The worst thing that ever happened to your vw

[Sid Vicious]

Getting TBoned in the WalMart parking lot on 28DEC09 by a guy that doesn't have insurance.

[pdubj]

I have a couple with the same '61 ragtop. '95 or so - finish the body work on this perfectly straight rag when I need to pull it out of the garage (was down a STEEP driveway below our street - OLD home and had built paint booth down there). Anyway, I want to water down the garage to reduce dust. I have the bumper brackets exposed out the rear (bumper off of course and motor out) and decide to tow it up this driveway with a chain attached from the rear bumper of my '69 bus to the ragtop's bumper brackets. I get to the top of the driveway and hit the brakes. The bumper brackets fold together and the chain comes off. I watched in horror as that baby gained SPEED and hit this old metal desk in the back of the garage so hard, the back of the beetle came off the ground. I literally shed tears as all that beautiful prep work was smashed..front apron mangled.

A month later she's finished and perfect! Then, only 4 months later, punk kid with no license or insurance runs a stop sign and creams my wife and two small boys (we were LUCKY - no seat belts installed yet and nobody seriously hurt). Insurance offers me $900 - I produce and fax 50 pages of valuation backup and they offer me $3500, BUT they want $1500 for me to keep her. I countered with $3500 less $150 if I keep the motor and battery - they took it.

2 months later, I almost cried again when I saw the roof clip on the rack at the old junk yard Bry's in West Seattle (back when Franklin worked there). Good times...

[av84fn]

[MLTIGGER2]

I lost the right front tire/rim/brake drum in a parking lot. I could have been killed if I was on the road. Idiot at tire store didn't tighten the hex nut on the spindle. Another reason to do the work yourself and the right way!!!!
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1968 Squareback
1970 Wunderbug Beetle

[hotrdvw]

Sold my 66 to a friend who just had to have it....well I sold it to him and he drove it for about 3 months and then parked for 9 yrs outside....asked him several times over the last 8 yrs to buy it back...never would. Finally talked him into selling it back..needless to say not in the same condition it was sold. Over the last 5 months I have been slowly bringing it back and driving everyday

[Komissar]

Lots of bad things happened to my car, (1965 beetle) since It was sold to me by a crazy old man who "fixed" it just to look good, and just after I've bought it things started braking down, falling apart.

The worse might be the left front wheel bearing coming apart during city driving. I've had almost 500 miles on the car since I've bought it, and one night, I've heard a sudden noise in front, steering felt "funny" and lose, and i've felt some strange vibrations at the wheels.
I've pulled over only to find out the left front wheel drum (with tire and rim attached of, course ) held in place only by the front spindle locknuts. The bearing broke apart.

Funny thing was, until then there was no funny warning noises at the wheel... everything was sudden and unexpected.


This is what the bearing looked like (what's left of it)
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8784/rulmentdistrus.jpg


I've hand pushed the car to a safe parking spot, arranged the wheel by hand to look "normal" and came in the morning with another used bearind and a floor jack to get the car rolling and out of that place.


It turned out the demented PO , when installed the bearings, pressed fit the outer race (of the smaller bearing) into a crocked (ovalised) inner drum circle. He forced the wheel bearing in there, and either the outer bearing race snapped the moment he forced it (i've found it cracked) and the bearing rollers rode that crocked bearing race, or either, at the beginning the race held intact, but during driving, because of the forces involved and the tension in it snapped ... anyway it might have been, the failure was instant, with no warning !
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1965 Sunroof Beetle
1972 Type 3 Squareback
1978 Skoda 105S

[drscope]

The worst thing that ever happened to my VW...

MOTHER NATURE
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Mother Nature is a Mean Evil Bitch!

[vdubnut58]

I got one. Rewind about 8 years ago. My brother car. It was a og owner never wrecked 54 3fold ragtop. It had been in his back yard for 12 years.
We completely restored the car over a 2 year period. Even painted the car in his garage. New 2387 motor from Adam wik. Seat are in. Car is kinda together. Windshield held in with blue tape. We go to take it on the freeway to break in the new motor. We hit the long straight away to get on the freeway on ramp. Probably going about 80mph. Just then a women exiting the freeway made an illegal u turn and cut us off. Instead of smashing into the back of her we veered into the island. Which was a 8" tall curb. Bug was 2" off the ground. Next thing I knew we were air born. As time stood still and things happened in slow motion. The windshield was flying out of the car just as the hood was flying up as the gas tank was ejected from the vehicle.
The hood caught the og green tint windshield and shot it back into place without breaking it.

The car came to stop on the island. Spilling 8 gallons of gas, 7 quarts of motor oil, 2.5 quarts of gear oil and leaking battery acid. That too broke. As I sat there looking at my brother is just remeber thinking WTF. Did that just happen?

8 years later, floor pan was replaced, nose cone was replaced, front beam, front clip, rear clip, oil sump, engine case. Car was repainted.

Maiden voyage part two. Third 1/4 pass motor grenades. Back the drawing board.

[youngnstudly]

Besides rusty pans and being rear-ended 6 times (and front ended once really bad) in the last 15 years of ownership, nothing bad has happend to my car ! Living in the middle of every vineyard on the planet brings a TON of undocumented vineyard workers, snobby yuppies, and trashy town drunks into your environment...Getting run into is isn't avoidable forever! Granted, I've made out like a bandit almost everytime with the insurance companys (after fighting long and hard!), however, it is still hard to see your pride and joy being treated like an abused puppy.

The last person to run into the back of my car was a middle aged Hispanic woman who spoke no english, had no driver's license or insurance, and didn't give half a crap that she just hit my car...To be fair, she only bumped it at about 5 mph and cracked the skim coat of bondo around my bumper brackets about an inch. The fenders are Italian made junk anyways and I knew having a cop come out and take a report wouldn't make a damn bit of difference since there was virtually no damage done. Besides, if she ended up getting deported, who knows how much of a mess I could have created !

Here is a pic of my car's hood after a dumbass coworker skidded into me (doing a burnout in reverse and locking up the brakes in gravel ). I had just primed the front of the car and installed decent German fenders 2 weeks before that didn't need bodywork done to them. He hit the headlight bucket hard, pushed the apron backed a few inches, and bent up the bumper pretty good. After the insurance guy looked at it, my dad and I cobbed it back together with my old fender so I could drive the car. note the turn signal is located in the wrong spot! My dad (who is a bodyman by trade) told me "Son, I don't know how to tell you this, but I believe your car's been previously violated" . We left the hood caved in until I got the insurance check.

You can see how bad the alignment really was even after we readjusted the hood so I could open it to fill the car up at the gas station. The apron was pushed about 3" back, which left a gap big enough for me to get my fingers through.

Here is a pic of us fitting a decent original hood onto the car. It took like 10 minutes to adjust and fit it up after stretching the apron back out. The hood "popped" up like a brand new car when the release was pulled. That was after we spent over an hour "trying" to fit a repo Italian hood onto the car and make the latch work well enough to drive the car daily. The crown of the repo hood didn't even match the car's shape so we went into the side yard and got the German hood out. It fit like a glove! And the hood seal actually functions as it should...imagine that!

Andy
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The economy is in a state of disaster, we have NO time for common sense!

[ludsbug]

Driving back from Tahoe, had heating issue outside of Sacramento in August. Had to have the girl towed to the Bay Area. Was sick for a few weeks about the whole incident, when the wife suggested to look inside the fan. And there laid the problem, sound/engine insulation had been sucked into the fan causing the heat issue and my over reaction!

[ludsbug]

Driving back from Tahoe, had heating issue outside of Sacramento in August. Had to have the girl towed to the Bay Area. Was sick for a few weeks about the hole incident, when the wife suggested to look inside the fan. And there laid the problem, sound/engine insulation had been sucked into the fan causing the heat issue and my over reaction!

[VWAdam]

[vwdude77]

took my bug out for drive the other day. heading back home i started to see smoke in the back of car. and then it was coming in car so pulled in my drive way shout the car off. got out saw a trial of oil so i look under car and saw valve cover feel off glad it happend close to home

[2tone64]

The worst thing to happen to this Bug was the stupid Los Paisanos bus that used to go through town. The driver hadn't slept since leaving Texas and totally misjudged where my car was parked.

It took me 6 months to get their insurance company to give me some money....

It was totaled, didn't look like it at first, but it broke the steering column, the lock, bent the beam, and bent the pan, not too mention both fenders, and ripped out the bumper mounts on both sides... I had to strap the fender on the hood like a dead deer and limp it home...

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64 Sunroof Bug, 68 Bug, 73 Super 'Vert, 01 Dodge 1500, 00 Subaru Outback, 46 Dodge 1-Ton, 68 Plymouth Roadrunner

[azbob]

Worse thing? I'd have to say the PO.

[theastronaut]

We had owned our OG paint '64 sunroof bug for 3 weeks when a kid in a Honda ran the stop sign leaving the high school parking lot and hit us in the passengers side front fender. It bent the beam back 5 inches, crushed the fender, bumper, and warped the inner fender panel. The original hub cap and wheel were trashed also. Luckily the frame or hood wasn't bent. Took forever to get the other driver's insurance to pay enough to fix it correctly. The cop didn't even give the other driver a ticket. :2gunfire:
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Strive for perfection in everything. Take the best that exist and make it better. If it doesn't exist, create it. Accept nothing nearly right or good enough."
-Sir Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls-Royce

'64 Beetle Sunroof OG Bahama Blue
'63 Beetle Vert
'66 Beetle
'88 Festiva L
'89 Festiva L
'64 Chevy C10
'66 Chevy C10

[problem-child]

A few years back I had this nice 64 I had put a lot of work into getting it where you see it in the picture. I was updating the breaks all around so I had the car up on jack stands. When I got to the rear I couldn't get that large nut undone. I broke several tools and my air tools just weren't big enough.

In the process of trying to remove it I had to take the car off the jack stands, so I put on the front tires and rims... loosely. A whole long story later I get the rear off and finish the job at hand.

A week later I lost the drivers front wheel at 60+mph... I repaired the damage but she was just never the same in my eyes. I sold her a few months later. Now I'm looking for the next one.

[CREATURE58]

i have a 58 bug here is what has happened to it for the 5 years i have had it....

1. 1st 1600 DP crapped out

3. A co-worker hit the back drivers fender at my father in-laws house with an f-250 diesel truck but nobody fessed up on who did it.

2. Drivers side window regulator broke off and dented the the door from the inside.

4. 2nd 1600 DP crapped out.

[mooks73]

well i would have to it it was me .have a very nice 62 vert.decided to strip her down for paint and all that good stuff.now sititing naked in my brothers yard .has been this way for 3 years now i havent lost interest but running your own auto repair does take all your time from your own projects.still hoping to get it painted by early next year.
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it doesn't matter what its worth.its what its worth to you that matters.

[jays58s]

All the little rust issues on my 59' could have been avoided, if one of the previous owners replaced the damn window seals. To add to it, the PO's thought they knew how to weld....