terribly.

there's my non ranger horror story.

Rangerlove · #39 06-17-2011, 09:27 AM

Well, a 1982 Ford Fairmont Futura was gifted to me to use while I rebuilt my Ranger's head (200K miles, had three cracks in the head and two bent valves...yet it still took me and 500+ lbs. of camping gear and a rather large friend out into the boonies. It complained really loudly, but it never once failed us through muck or over fallen trees! Left the bottom end alone.)

The Futura became an adventure in and of itself and prolonged the rebuilding of my Ranger for three months. It broke down on me 32 times in the first month I owned it.

I got it home, but the next day on the way to work, the alternator went out and killed the battery.

The carburetor was a mess and required a rebuild, but I couldn't find a kit, so I grabbed a better shape one out of a junkyard. Most of the vacuum ports on the old one had simply been left open and vacuum lines that one might assume to be important such as intake manifold vacuum or vacuum advance vacuum were simply unhooked and the line was missing. Two of the plugs were burnt out, so I replaced them all with Motorcraft brand.

The second thing I noticed is that the incorrect rear shocks had been installed and the spacers left off(the fronts weren't much better), causing the wheels to go everywhich way when backing up, and wobble like nobody's business and make it undrivable at freeway speeds. There was zero brake-lining on the rear drums. Both wheel cylinders were frozen with rust. There simply were no rear brakes. The e-brake was frozen completely and required a replacement of all cables and hardware in the drums. This was the root of the problem. They had locked on and caused the rear brakes to always be applied. The wheel cylinders over-extended during braking and thrust through their seals and boots. Of course someone at somepoint just kept driving it, though I can't imagine how or why. This all wasn't really that big of a problem, it was easy and cheap stuff to fix and took a three-day weekend at my leisure to get through, but it took me quite a few weeks to hunt down the parts.

The day after I got all that done, one of the front wheel bearings started to go out (lol). I was losing interest, and drove to work on city streets at 40 MPH max., so I put off fixing it while I did Ranger stuff. The next driving down the road, the hood pops up (no safety latch installed at factory) and literally flies off and lands behind me scaring the crap out of a Honda Civic.

The next day the muffler shot off and scared the crap out of a Chevy Nova. Then I noticed in the engine bay, the entire EGR system had been removed and the A.I.R. system had been left open and exhaust fumes were spewing into the engine and getting sucked into the passenger cabin (explaining my frequent headachs even before the exhaust fell off).

Then the rear window rollers broke off and both the inside and outside door lock handles quit working.

Then the stereo went out. Then the air vents went out.

Then I start to get these paranoid "Christine" delusions. Maybe this car hates me?

About a week later it quit shifting halfway to work. Vacuum modulator went out. Required manual shifts. But then Drive 1 quit working. So I fixed that. Wheel bearing getting louder and louder. Then it stopped shifting at the column. The linkage bent and broke and barely moved it enough to get in gear. That was a pain. Soon as I get all that fixed, one of the cylinders blasts through it's last ring and squirts copious amounts of oil into Cylinder No. 2 and the plug won't stay clean enough to fire for more than one trip to work and back.

I went gangbusters rebuilding the Ranger and parked the Fairmont across the street. It's covered in greasy hand prints and stains of every sort of fluid imaginable. The neighbors complain. My stepdad doesn't want it back.

The end.

P.S. My mom bought a used '03 Impala in '06 with 40K miles. By the time it had hit 70K it had shredded through three transmissions, all of which Chevrolet replaced free gratis. She traded it in for a Prius which has actually been a little darling in terms of reliability, ugly as sin, though.

brinker88 · #40 06-17-2011, 09:31 AM

1994 chevy blazer. I inherited it from my dad for my 16th bday. Needed a tranny. Boom $1400. 2 months later, it needed inspected boom $450 for brakes and all that fun stuff. 5 months after that, the injectors went and was leaking raw FUEL out the TAILPIPE. This thing was a POS from the get go. I totalled it after hitting a deer and a telephone pole with a live transformer...It's still on the road (offroad) today as a wood buggy with the roof cut off.

knightmare1015 · #41 06-17-2011, 09:57 AM

This one actually involves a ranger. My 1997 XLT Rnager had a love affair with the shop. Well one day when I actually kept it out of the shop for more than a week and it started to overheat very very badly. At one point I thought a kaboom was going to happen. That's how bad it was overheating. Well I took it to my local GM dealer. Come to find out that my local ford dealer had put a dry rotted set of radiator hoses on it. When he pulled it into the bay, they busted and sprayed hot antifreeze all over us. I got lucky and didn't get burned, but one mechanic did get burned a little bit. That local ford dealer had so many lawsuits for incompetence that they went out of business. Good ridence in my book. They just threw on a set of bad hoses and said it was ok. That GM dealer is the same one who worked on my truck this last time. They basicly saved my ass and quite a few other people's asses as well. That other dealer went out and the current Ford dealership that is there now took over. The point is always check the condition of the parts you're using. GM pretty much repaired all of that ford dealer's bullshit repairs. Now this one that took over is in question concerning their work, after 2 people left that kept things running smoothly.

brinker88 · #42 06-17-2011, 10:03 AM

^This and getting ripped off is the reason I learned to work on my own vehicles.

Fordzilla80 · #43 06-17-2011, 10:58 AM

I bought my F100 for $400.

What's wrong with or has been wrong with it:

-Two popped freeze plugs
-The most corroded thermostat housing I have ever seen
-Radiator will not hold water due to 2 cracks on either side that nothing will seal
-Numerous wires were cut for no reason, including the rear tail light harness. Rear harness has since been replaced.
-3/4 of my ground straps are missing.
-Brake pads and rotors have deep ridges ground into them.
-Brake booster is trash.
-Brake fluid looks like chocolate milk.
-Previous owner used a carriage bolt and castle nut as an oil pan drain plug. This completely destroyed the threads on the pan and broke the thread piece welds that held the thread piece to the pan. The entire oil pan had to be replaced.
-Half of the vacuum lines were either disconnected or connected wrong. Have all been reconnected in the correct positions.
-The old mechanical fuel filter was left on the side of the block with the lines crimped and an electric fuel pump was added using power from an unidentified wire I have still yet to source. Old fuel pump was replaced with a new unit and unidentified wire was blocked off.
-Engine was absolutely covered in oil, dirt, and grease. Has been cleaned on the side, front section still needs major cleaning.
-Driveshaft has about 2-3 inches of play.
-Exhaust pipe was ripped off and the mounts were all left on the truck. Mounts have been removed for now.
-Window cranks and the driver's side door panel support were removed and nowhere to be found. The entire interior has been swapped and missing parts have been added.
-Glove box liner was missing in action. New glove box liner came with new interior.
-Heater core lines were removed from the heater core and connected together.
-Battery support system was removed. Support components have been replaced.
-Right rear tail light was held on with electric tape. Screws have been put in place.
-Engine lopes like a tractor, which i'm pretty sure is not good at all.lol.

And much much more.
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knightmare1015 · #44 06-17-2011, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brinker88

^This and getting ripped off is the reason I learned to work on my own vehicles.

Yep. Unfortunately in my case I can't because either my mobility issues kick in, or I don't have what I need to fix the problem in terms of tools. Once I get a job though, I'll be building my own vehicle that I can work on without alot of tools and have no porblem getting what I need to take care of any problems that may occur. I'll be building a T-bucket while my ranger will become a secondary vehicle. That way I won't get ripped off by shoddy workmanship.

knightmare1015 · #45 06-17-2011, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brinker88

^This and getting ripped off is the reason I learned to work on my own vehicles.

Yep. Unfortunately in my case I can't because either my mobility issues kick in, or I don't have what I need to fix the problem in terms of tools. Once I get a job though, I'll be building my own vehicle that I can work on without alot of tools and have no porblem getting what I need to take care of any problems that may occur. I'll be building a T-bucket while my ranger will become a secondary vehicle. That way I won't get ripped off by shoddy workmanship.