Isn’t it amazing that we have the power to point a compass east or west, drive for a few days, and end up on an unrecognizably different part of the continent? Freeways, main streets, endless straight and hairpin turns, there’s just so much out there to see. In the words of Andrew McMahon, “I’ve never been so lost, I’ve never been so much at home.” We all have those journeys we can’t wait to take again, but what about road trips you never want to repeat? Now’s the time to shine a little light on your least-favorite road trip stories of all time. Here’s one of mine.
Late in secondary school, my daily driver was an entirely preposterous lowered Crown Victoria with some interesting modifications. It was very much the definition of a $550 car — the check engine light bulb had been on for so long that it had burned out, the brake light switch let its smoke out twice, the timing cover was made partially of JB Weld, and the maintenance history was questionable at best. However, because it had enormous bench seats and plenty of cargo space, this would be the machine I’d call upon for a road trip from British Columbia to Ontario in pursuit of higher education. My parents probably thought I was nuts.
The first few days actually glided by nicely, aside from having to jump start the car right at the very start of the road trip. The leg to Calgary was smooth sailing, as was the one to Moosomin, Saskatchewan. We’d worked everything out to a series of pre-determined stops, and in the interest of avoiding an overnight stay in Manitoba, my next stop after Moosomin, was Dryden, Ontario. Why’d we pick this small city roughly 400 miles north of Minneapolis? Well, because it was as far as we could reasonably drive in a day. As golden hour drew, we rolled into the local Walmart to grab food for the night, and inadvertently came across a scene. Are those people… street fighting in the parking lot?
Yes, yes they were. It was then and there that we decided to keep driving until we reached the next available town with a hotel. If you’ve ever been over the top of Lake Superior, you can probably tell where this is going. By the time I reached Thunder Bay behind the wheel of a $550 car with half a Coke can of ground clearance and one headlight partially aimed by friction, it was too late to check-in. We’d just have to press on.
There’s an eerie stillness on the Trans Canada highway at two o’clock in the morning. A certain awareness that the only thing standing between you and decapitation-by-moose is a flimsy A-pillar designed around the turn of the ’90s. Spotty cell phone coverage means no stopping unless you see a gas station, dim headlights meaning you never quite know what’s around the next turn, other than certain construction. Will you hit gravel at 50 mph with little warning? Who knows? The only thing you can do is drive. So drive we did, right through the night and into the morning until we were almost in Toronto. For those keeping track at home, that’s more than 1,400 miles from hotel to hotel with just two driver changes. Not exactly ideal, and while it’s a fun story, it’s not something I want to repeat.
Nor do I want to repeat the time something decided to expire in the rear suspension of my parents’ Toyota Sienna, hours from home. Above 50 mph or so, it shook like it was mixing paint, and while that’s unpleasant, rising sibling tensions in the passenger compartment made the experience even more unpleasant. One surefire way to make on-the-road failures even less enjoyable is by adding irritable children to the mix who just want to get home, but who are also sick of the vibrations. We were all sick of the vibrations. So very over them.
Anyway, what’s your worst road trip story? Was it a tale of a trip that went on for far too long, one of mechanical woe, or perhaps one of something else throwing a wrench into the mix? The comments section’s your canvas, and you’re Jackson Pollock. I can’t wait to be regaled with your worst road trips.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)
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February 1973
We were living in Maine and wanted to go visit family in NJ. At that tender age, we used to travel at night when there was no traffic. Not that there was a lot in Maine but when coming up to Maine, it was great to get through the NY Metro area at night.
We left around 3am.
We drove down coastal Rt. 1. About 15 minutes in, it started to snow. We kept going. The snow was coming straight at us and started piling up. It seemed like it was forever with that snow coming straight at me in the dark.
Did I say we were in a 1970 VW bus.
We got to our normal stop, the York rest area around 6:30 am. It was raining now. As I downshifted into the rest area, the muffler blew. We stopped went in to use the facilities and went to continue. The bus would not start.
I push started it and we headed to NH and then Mass.
This was during the gas crisis and we needed gas in Lawrence MA. One of my favorite places.
It was still raining.
As I pulled off the interstate into a gas station, the car started to smoke and the wipers sped up.
We got gas, the car started and there was no smoke.
We actually made it to NJ.
My brother in law worked at an auto parts store so he brought me a muffler and voltage regulator.
I swapped them out that same wonderful day.
We made it back to Maine without incident. Then the generator failed. And a week later it threw a rod.
Ah,Old VWs.
My worse roadtrip was when I bought an 2011 Express 4500 Ambulance in Raleigh, NC and decided to drive it back to Portland, OR. I had been shopping for an ambulance on the West Coast for about a year but hadn’t really found anything – too old, too many hours, or too expensive.
I happened to be in NC for work and noticed an ambulance for sale in Raleigh and decided to swing by to look at it. Turns out it was a completely rust free truck that lived its whole life at Camp Pendleton, California. 105,000 miles and 3500 hours. Most ambulances I see with those miles have 10,000 hours as they sit and idle all day. Comes with full service records.So I buy it and since I have a week of vacation that I’ll lose if I don’t burn I decided to drive it home. I figure it should take me about 5 days.
All goes well the first day. I make it to 600 miles to St. Louis. The next day I crank the truck and I get a warning light that says the DPF needs to regen – keep driving until the regen is done. No worries I get back on highway and drive. Regen fails and I get a check engine light. I’m not worried though because it is an emergency vehicle right – it won’t just die due to an emission issue – right?
WRONG. I’m half way be St. Louis and Kansas City climbing a grade after just passing a line of semis when with no warning the check engine light comes on AND the truck goes into limp mode. CRAP, I pull the the shoulder and exit. I’m miles from any major town, it is Saturday at 4:45 PM the day before Easter. The good news it is a Chevy and even in the middle of nowhere they are about 5 dealers within 50 miles. I call Bob McKosh Chevy in Columbia, explain I’m driving cross-country and I’m stranded with an emission issue. They say they can get me in first thing Monday. I limp along at 5 mph on abandoned farm roads to Columbia and get a hotel. I’m spending Easter in Columbia.
Monday first thing I’m at the dealer, they get me right in, try a manual regen – it doesn’t work. They find the thermostats are stuck open. They have the parts – it is 6 hours of labor and they get started. End of day they aren’t done. Next day they work on it from open to about 2 pm and finish. Manual regen works – I’m on my way.
Tuesday afternoon – back on the road heading towards Denver – all is well
Wednesday, 500 miles since the regen – check engine light back on. I’ve learned my lesson so I start calling dealers. Herl Chevrolet in Goodland, KS can get me right in. I stop, they diagnosis, they say a sensor in the header unit in the DEF tank has failed. They don’t have the part but they can do a forced regen and get me to Denver where someone might have the part.
I drive to Denver, where my college roommate happens to live. Stevinson Chevy says they have the part and can get me in the next day. I have a nice visit with my old friend and I’m at the dealership the next day. They confirm the same diagnosis BUT – they can’t find the part that their inventory says is in stock. They have to order it and it will arrive noon on Friday
There is heavy snow forecast for the mountains on Saturday, I have no chains, and if the DPF still won’t regen after another 500 miles I’ll be stuck in the mountains, in the snow, Saturday evening when all the dealers closed. I throw in the towel, leave the truck at the dealer, buy a plane ticket home. 8 days and the truck is still 1300 miles from home.
A week later I fly back. I fly my dad in too since he is retired and I’d like some company. We pick up the truck, it is 30F and snowing and we are on our way. We hope to see a few sights on the way as surely the truck is fixed AND I’ve bought a diagnostic computer so I can do a manual regen if needed.
You guessed it – 500 miles later the check engine light comes on. Same code so I hook up the computer to do a regen in a Love’s parking lot and …… it doesn’t work. Seems the computer only works on the truck version of the 6.6L Duramax NOT the van version even though the company said it would work for both. Same story, find a dealer that will work on the truck. A dealer in Twin Falls says they can do the work and we head that way hoping that we can make the 200 miles without going into limp mode. Just as we pull of the highway – LIMP MODE.
The dealer gets us in but calls me 30 minutes later and says “sorry, our diagnostic tools only work on the light duty version not the commercial version in the 4500. However there is a dealer just down the road that services commercial vehicles – they can get you in today. We limp down the road to Don Paulos Chevy.
The service guys at Don Paulos Chevy says “Sure we can work on your truck but we have a month long backlog of work for our diesel mechanics and we can’t let you jump the line. I don’t know why the other dealer said we could look at it today.” I say, “come on man, we are 550 miles from home, I just need a forced regen and we can make it. I don’t need you to actually fix the truck”. He says OK, an hour later we are back on the road.
All is well until Hood River, OR when the light comes on again. 500 miles like clockwork. We are 100 miles from home and make it ok.
Local dealer looks at it and says the 9th injector that injects diesel for the regen is faulty, replaces it, and the truck has run fine since. However, I know if I get a code for regen failure I only have 200 miles before limp mode.
Headed to Vegas in August. South of Phoenix the ac blew up. Traffic crash forced me to park on the dam in 100f, and the watercooling I rigged barely kept it cool. Rear brakes failed entering Vegas. Key broke at a gas station shortly after. Had to start the car w a screwdriver for the next few days.
I have no children, so every road trip I’ve ever been on has been a wonderful, awesome adventure. Work trips, leisure trips… They’ve all been great.
I had to drive with my dad and sister from DC to Boston for a funeral. I drove the first leg (Dad’s Cadillac Catera, which was… a choice), with my dad alternating between chain smoking and napping in the passenger seat. Shortly after he took over, we got stuck in hours of traffic- a truck way up 95 had exploded and MELTED a bridge, closing the highway and forcing us onto local roads. This was pre-GPS, so his solution was to follow everyone because ‘they knew where they were going’. We stalked some poor guy to his house before giving up on that plan. The 8 hour drive turned into over 13 by the time we arrived. The ‘fun’ didn’t stop there- chain smoking continued in the hotel room and anywhere else we went. On the way back home, he and my sister got into a huge fight while I was driving, and when I told them BOTH to knock it off since I was driving at night in traffic, she hit me in the back of the head. I pulled off at a gas station and got out, leaving the car running and walking away for a while. We finished the drive to his house at midnight, and I continued my 2 hour drive home that night to get away from everyone.
The worst roadtrip I ever had was probably in my friends 2012 Chevy Sonic. He bought it for 1000$ and it was so beat up and had all sorts of problems. Crank sensor was going out so it ran horribly, had an exhaust leak, coolant leak, the transmission was going out, it had no AC, and the front wheel bearings were shot. It should not have even been on the road but we decided to drive 3 hours to north Florida anyway. (My car was being borrowed at the time). Amazingly it made it there a back without any issue, but it just so miserable to ride in that car. Sweaty and sticking to the seat after 10 minutes because its close to 100 degrees outside, ears ringing due to the exhaust leak, the coolant leak stinking up the car, wheel bearings howling, and the ride was just awful. The windows had to be open due to the heat and as a precaution cuz of the exhaust leak. It was complete sensory overload. I was so worn out after that drive and I wasn’t even the one driving. Thankfully he has a new car now.
Faro, Portugal to Seville, Spain. Only about 200km with a great motorway and long hilly stretches. But my girlfriend and I had a rented Daewoo Matiz, which is a car that makes a Geo Metro seem like the pinnacle of luxury. Firstly the car wouldn’t get up the hills with the aircon on, so it had to be switched off in the 40deg heat, then there was an accident which closed the motorway for 2 hours (did I mention 40deg heat), when we got to Seville all the sights had closed because said accident made us too late for the ridiculously early closing times. And on the return journey girlfriend decided she no longer wanted to be my girlfriend.
I think the worst road trip I’ve ever been on (at least as a driver) was from Minnesota to eastern Ohio and back. The trip out there wasn’t that bad, though we had a lot of stuff piled up in the back seat of my Lincoln Mark VII which rendered the rear window pretty much useless, so I was driving a little more conservatively (much to the chagrin of my passengers, friends of a friend.) One of my passengers kept sneaking off at every stop to get high (this was before decriminalization of jazz cabbage in any of the states we went through,) but we made it, met our mutual friend, had a fun weekend, all that stuff.
The drive home was the real kicker, though. It was mostly a night drive, and with less stuff in my backseat this time, I felt confident going faster, though that confidence took a hit after we passed an Indiana state patrol car going somewhere north of 90 mph. He didn’t give chase. Probably waiting for someone going 100, I told myself. Things were alright until Wisconsin, when I learned I could fall asleep with my eyes open – a useless super power. The second time it happened (both times I’d only crossed onto the shoulder before I caught myself,) I told my passengers “We gotta stop, I need to stretch my legs and get coffee or something. I’m falling asleep here.” One of them snapped at me. “We’re almost home! something something something I even offered to drive, but you wouldn’t let me! (he did not have a driver’s license) This isn’t even that nice a car!” and, to his credit, though he used the wrong formula, he got the right answer. I was too full of rage to have room for coffee anymore. I floored it, and that fury got us home – though I did briefly flirt with the idea of kicking them both out, instead.
Honorable mention: driving a Miata back from Omaha to Saint Paul in very, very early spring when we were expecting a snowstorm, having to deal first with ice patches north of Des Moines, and eventually a blizzard from the IA-MN border til the I-35 split on summer performance tires. Well worth it, though. I loved that car.
2005 – before smartphones. Our band booked a gig in L.A. and rent-borrowed a friend’s ’94 Chevy conversion van to drive there from Phoenix. We pick it up and he says the transmission has been slipping a bit. We got 11MPG on the way out, played the gig, got paid $125. We didn’t even make it from Phoenix to L.A. on $125 worth of gas.
The morning after, just as we get on the freeway the temperature needle spikes. A coolant hose ruptured. It’s Sunday around noon, we don’t know where we are, and we had to figure out towing to a shop that was open. Luckily we were able to, and got the van back around 4:00, which was practically miraculous.
The transmission was barely hanging on and filling it with 5 people and a whole bunch of heavy guitar amps wasn’t helping. We were doing the long incline just past Indio and the van just doesn’t want to do it anymore, and overheats a second time. We let it cool, and it starts, but just barely. The engine sounds like there are rocks in the cylinders. We limped it to Chiriaco summit and the engine stalled just as I was pulling it into a parking spot.
We called a cab, but it was pushing 9 PM and the cab company thought it was a crank call. An hour later we call back to see when they will arrive and this time, they actually sent someone. Two stayed with the van, three of us slept in the lowest of budget hotels.
The next morning, we walked a couple miles to U-haul, just to have them tell us their trailers couldn’t do something that large. Instead we walked a bunch more to a rental car place, rented 2 minivans to be driven one way, got back to Chiriaco, loaded up the minivans and headed back to Phoenix.
The owner of the van had it picked up by a scrapper. We also spent over $1000 to go play one gig.
A trip through Western states in 1994 in a 1970 El Camino with a U-Haul marshmallow trailer, with a pregnant wife and two kids who didn’t get along and the car broke down every single day on the road. Involves repair, repair, burned flesh, hitch-hiking, an unrelated terror moment and would take four pages if I wrote it down.
Drove my mom from Chicago to South Dakota to visit her brother (my uncle) who had cancer. We were driving her new-ish Kia Sorento that was about 3 years old and 20,000 miles. About 2 hours out from our destination, I noticed the car losing speed. I had the cruise control set at about 85 and all of a sudden I was at 75 and going slower (fyi, South Dakota has lots of 80 mph zones, so that 85 cruise control was not me being a speeding dick. In SD, that’s barely keeping up with traffic in the middle or right lane).
Ended up having to pull over on the side of the road. In the only piece of luck we had, I was about 11 miles outside Rapid City (again, for those unfamiliar with SD, it really only has two “big” cities, Rapid City and Sioux Falls); and I was able to limp the car into I believe one of only two Hyundai dealers in the state.
Given the cars youth, I was hoping it was an easy fix. Timing belt or something. Nope. Mechanic took a look at it, and told us immediately that we needed a whole new engine. The Sorento was part of a class action lawsuit because it was blowing up engines left and right, and the engines were all on back order. Ended up having to abandon the car for 10 weeks, find a rental in Rapid City, and fly home.
Luckily the Hyundai covered most of our out-of-pocket expenses + the new engine because of the class action settlement. And the dealer that did ultimately did the work was really great. In another odd twist of fate, if this had happened in Chicago, the wait for new engines there probably would have been 4 to 6 months.
And also luckily we had a nice visit with my uncle. He ended up passing a couple years later, but we’ll always have memories of that road trip.
Drove from north MS to Nashville for a garth brooks concert. Started coming a thunderstorm just as the concert wrapped. Decided stupidly to take the natchez trace back home. Imagine 200 miles of driving through the middle of the woods. Not far out of Nashville there is a tree down in the road as we topped a hill. Going to fast to stop. Just had enough time swerve in the direction of the top of the tree instead of the trunk. Thanks to the awesome build quality of my 2001 land cruiser There was only minor damage but it shattered the windshield enough that it ate the wipers and leaked water the rest of the 175 mile drive home. Garth was awesome but the rest of the night not so much. Should have just spent the night in Nashville.
“Drove from north MS to Nashville for a garth brooks concert.”
You win.
First story – Icy and spicy
One winter in college I decided to drive with two friends to visit my mother in Denver, Colorado. Driving from Columbia, MO in my lowered focus zx3 was no problem, but while we were there, a huge snowstorm rolled in.
Turned out that my friend’s roommate was stuck at the Denver airport, and he wanted to ride back with us – four in a 2 door hatchback. Big mistake. That winter storm also rolled across kansas, turning it into a sheet of ice and snow. The wind and ice were so bad that the car kept fishtailing. It was so cold that a gallon of water froze after it spilled in the footwell. We saw a pickup truck blown off the ice into the median. I got out to check on the guy, and I got out long enough to see that he was OK. The windshield washer fluid froze in the tank, and we had to scrape the window while we were driving.
The normally 11 hour trip turned into a 20 hour quest. By the time we reached KC, the ice started to melt, but the car was still fishtailing. It began to vibrate and shudder, and a quick parking lot inspection revealed that a rear wheel bearing had failed. I’m sure the heavy 17″ aftermarket wheels had something to do with that.
It was still 20 degrees outside, but because it was after 6, we decided to change the wheel bearing in a parking lot. We couldn’t get a press to get the bearing in, so we used a socket as a drift, and a sledge hammer as a press. We got the rear wheel back together, and drove the rest of the way back to Columbia, MO. I had to replace that wheel bearing again because we damaged it with the sledge.
Second story – big project car, little tow bar
A friend had a joint project FC RX-7 with John, who lived in Pensacola. John was enlisted and could no longer keep the car because he was being deployed. On a Friday evening, we left for Pensacola with the intent on four-wheel towing the project car back to Columbia, MO by Monday. We understood that the RX-7 was partially disassembled and could not be driven.
When we arrived in Pensacola at 5am on Saturday, things were much worse than we expected. The RX-7 was so disassembled that it could not be towed 4 wheels down without some wrenching. We also did not have the custom $40 tow bar that John’s “master welder” friend had made to tow the RX-7. Being sensible, I called around and reserved a trailer, just in case we couldn’t fix the car or get the tow bar. We had about 12 hours before the reservation ended, so we got to wrenching. We got the RX-7 in towable shape, but John’s welder friend could not be contacted until just before the reservation ended. We managed to get ahold of the welder guy in time, so my friend and John (against my urging) decided to cancel the trailer reservation and use the custom tow bar.
We visited the welder guy at his houseboat to get the $40 tow bar, then bolted it to the RX-7 and the tow vehicle. We pulled the tow car forward, and the tow bar peeled right off the front of the RX-7 like a banana. It didn’t last more than 20 feet.
We left the RX-7 in Pensacola with John and drove right back to Columbia. The best thing about that trip was the time we spent in the car, and the $100 pot of gumbo we made with fresh seafood in Pensacola. My biggest regret was the White Castle burgers we ate in St. Louis on the way there, and the attendant flatulence.
Good times.
In 1968 my father decided to move the family from Detroit (riot city) to Tampa (land of spiders, snakes, and Florida Man). He sold all his antique cars except the very large, very heavy 1924 Packard sedan that he decided to trailer down I-75. He hitched his brand new 1968 Chrysler 300 sedan to an undersized U-Haul rental trailer and off we went with my mother and sister as tailgunners in a 1966 Mustang. Somewhere around Cincinnati we crossed a weather front and the wind picked up. Crossing a bridge that tall slab-sided Packard was broadsided with a giant gust causing the overloaded trailer to start swaying. As my Dad struggled to get it under control it pitched toward the side of the bridge and my mother and sister swear that the left side trailer tires were off the ground. The trailer yanked that Chrysler sideways and I thought we were going over. My Dad stayed calm and accelerated out of the sway, the trailer dropped back on its wheels, the Packard was unharmed, and all was well except for seriously jangled nerves. My mother had another cherished “I told you so” moment.
Attempted to drive an 850 HP 78 Malibu 900 miles over 5 days at Drag Week 2024. The pinion bearing in the 8.8 axle left the building in a town of 350 people in Indiana (Lewisville) at 8:30 at night 160 miles from our tow vehicle. Figured at that time of night we went getting anything done. Called the police to let them know we would be spending the night sleeping in the car. A local stopped to inquire what the issue was. He said he knew a guy close by who knew Ford 8.8’s. The guy showed up, flat towed us to his house, which had a lift. Cracked it open to see the carnage. He called another guy he knew who had been setting up ring and pinion gears for decades. He showed up in an hour with the required parts and a box of his own shims. Got everything fixed and we were back on the road at 12:30AM, only 4 hours down. Rolled into the hotel at 2:30AM got up and made it to Lucas Oil Raceway and were able to finish the whole 900 miles!!!
Every year I go to a lake in Tennessee with my family this year I would be pulling my ski boat down I75 from southeast Michigan in my 85 squarebody which I had spent the previous winter putting a 6.2l ls in. It was running great for an engine with over 200k miles on the clock that had been tinkered with and installed by yours truly. That was until just after lunch between Dayton and Cincinnati. A fairly busy stretch of I75 the truck had died. I was on the side of the road, boat and truck. The truck would start but immediately shut off. After pausing to take several moments to panic I was able to work out that I had blown a fuse in my sensor circuit. Not having spares I used trash I found on the side of the highway to jumper the fuse. The 6.2 roared to life! I set off. Almost immediately the fuse box started smoking. I pulled over and shut off the truck. I then discovered that the passenger side O2 sensor wiring had melted on the headers. After a couple minutes and only minor burns to my forearm I had the sensor unhooked and the wiring out of the way. I was off to the nearest autoparts to grab new fuses and some zip ties.
I was free of mechanical failures the rest of the trip but was assaulted by weather and traffic delays. Further down I75 there was an accident that blocked all but 1 lane which took a good bit of time to get through. A little later it started to rain, this quickly progressed into a downpour, I could barely see, I also was needing some fuel so I pulled off. I’m so glad I did because the rain got even worse. It started hailing on me as I waited this out in a gas station parking lot. When I finally got back on the road I had hoped for smooth sailing. It was mostly until about 3 miles from my destination. A car had gone off the road I to a ditch. Police were on scene and it was being pulled out, other cars were turning around and finding alternate routes. Since I had a trailer on this 2 lane road I had no such luxury. More sitting and waiting. By the time I got to the boat launch it was dark and raining again. I launched the boat in the cold rain. Drove the boat to the cabin while my dad (who had arrived earlier) parked my truck. I was cold, wet, my ears were ringing from the truck’s loud exhaust and I went in search of a well earned drink in the cabin.
1990 – Poughkeepsie NY to Memphis TN as a passenger in a soft top Suzuki Samurai where it rained 80% of the time there and back.
Oh I actually have a good (or bad) one for this. It started with the Southwest Airlines strike that happened around Christmas in 2022. My wife is from California and we live in Colorado. Her grandparents were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary in Palm Springs. We had tickets for a Southwest flight there. It was supposed to be on 12/26. The flight got cancelled. This was an event that we really didn’t want to miss, so we decided to drive. No big, it’s about 16 hours and we’ve done it before. We took my 2011 Subaru Forester XT. This was a trusty machine that my dad bought new and sold to me. I knew this car well and had taken it on a bunch of road trips already. It never had an issue.
The trip out was great no issues. It was the trip back that was an issue. We left on New Year’s Day from outside of LA (where my in-laws live). There was some weather so we figured it would be safer to take the south route (take I40 to Santa-Fe, stay there, then I25 up to Denver). This takes longer but avoids having to take I70 through the mountains of Utah and Colorado during a snow storm.
About 3 hours in, we are still in California and it starts POURING rain. Like some of the most unpleasant rain I have ever dealt with. We’re about at the Arizona state line. Remember the trusty family Forester? Well it did have one issue. Sometimes during heavy rain it would completely lose throttle response. Like cut out, nothing if you hit the gas, but if you tried flooring it the transmission would still downshift. I had messed with the issue before but always forgot about it. It just had gotten new coils and plugs so maybe that fixed it? It didn’t. So we pull over, I found a spare air filter, put it on and kept going. That seemed to work for a bit. The rain is turning to slush now.
We press on, the rain turns to snow, we get caught in a blizzard in the mountains outside of Flagstaff. Not too far from the Grand Canyon. A bunch of cars can’t move. We were behind a Challenger that was somehow pushing through despite being sideways 80% of the time (meanwhile trucks and SUV’s are stuck on the side of the road). It was pretty bad, even by Colorado mountain snow storm standards, but we got through it. We start to go downhill and the snow turns to slush and rain again, and guess what comes back? The stalling. I pull over, change the filter again, and no change. Before it was intermittent, now I can’t accelerate the car at all, and I’m on the highway. Luckily we were in Flagstaff so we pull off.
At this point I’m freaking out. I remember we went to Chipotle and through every option. Ditching the car, getting a rental to drive to Albuquerque and fly home, getting a U-Haul and trailer. Every option sucked. I also did some research and found the issue might be the mass airflow sensor. Of course, it’s New Year’s Day so I can’t buy another one. So we stayed in a crappy motel in Flagstaff, 12 hours from home.
The next day we stop by a shop that specialized in Subarus and I asked them if they thought my MAF theory would be accurate. They agreed and I got a new sensor from AutoZone and a new air filter. So now it’s about 8:30 and I have a 12 hour drive home, and I have to work the next day. But we decide to send it home. We made it home, but not without getting caught in another snow storm in Colorado Springs at 9 PM. I listed the car for sale a few weeks later, that was the final straw in a string of bad luck with it (it was also involved in two accidents on my street that were not my fault).
January 2019, I road tripped through Canada from New Hampshire to home in Alaska with my dog with overnights car camping as usual. I’m experienced with cold weather, having done things like climbing big mountains solo in winter in my younger years. I was driving my 2010 Prius, which was a treat and super comfortable to car camp in, particularly in the winter. Leaving the car on, I had a comfortable climate controlled living space through the night still only sipping gasoline. The car had brand new Nokians on it too, so traction was not a concern. I had also partially blocked some of the intake areas with foam pipe to help the engine compartment stay warm in the extreme cold.
As an athlete and dog owner, it’s always been my habit to go for a 1-2 hour run each day on road trips no matter the weather. We had some runs and dog walks in temperatures in the -33 F to -40 or colder, which was not an issue for us. I found out that the car’s thermometer bottomed out at -40 (pretty certain it dropped to at least -45 F though).
The first issue I had with the car was the catch can I had installed (see a previous Autopian article on Gen 3 Prius head gasket problems at higher mileage. . . catch cans were advised in the forums to try to avoid this. My car was at 175k+ miles). I was checking it at each fill up, and it was getting as much as 1/2 full mostly with water. It being so cold, a substantial amount of water vapor was condensing in the catch can on the way to the intake. The water in the catch can was also freezing up. The catch can was difficult to unscrew if any moisture got frozen into the threads. Though a pain, it was a manageable task at each fill up. Based on this experience, I recommend not using catch cans for cars driven in extreme cold. If I wasn’t checking it every fillup, it might have caused a blockage in the PVC system in a few days.
First night out, I was having a hard time finding a good place to camp, so I just kept driving and driving as the temperature on the infotainment bottomed out at -40 in middle of nowhere area of Ontario. Then the hybrid system warning popped up. Oh crap, I’m in middle of nowhere at -40. . . not good. I put my Bluetooth OBDII dongle into port and pulled up a code for inverter A cooling system performance error. Really? At -45? To be safe, I removed some of the pipe insulation blocking some of the intakes at the front of the car. But maybe I should have left it in. Doing a quick search now, the coolant was probably getting slushy, as it’s rated to -34F or something like that. Luckily, after I stopped at the nearest turnout for the night, the warning cleared itself as that ended up being the coldest night.
The big uh-oh happened 100km east of Whitehorse. It was night, and I was driving through an area with some terrain and turns limiting the visibility going relatively slowly, maybe 50 mph. All of sudden, there was a bunch of caribou crossing the road in front of me. I had no chance to stop and ended up hitting at least one. That caribou surreally flipped clear over the windshield and rest of the car, touching nothing but the bumper cover and hood. There was no cell service in the area and though was the main road, there was essentially no traffic. Since there was no way to get help (or parts), I decided it was safest to keep driving and check on any damage to the car once I got into Whitehorse. In Whitehorse, I reported the accident and the mounties went to check if there were any animals to clear from the road (there were none). My hood was crumpled a bit in the front, and one of the coolant tanks (for the inverter) was cracked with the return line nipple broken. I hacked an imperfect fix that kept the coolant circulating, but I was still losing coolant at a slow rate. I ended up limping the car another 700 miles back home carrying extra coolant with me.
Though probably repairable, a 180k-mile Prius isn’t worth much, so insurance totaled it and gave me a check for $7K (about the same as the $7,200 I bought the car for 3 years and 30k miles earlier).
Road tripped from Centralish, FL to Pittsburghish, PA a few months back for my wife’s family reunion. We left home around 10pm to drive thru the night so our toddler would sleep most of the trip. He was an angel. 17.0 hours driveway to driveway. It was a bit rough on my wife and I driving thru the night after a work day but an entirely uneventful drive with no hiccups or slowdowns the entire way.
The return trip. Dear God the return trip. We decided to leave later in the morning so we could both be super well rested. Planned to leave by 8 but didn’t hit the actual interstate till closer to 110:30 am. At least half a dozen wide load semis pulling mobile homes with escorts blocking like they’re the secret service and truck drivers swaying all over the lanes making it impossible to get by them. Like 7 stops for crying his diaper is wet that ended up being dry. Then somehow he had a wet accident in his car seat so we had to clean that up. Then we ran out of diapers so we had to find a Walmart and the nearest one ended up having a bunch of construction detours winding thru back woods neighborhoods. Then not 10 minutes after getting on the interstate he dropped the dump we were waiting for all day so diaper stop #8. Finally get some smooth driving as we’re hitting the FL state line around 3:30 am. 3 hours later and we hit morning rush hour which added literally an extra hr to the last 30 minute leg home. Finally got home around 9:00 AM the next morning.
17 hrs FL to PA. 22.5 hrs PA to FL and we ended up way more exhausted than the trip up. Ended up having my sister come over to half work from our place (she works remotely from her laptop) and half babysit while my wife and I caught a couple hours of sleep cause the boy was awake and we were dead. The wife swears we’re flying and renting a car next time but we’ll see.
Edit: this is in my wife’s 2020 Countryman S where I don’t fit in the driver’s seat with the car seat behind me for reference. Fun around town. Great highway mileage. Terrible for my knees if I’m driving longer than an hour.
When you drive 14 hours from MI to SD fueled by 8 bagels and coffee, only to check into the KOA at 11:30pm with cranky toddlers and discover that your tent is surrounded by a 24 hour trucking depot, an airport and the interstate. Not a great night sleep, and it’s generous that I didn’t leave a review at the front desk.
December, 2004.
The Trippers: myself, my wife, my 15 year old stepson, my 3 year old daughter, and my 1 year old daughter.
The Trip: Savannah, GA to Oklahoma City, OK for Christmas where we’re from and our families live.
The Vehicle: 1996 Ford Windstar. That green that every Ford in the 90’s came in. Not the cool dark green. Like, Kermit green. Metallic. I didn’t pick it.
Day 1, December 22nd: Things go pretty well. We left on schedule, so as the Dad, I’m happy. I can frequently point out how we’re making great time. We arrive in Memphis, eat barbecue, and all seems okay.
But there are storm clouds on the horizon. There is an epic ice storm that is blanketing much of eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas. It is headed our way.
Day 2, December 23rd: We wake up, and disaster has struck. Ice is everywhere. The interstate heading west is closed. Unless we can find another way, we won’t be home for Christmas. We study our handy dandy Rand-McNally road atlas and discover there is a state highway with a bridge that may be open. We’ll see how far west we can get.
Starting out, things are okay. It’s cold, but not snowing. There’s quite a bit of traffic on this smaller highway, so presumably, a lot of people are trying the same thing we are. If we get stuck, at least we won’t be on a deserted road.
We make it to Little Rock, but the roads are getting worse. On the west side, we stop for gas. Just as we’re pulling into the station, the car makes a brief screeching noise, and the dash lights up. I pull up to the pump and start filling the tank. Then I pop the hood to see what happened. Pretty quickly, I determine the car has thrown the serpentine belt. The wheelwells are packed with ice, so I theorize maybe turning in overloaded the power steering pump, throwing the belt. Can’t find the belt though. We drive over to the Waffle House to figure out what to do. It is late afternoon.
At the Waffle House, we discover the highway we are on is closed just a couple miles down the road. Overturned semis, stuck cars, the works.
Even if the car worked, we’re not going anywhere. And we’re low on diapers.
I tell my wife to stake out the booth. There are a lot of people stuck here with us, so the hotels are gonna fill up fast. I’m going to walk to one and try to get a room. If I can’t, were spending the night in this naugahyde cocoon.
I entered the hotel lobby, the line stretched to the interior door. This isn’t good. The desk clerk announces how many rooms he has. As people make their way to the desk, and more come in behind me, I start mentally grouping people together. If I’m right, I’m getting a room, and the guy behind me is getting a room. Everyone behind him is outta luck.
However, as I get closer, the clerk announces revised numbers, and now it’s not looking good for me. When I get to the desk, the clerk says to everyone waiting “I’ve got ONE ROOM left, and it’s being held. I have to call the number to see if they still need it.”
I’m standing right there. This phone call determines if we’re sleeping in a room or in the Waffle House.
I can hear him dialing. I can hear it ringing. I can hear… “DOO-DOO-DEE! We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service…” and the clerk hangs up.
YESSS!! I’M GETTING A ROOM!
The clerk says “I have to try it again in case I misdialed.”
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
He dials.
It rings.
“DOO-DOO-DEE! We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service…” and the clerk hangs up again.
I say “Thank you Lord!!!” Then I turn to the guy behind me, who isn’t getting a room, and say “Sorry, man…”
The clerk then informs me thar the ONLY room they have is… the Honeymoon Suite. At the Econolodge in Maumelle, Arkansas.
Don’t care. I’ll take it.
It only has one king size bed.
Don’t care. I’ll take it.
No rollaway beds are available for the teen boy.
Don’t care. I’ll take it.
I get the key and tramp back across the snowy parking lot to retrieve my family and our wounded minivan. We park outside the door, grab what we need, and head inside.
As I open the door, we are greeted by a single king size bed, a small love seat, a couple chairs, and the piece de resistance! An in room Jacuzzi.
My three year old daughter points at it and asks “What is that?”
I explained “It’s a bathtub that makes its own bubbles.” But before I even finished the sentence, she was already stripping off her clothes. She LOVED bubble baths.
I filled the tub so it just covered the jets. I didn’t want to fill it too much. She was just little. I lifted her in and hit the jets.
I don’t know if you know this, but unless those jets are fairly deep underwater, they are LOUD. And powerful. My daughter practically levitated out of the tub. Those were not fun bubbles.
Anyway, we had an uneventful night. Youngest daughter had a pack-n-play to sleep in. Older daughter slept with the wife and I. Teen boy stayed up pretty much all night playing Playstation.
The next day, Christmas Eve, my dad drove over from OKC with a new belt. We discovered that the idler pulley had seized. We found an open auto parts store with one in stock. We got the car back on the road and made it home for Christmas!!
Then on the way home, we sold our house and ended up moving back to Oklahoma a few months later.
“THOSE WERE NOT FUN BUBBLES”
You NEVER say “We’re making good time”! Even if you’re almost there, it’s the kiss of death.
That statement is up there with “at least it’s not raining” for tempting fate.
Yesterday I drove 3 hours to look at a car for my brother. It took 3 hours to look over the car and wait for the owner to then arrive with the title, only for them to then refuse to sell us the car at all (at there full asking price, even though it had quite a bit of body damage not mentioned or shown in the ad) because her check engine light came on on her current car on the way to a police station she insisted we drive to exchange the cash, so we drove 3 hours home empty handed, 9 hours total. A pain but it was some good brother time at least.
Oh boy, I’ve got a good one!
In May of 2018 my dad, my older brother, and I went on a month long road trip all around the southern half of Peru in a rented Toyota Yaris sedan. Other than incredibly reckless drivers everywhere, we had no real problems the first 3 weeks or so.
During our last week there, we went to Cusco and did the obligatory side trip to see Machu Picchu and had a great time. The night before we were going to leave Cusco and start the drive back to Lima to catch our flight back to the states, we went to go talk to our hotel receptionist about morning checkout. We informed her that we were planning on leaving around 7 am and asked if someone would be at the reception counter that early. She said “Yes, but you will probably not be able to leave Cusco that late because there are riots planned for early tomorrow morning”.
We were not expecting morning riots as part of our road trip, so naturally we were surprised. Turns out some of the locals were going to block all the roads out of town and start some demonstrations over a new tax going into effect. The receptionist told us that if we left at 4 am, maybe, maybe, that would be early enough to get out of town before the riots. So, we optimistically went to bed early thinking that we could beat the riots first thing in the morning. The next morning, our horrible, no good, incredibly stressful day began.
We started to drive out of Cusco at 4 am as suggested, and did not make it far before we came across some women that had blocked the road with rocks on the outskirts of town and they would not let anyone pass. The map showed that this was the only route out of town towards Lima, so we felt pretty defeated. A friendly tour bus driver told us that he knew another way around to where we needed to go and to follow him. So we follow his bus for about an hour on a back dirt road that eventually gets us past the road block.
Emerging victorious on the highway on the other side of the road block, we figured it was smooth sailing from there. We were very wrong. After just a mile or so on this highway, we came across an even larger road block that was made up of whatever the locals could find: old cars, windows, scrap wood, rocks, farm equipment, etc. There was no way we would attempt to dismantle the road block because every few minutes large groups of locals would march by shouting angrily about the new tax that they were protesting and giving us dirty looks and jeering at us. And to make matters worse, we could see several more road blocks up ahead past this one.
We decide to wait for awhile near the roadblock to see if the situation gets any better. After waiting for about 2 hours, we see a Toyota Hilux approach from our side of the road block with several police officers in the back wearing body armor and armed with submachine guns. Thinking they are going to clear up the road blocks, we think things are going to get better! Instead, they just drive up to the roadblock, look at it for a minute, and then turn around. Then they drove up to us and told us we needed to get out of the area because it was not safe for gringos.
Feeling defeated, we find a safe place to park that’s out of sight, but where we can still see the road. After another couple of hours, we start to notice that a few cars have driven by, so we go investigate. The first road block has a path through it now, and so do the next few! With me at the wheel, we finally begin to leave Cusco, driving through dozens of road blocks.
We make it 20 miles or so and come to another town that is just full of road blocks that are not cleared, and angry locals that are not too keen on us being there. I go down a side street to protect us from the angry locals, and notice that the street completely bypasses the main highway, so I take a gamble and drive down it until we are out of town and back on the highway. After a few more half-assed road blocks that have been disassembled, we start to really pick up some speed and encounter no more road blocks.
We’re commenting to ourselves about just how crazy this morning has been and about how lucky we are that we made it through all of that unscathed! Then, I start to realize that the car is not handling properly, so we get out and realize that 3 of the 4 tires on the car have been punctured by road block debris and were now leaking. Great. We choose which one we think is the worst, change it out with the spare, and pray that we can find a shop to patch the other two tires.
We come across another small mountain town, and find a little tire shop. The owner, a very kind man, proceeds to patch all of the holes in our tires including the one we swapped out for the spare. One tire had 13 punctures in it! He charges us something like $25 US dollars (we give him much more), and we are on our way yet again.
We start driving up a very steep mountain pass feeling a little weary now from all of our misadventures, when I notice that the engine is starting to make a squeaking sound. I pull over, pop the hood, and notice that the fan belt is shredding itself to bits. We turn around, and limp back to the small town where we got the tires patched and take the car to several different repair shops. We try every shop in town, and not a single one of them has a fan belt for a Toyota Yaris.
After talking to some locals, they recommend visiting a young guy’s house nearby as he does backyard car maintenance. We figure that we have nothing to lose, so we go to his house. He and two friends are there working on cars, but they also do not have a Toyota Yaris fan belt. They did have a Nissan fan belt of some kind that they managed to make work though, so we gave them a generous sum of money and all of the beer in our trunk as a thanks and proceed down the road yet again.
At this point I’m pretty fatigued from driving through all of that, so I switch out with my brother and we manage to drive for several hours through all sorts of twisty mountain roads without incident. As it’s getting dark, my brother starts to notice that the front of the car is pulling to the left, so we pull over to find that the driver’s side front tire has lost a patch and is losing air. We change to the spare in the dark.
We continue on our way for another hour or so, and are finally getting to the small town where my dad has made hotel reservations for us for the night. The only problem is that we are at this point about 3 hours late for our check in time, and had no way to contact them due to a lack of cell service during the day. We arrive at the hotel, knock on the door, and nobody answers. We knock some more, and finally a man sticks his head out the window and tells us he will not check us in because we are way too late, and then he closes the window without further comment.
I should mention too that my dad had terrible diarrhea this whole day from something he ate, and at this point in the trip he is barely able to hold it in and about to have to go find an alley to go relieve himself in. My brother and I decide to walk and go check the only 3 other hotels in town to see if they are open this late and have availability. 1st hotel: closed. 2nd hotel: closed. 3rd and final hotel: open! and they have a room!
We walk back to my dad, who is waiting in the Yaris about to explode, tell him the good news, drive to the hotel, and have one of the most well earned nights of rest that I have ever experienced in my life!
TLDR: Drove through roadblocks and angry locals, had multiple tire punctures, shredded a fan belt, and were refused entry to the hotel we booked in Peru all in one day.
Dude, I can relate! Puno, 2011. Riots over a mining company buying rights to a sacred mountain or something. That evening as we went to dinner, the streets were empty. The restaurant was on edge, and shortly after we returned to the hotel, the locals lit the mountainside on fire and started gathering in the city square. Windows at our hotel started getting smashed, and within a couple hours, we were evacuated to an assembly area outside of town.
My fiance and I took her parents and their foster girl on a tour of Colorado while we lived out there. We were in a 2dr 1995 GTI VR6 and the foster girl was 14 years old and picked her nose and either ate it or smeared it on the seats. Add to that the fact that my in-laws-to-be were 4 pack a day smokers and turned blue when we got to the top of any peak in the Rockies. The first time it happened I had to fly down the mountain so my future mother in law didn’t die. Her lips were blue and she was wheezing. We chose a long way south and around the bottom of Colorado to get home since we couldn’t go back over the Rockies to get back to Denver. The back seat received a lot of boogers and we were packed into that 2dr like sardines. When we were in the southern part of the state, we stopped at Mesa Verde and the car was overheating, but we had to keep it running since Mom couldn’t breathe in the heat and needed to sit in the A/C. Fun times.
The only thing worse than a booger eater?
A booger eater who wipes on the seats, etc.
I mean come on, right?