Driving the wheels off

BigBody79

BigBody79

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2005
Location
Lumberton
I have said many times, "I am going to keep it till the wheels fall off." But how many of you have actually done such? I was just thinking of selling my truck to buy something similar/difference. But I don't know if I could get rid of it. So how many of you have actually kept a car/truck till it died?
 
I think its kind of difficult to quantify a vehicle dying, as some people might think that driveline component replacements are another type of maintenance. I think you have to define a stopping point for your vehicle to "die".
 
I agree. The problem is that people continue to fix things along the way, so it never actually "dies", just constantly fixed. Def depends on what you consider to be catastrphic failure, e.g. death.
I had an XJ I drove for, hm, about 8 years. Only reason I got rid of it was b/c somebody crush a car parked next to it, crushing the side and into anotehr car - bosy was shot. Perfectly driveable. I wanted to keep it but the body work made it impractical.

With old, vehicles, there are 2 routes to go. 1 - fix things, everything, as they break. Car never dies. 2 - fix nothing, literally drive it into the ground, save $$ on no repairs. Anything in between is a waste of $$ IMO.

I did have a '95 which the wheel hub bolts came off of while driving once, 1 bolt shy of quite literally driving the wheel off. does that count? It fit in Cat 2 above.
 
I've had a wheel fall off the bronco while driving. I guess that counts?

Like he said, we all work on our junk and swap in new drivetrain parts without thinking...I'd say something like when a toyota has 400k miles on it and the frame has disintegrated into rust, it's time to call it quits.
 
I had a wheel fall off my Chevelle, but that was due to soMEone not setting the wheel flat when tightening the lugnuts. So I guess I've passed that mark.

I drove my CJ for many years, fixed/patched/swapped/upgraded many things. Some might say the final nail in the coffin was the UREcross race where I bent the rear axle and cracked the frame in 2 places (one new, one previously fixed). I have a new axle housing on my workbench, a donor CJ frame next to my CJ and a drivetrainless YJ next to that...it might live again :huggy:
 
between my brother and I we have drove 3 trucks till the wheel fell off, and on a arm fell off on a car. Does that count? My jeep wheel fell off on hwy 73 @ 55 mph we just jacked it up, pulled the tire from the yard that it bounced from a house to. Then took a lug nut from the other wheels and drove on a flat spotted rotor for 3 weeks. I think some one tried to steal (play a joke) that wheel because there's no way running a yj hard would loosen those lugs that fast the others a sas 4runner and fj which shared the same bad wheel with a bent hub flange (lug centric). The ford probe was custom cruisers fav car ever and had warrenty work done and they forgot a bolt....in the a-arm!!!
Other than that we did destroy a saturn that was given to my brother it was jumped smashed crashed spun out in jumped again and was then pushed home by a giant 4runner... pushed home was me driving it my bro back away on hills and then flooring it from 5+ feet away till the trunk met the back seat. BTW I think my ankle still hurts from that fun push home
 
I have a 90 accord with 329k miles. Ive had it for 8 years now and i dont plan on getting rid of it. I did have an upper ball joint to break with me one time when i exited the highway.....repaired it and im still goin. I dont plan on getting rid of it, and i keep sinking money in it to keep it going but it is much much cheaper than a car payment. And it still gets 30mpg.
 
I used to have a corvette (C4), put 285,000 miles on it, still wish I had it. I'm sure it's still going somewhere. Drove it daily for 12 years.
Got real good at rear wheel bearing changes (unit bearing) and alternator changes (get baked due to their location constantly).
It was a mad max looking thing, primed here and there, door had been caved in and glassed up. I miss having a daily driver you can just beat on and never wash!
 
Well I guess what I am referring to is more a figure of speech more than anything. I just C-Clips come lose and wheels do fall off, but not what I am going for. I suppose what I meant was to keep fixing it until it was no longer worth fixing and not selling it until that point.
 
I did that, sold my xj when it was just an enormous money pit, bought a wrx and now wish i woulda just kept fixin the xj up and im probably about to sell my wrx and get another jeep
 
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