“Simply, then add lightness” was the philosophy of legendary Lotus founder Colin Chapman, but it’s rather unnerving when your vehicle decides to simplify and add lightness while you’re underway. [Ed note: if you only click one link today, that’s the one.] While parts aren’t supposed to fall off of vehicles while driving, if you happen to be piloting an abominable shitbox, it can happen.
I haven’t always owned good examples of vehicles, so I’ve lost several things while underway. A section of exhaust piping on my Ford Crown Victoria made a horrendous clunk as I ran over it, the undertray on my G35 was largely silent as it parted company with the rest of the car, and an indicator lens on the Crown Victoria barely made a whisper as the ancient sealant gave up on life, allowing the polycarbonate to be taken by the breeze. Believe it or not, I’ve had a part fall off of a brand-new vehicle while driving too. Many years ago, I was driving a GMC Acadia press car over some freeway expansion joints when one of the rear HVAC vents fell out of the ceiling.
The most puzzling case of parts-shedding I’ve encountered didn’t happen to me, but I’ll never forget witnessing it. Pulled over on the oncoming side of the road was a second-generation Hyundai Accent, and several meters behind the car, its fuel tank was resting in the road. Given the tenacity of filler necks and lines, one can only imagine how the hell the driver managed to do that.
So, have you ever had parts fall off of a vehicle while driving, and if so, what were they? How spectacular or stealthy was the departure? As ever, we’d love to hear your experiences with spontaneous lightweighting in the comments below. We can commiserate, because many of us have been there before.
(Photo credits: Hyundai)
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I believe the correct quote is “Simplify”, not simply.
Clearly it’s just been appropriately simplied.
Driving on the interstate, the Chevy S10 in front of me deployed their drop in bed liner in ‘full flight mode’. Fortunately it fluttered one lane to the right of me, and proceeded to neatly slid down the highway. I assume it came to rest in the breakdown lane, following the crown of the road.
I blew the muffler off a 91 civic with a B series swap. It still had the tiny OEM 1 1/4″ exhaust and muffler. I gave it the beans and it just blew the muffler clean off!
78 CJ left rear wheel, tire, axle and drum fell off after I went over some railroad tracks going too fast. Saw the wheel sticking out, then the whole assembly fell off. Managed to steer slightly left and stopped before it hit the ground. Jacked it up, re-inserted the axle, with everything attached, and slooowly limped back home. The Jeep wasn’t worth $500 before the incident. Sold it from the yard for $500.
When I was 21 I flew to CA from the Rockies after buying a car on ebay. It was cheap old garbage, a 1989 Honda Accord, but at the time the car was worth like $3500 at home and I only paid like $900 plus trip cost, so it was a good deal for a college student.
When I arrived it turned out that the sunroof was siliconed shut due to leaks. Huge smears of silicone all over the roof to try to seal it. This wasn’t noted in the ad, so I got a discount on the vehicle before I left.
Driving across Nevada on I15, I crossed out of some rocks on to a bridge over a canyon. Drivers window was down partially. A crosswind through the canyon hits my car, and Phunk! SLAM! on the roof of the car, accompanied by insane amounts of wind noise suddenly. Scared the hell out of me! I just kind of pushed forward till I got off the bridge, since the car wasn’t handling weirdly, but I had zero idea what had happened. Finally slowing on to the shoulder, I start looking around and finally realize the freaking sunroof is gone! The glass was missing and the upholstered sliding cover for it was sucked 3/4 of the way out the roof!
I get out of the car and see the sunroof glass isn’t missing. Its actually used the silicone on the back of the glass to the roof as a hinge. The SLAM I heard was the glass hitting the roof (and shattering badly, but its safety glass so it was still “one piece”). The glass itself had gotten pushed out of the tray by the gust of wind coming in through my partially open window.
Not knowing what else to do at the moment, I punched the upholstered cover back down in and wedged in backward into its slot where you put it when the sunroof is open. Then I drove a little slowly down the freeway until I got to an exit. I bought like 5 tiny rolls of duck tape from the gas station (no Walmart or hardware store anywhere at all nearby). I then proceeded to use tape top and bottom to reinforce the glass, then flipped it back in to the tray and taped it down to the roof of the car again.
I drove the car like that for a couple of weeks before I found a match at the junkyard and managed to pull myself a new sunroof and upholstered cover.
The closest I have come is with my first car, a 1992 Hyundai Excel hatchback. The front turn signal was held on with a spring that went from the chassis to a hole in the lens casing. The hole in the casing broke, and the turn signal whacked the front bumper. It was held in by the wiring but given the overall quality of Hyundai in 1992 there’s no telling how long that would have lasted. I drilled a new hole and stretched the spring a touch further. It lasted until the engine blew up, which was the end of that vehicle.
Was driving a 1988 Bronco II in 1995. Recently had work done at a Tuffy (or was it a Midas?) Was driving West on I-94 from the Detroit area to Kalamazoo to visit a girlfriend. It was summer. The AC was busted so I had the windows down. Doing top speed of 78mph and drove under an overpass and heard this nasty thunking sound. No sooner do I pat the dashboard of the car and tell it “only a few more miles” did the front left wheel entirely disassociate itself from the car.
I repeat – the front left wheel fell off while doing 75mph in the fast lane on I-94WB.
Car slammed onto the rotor and instantly started yanking itself to the center median wall. As I slowed the car down on the fast lane shoulder, I look over the wall and see the tire bouncing into oncoming traffic. Tire travelled about 1/4 mile into the Eastbound lanes. For a few years there was a decent gouge in the asphalt that I used to look at when travelling to Chicago and say “Hey, I did that!”
In high school, the muffler fell off my ’96 Saab as I went over the railroad tracks on my way to work. Happened to have an old moving blanket in the car, wrapped it up and threw it in the trunk.
Got a ticket the next day for the loud exhaust. The cop swore up and down that I added “racing exhaust” and that was why it was loud. Had a receipt for a new muffler in the glove box (was waiting for it to arrive), and had the rusted off muffler in the trunk still. Jerk didn’t give a shit about it at all. I mean, yeah, technically I was breaking the law, but I was doing my best to fix it while still keeping my job. Plus, not like cutting some broke high schooler some lack over a rusted out muffler was going to cause all of society to break down and the world to devolve into chaos.
Luckily neighbor down the street was a Trooper and signed it if it had been fixed to cut me some slack. “Monroe County Sheriffs are fuckin’ dicks,” he tells me as he signed it.
I had the left front plastic fender flare of my old 01 Tacoma come off on the highway. It was my first car and one night I was out sliding around on some empty mountain roads in the rain. I spun and very lightly tapped the guard rail with the left front corner. It didn’t do an real damage, just a little dent in the bumper and a slight crease in the fender, nothing I really cared about on an already beat up truck.
A few days later, I was driving home from college for a weekend visit. I’m on the highway and I hear as kind of ssssssSSSSHHHHHHHHH noise then a quick BOOM followed by something smacking against the door. I pull over and the flare had completely blown off and was only held on by the one bolt at the very bottom of the fender. I guess that fender crease was just enough to let air get underneath the flare and blow it off.
I had some tools in the truck and tried to unbolt the flare so I could fix it properly later but the bolt was very rusty and stripped so it was just turning in the hole. I had no other choice than to just rip the flare off since the rest of the clips that held it broke when it blew off. I never did get around to buying a new flare, I drove that truck for 2 or 3 more years with only 3 fender flares on it.
I’ve lost plenty of hubcaps and center caps, but no major parts beyond that.
I was riding with a friend once when the driver front wheel and tire fell off his car. We were doing 75mph on the freeway at the time, and somehow the wheel and tire stayed inside the wheel well and allowed us to pull off the road without dying. We laughed ourselves silly with relief once we realized we should have been dead.
I also watched an entire exhaust system fall off a mid-90s Oldsmobile while on the highway, from Y-pipe to exhaust tip, catalytic converters and all. As I was dodging the system skidding across three lanes of I-94, I couldn’t help but notice the absurd amount of bailing wire that was previously holding the system to the car. The Ford Taurus next to me couldn’t dodge it in time and got all four wheels off the ground as it ramped off the of the muffler at 65mph.
Surprisingly only one: 9 year old cat back exhaust on a ’84 Subaru GL. Also ran over it as the car was going up a steep hill. It was quite loud. Also almost lost a wheel on the same car. Detroit roads loosened up one of them and the lug holes in the steel wheel got reamed out. Luckily, I pulled off the road when I heard the banging and noticed the steel debris around the nuts. It was not easy finding a replacement wheel for a 12-year old Subaru in Detroit, but find one I did (I couldn’t use the full size spare as I already used it after toasting another wheel bombing down a deserted road at night only to run into a set of uncovered railroad tracks at about 50 mph).
You’re definitely a kindred soul: able to get Full Value for every EAxx Subaru dollar spent 🙂
The torture I put that thing through that it laughed off would seem like movie magic nonsense. After hitting those railroad tracks, I limped it a few miles home and, after straightening the bent trailing arm off the front suspension, it didn’t even need an alignment. I paid $500 for it and ownership costs were on the bicycle scale. With a JC Whitney PA system that made animal noises and being a wagon with plenty of space in back, that was easily the most fun I will have with any car or for any price. The sedan I replaced it with wasn’t quite as good, but still up there and at least was a stick. That got killed when half an oak tree fell on the front of it while I was driving down the street (I mean, I still drove it for a few months, but the writing was on the hood).
The joy—and freedom—of owning beater shitboxes about which you don’t really GAF cannot be adequately expressed, only experienced. And, as you say, they were way tougher than seemed reasonable
’84 Trans-Am 5-speed, doing a burnout in reverse, when the transmission torque arm mount ripped loose and went bouncing down the road. Yes I was rocking a mullet at the time.
I hope you yelled the only appropriate thing then: ‘Hell YEAH Brother!’
Well a rear bumper off a 74 Ford Maverick while parked at a mall. I assume it had help.
But the whole backend of the exhaust system of a 74 Plymouth Valiant on the way home after purchasing it. A DIY move a polyester tie will melt if you use it to secure said exhaust but it will get 12 miles before doing so. I have always had bad luck with 74s.
How about a poll Worst year for cars build quality?
79 Monte Carlo in about 1984. This was a 5 year old well taken care of Chevy. Granted, it was about as bare bones as you could get, roll up windows, manual bench seat and am radio but it was in good shape. I was driving over the railroad tracks and the muffler fell right off of it. Me being an 18 year old kid thought the screaming 267ci V8 sounded great, my parrents disagreed and made me take it to the muffler shop for a replacement.
I lost a wheel once but the track was nice enough to find and return it:
https://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LWA13/402-UG-Pacific_Northworst_24_Hours_of_LeMons.jpg
It had torn itself free around the intact lug bolts (no, not nuts), however, so it wasn’t salvageable. That was when I learned that SAAB had produced two types of steel wheel for the 96, a weaker and a stronger version. It’s possible to weld reinforcement tabs onto the weaker design, in fact SAAB’s Sport & Rally division had a pattern available for this back in the day, but now I just run the stronger version instead.
In my first car, a 1959 Ford sedan, I almost lost the gas pedal in traffic when the floor beneath it finally rusted away just enough to free it but I was able to use my foot to wedge it in place, dangling about halfway through the hole, until I could come to a stop. I “fixed” this problem by putting a floor mat over the hole and operating the throttle by pushing directly on the lever that came through the firewall. No pedal required.
The Parts Falling From This Vehicle Were Manufactured To The Highest British Quality Standards
1978 Chevy truck 4×4 new. 1976 Chevy Camaro. Both lost the right front wheel at about 65-70 on the I-45 and I-10 in Houston. Was a passenger both times. Not fun.
Also lost a three axle work trailer with about two tons of construction stuff on I-10. The trailer passed us one the left as driver was slowing for traffic. It eventually went in the lane up against the median wall, but took about a half mile to stop. During rush hour. Thankfully no one else was hit or injured during any of these events.
My parents decided I needed interstate driving practice in my 91 Subaru Legacy before I went to college in 2006, so one Saturday my dad had me drive a 100 mile loop. On the way back we heard a sudden thunk that didn’t stop. Pulled off at the next exit to see the right front headlight dangling by it’s wires.
Headlight or sidemarker? The sidemarker body had a plastic bracket at the top that screwed into the body under the hood that would break with age and the remaining body clip was just there to hold it flush, not hold it on. It was an easy fix with some fiberglass, metal strapping, etc., but definitely an issue.
Oh yeah, a window, T-top, tires/wheel, and an exhaust. Just typical things ya know.
Same car, or different? Not sure which is worse…
Both?
Oh yeah! In high school and early college I drove an ’84 Nissan Pulsar – not the cool one with the interchangeable body parts – the generation before which had its own version of self-removing trim pieces and mechanical bits. The plastic trim pieces above the rear pop out windows flew off the car. The exhaust pipe had come apart while driving causing the muffler and about two feet of pipe to drop and swing to the side to get stuck in the rear wheel. Passenger door handle came off opening the door one day. Another time I was on the highway and saw something fly out of the back of the car only to find out that it was part of an engine mount. That car was such a piece of shit. But it was MY piece of shit and I loved it.
The bonnet (hood) of a Citroen CX, at speed. I still do not talk about it. Neither do the six children who were in the car.
I have had parts suddenly vacate the premises of my vehicle while in motion before.
I was pulling a steep grade in my 22R ’83 Toyota Hilux, shortly after buying it. I hadn’t yet grown to understand the majesty of vacuum secondaries on a carb, so I was slow. A guy in a convertible came out of nowhere and immediately climbed up my tailpipe, to the point where I could really only see glimpses of his trunk in my mirrors.
At that moment, the spot welds on the top tied-down rail of my tailgate decided that they were done being welds, and the damned thing took flight.
For a moment of horror, I thought that this rail would fly back and imbed itself into the scalp of Mr. Midlife Crisis behind me when the draft pocket off the back of my cab caught it, and pulled the rail forward into the front area of the bed.
At that point, my tailgater decided that following a vehicle that was actively deteriorating before his eyes was a bad idea, and he crossed the double-yellow to pass me.
1965 Corvair Convertible. The muffler I had on there wasn’t the correct muffler. It fit fine, but it dumped out where the rear filler panel should have been. I just left that panel in my garage permanently. I also put an L-shaped exhaust tip on that muffler – no clamp or anything because when I put it on, it wedged itself on really, really tight. I wrongly thought that was enough.
I was waiting in traffic on an exit ramp when the car behind me honks and I hear “Your tailpipe fell off!”
I hopped out, and sure enough, it was lying in the street behind me. I instinctively (and stupidly) reached down to pick it up and as my hand touched the metal, the guy behind me shouts “Careful, it’s hot!” I did manage to drop it before it completely fried my fingers. I kicked it off to the shoulder and left it there.
The next day, I pulled off in the same spot, hoping to retrieve it… and it was still there… but someone had run it over and it was now pretty flattened.
All things considered, not the worst thing that could fall off of a Corvair.
Well, the rearview mirror fell off the windshield of the Nissan Rogue a friend lent me to drive to the beach.
And the hood of my first Fiat Vivace developed a habit of unlatching above 100 km/h. Fortunately it was front hinged, so I only lost the lower half of my forward visibility. But gained in aero, so there’s that.
I had a 2001 subaru outback wagon that I bought sometime in the early 2010s for about $700, expecting it to run for a summer until I could get some things settled and buy a new car. 250-something-k miles. Ended up chugging along until late 2019. Had a few things fall off. Most notable, in reverse order:
Rear license plate. Was screwed in with the screws into the four screwholes and everything. Pulled out the rubber/plastic isolators when I got the replacement and just put lag bolts through the holes. The hatch trim was missing so it was easy to put nuts on the inside.
A/C drive belt. Twice. On this era of EJ25, that belt sits bewteen the main serpentine belt and the engine block. Maybe one time it snapped, but the other time, it ended up in one piece on the brake booster/ABS block.
The A pillar interior trim piece fell off on me while turning (fun!). Coming to a stop at a stop sign, the backing plate for the front passenger outer brake pad pinged out on to the street like the clip in a garand in a wwii movie.
And the best one, which was entirely my fault, after changing all four sets of brake pads after the above incident, I guess I didn’t tighten the front drivers side wheel nuts enough since I saw them fly off all at once after driving about 5 miles on the highway to test that everything was okay, as I was coming back to my home exit. Was able to make it into the shoulder off the off ramp, but the wheel didn’t. Came to a stop when it bounced off the legs of the exit sign in the gore point. My own personal Buddy Lazier moment.
Dishonorable mention to the air filter, which didn’t fall off, but did try to go up the intake and lodged in the throttle butterfly strong enough that I had to put the car in neutral to stay stopped at a traffic light before I could pull over and figure out what the heck happened.