Today’s question is pretty straightforward: what is the one sound that your car has made that makes you cringe the hardest? There are plenty of noises that a vehicle can make that all mean your day has taken a swift boat to the land of unhappiness. Just from my own experiences, there is the sound of a driveline leaving the car at highway speeds after the rear u-joint failed, the noise of an automatic transaxle performing it’s best grenade impersonation, the unmistakeable chop-chop of a fan hitting the radiator during a water crossing and the sound of glass shattering when you weren’t expecting it. But the ultimate auditory clue that something had gone wrong wasn’t my fault. My car, yes, but not my fault: the 1977 Impala that I owned as a teenager had the most unreliable 250ci straight-six on the planet. The car loved to cut out at inopportune times. While my mother was driving it back from the store one night (I needed fuel and I didn’t have a permit yet), the car stalled on her and to stop the car, she threw it into Park..at 45 miles an hour. Ever hear the sprag of a TH350 try to stop a car in it’s tracks at that speed? It ain’t pleasant.
Just be glad you aren’t the guy in the Renault below…From zero to “Merde!” in two seconds flat!
Front left blow out on a twisty road and turning right..
Leaving The bluezoo (blue hills vo tec) there is a street across from it that takes you into Stoughton near the highway overpass.. it is a nice twisty road,, with a hill that if you go 40-45+ over you get air and that felling in your gut ..
Welp, Was driving a slant six 74 duster with it’s original tires still on it.. this was in 1988, The tires most like were way past needing to be changed because of age but seemed fine for my grandmother, but I pushed the car a tad harder than her no rush to get anywhere driving style.. and on that road the left front let go, and the car swung wide on a right hand turn and I sideswiped a van, the noise of the tire was bad, but the pop of the drivers side door glass at my ear was a sound I’ll never forget. I took it to school because of an odd feeling in the wheel when you turned, and it was on the lift and even the teacher was under it looking at the front end, no one saw the dryrotted tire sidewalls,, I didn’t know any better at that point .. all was tight, so I drive it home like only a 16 y/o speed crazed kid could.. I thought I was dead when I hot home. but was greeted with it was better it let go on me, than grandma..
BANG…whack whack whack……rear universal joint fail.
Incredibly piercing, Fingernails-on-a-chalkboard painful scraping noise from the back of my ’56.
There’s a dip in my new driveway…. Turned out to be my license plate scraping on pavement.
The grenaded tool-steel lifter in my 454 didn’t sound half as bad. Just like a bit of a misfire. Oye.
worst one I’ve heard / felt was in my brothers car..`68 302W Falcon. A few have said rear uni fail, we were having a bit of a stoplight race and at about 50 mph this godawful vibration then noise went through the car – FRONT uni let go, tailshaft hit the road, bounced up into the trans tunnel and, how lucky is this? caught the handbrake cables, wound them up and safely bought the car to a halt. God knows what would have happened if either the tailshaft jammed into the road or came up thru the floor…
Blew -clutch-trans-and rear end in one fell swoop.Very loud noise
Few too many revs one day in my Vortech blown Fox Body, produced the exact complication in the main pic above, that is “Valve in Piston” of death.. Sounded like shattering glass under the hood. Sickening..urrrgh..I don’t even want to think about how much that cost me!
VW Motor in my Baja, cast stroker crank, was running rough then suddenly cleared up and revved like a street bike. My buddy yelled to turn it off, he could see oil pouring out below the bell housing . Sheared the flywheel off the crank.
Sort of a little “click” was the only noise, and the oil light came on in my HAMBster on a run up at Eagle Field.
Back in the pits we noticed that the balancer was at a bit of an angle now. Eventual tear-down found a four piece crank, a three piece cam, half the main webs let go, and each pan bolt removed freed another piece of block (twenty seven pieces in all). Somehow all of it stayed in the pan, which bowed nicely but held, and didn’t oil the strip.
My 2nd ’62 Impala had a 300 hp 327 and 4 speed from a 66 vette with a Hurst CP shifter. I grabbed my hottest ever 2nd gear one night and the clattering scared the crap outta me. Limped it home that night, then the next morning down to my buddy “Dyno” Don Shorter at Portable Performance in Mooresville, IN. I thought blowed up, f#@%ed up but he said to remove the valve cover. There it was. I was 17 and had never heard, much less seen a broken rocker arm, but that’s all it was. Sure sounded worse than that.
. . . and ya know how loud an H-D Shovelhead on drag pipes is? They get way quieter when the chain breaks and lays itself down like a ribbon (thankfully) on the road.
A harsh screaming followed by several loud thumps on the back of my seat.
Thankfully it wasn’t anything serious on the mechanical front, just Wor Lass letting me know that she wanted to use the bathroom…..
Had a ’70 Cutlass (original 4 speed car) into which I transplanted the entire driveline from a wrecked ’69 L-78 396/375 Chevelle. In one epic burnout, wiped 6 teeth off of the ring gear. The motor free revved a bit and the pushrods punched holes in 4 rockers. BANG, CLUNK,CLUNK, CLATTER, CLATTER…
Connecting rod out the side of the block, 1986 Pontiac Acadian. Heard a lot of clattering then a loud bang, followed by the sound of a rod bouncing off the bottom of the car. The thing loaded itself on and off a tow dolly and up a driveway on 3 cylinders afterwards.
74 Torino – 250K w/ 1 rebuild on the 351 – drop a valve ,sounded like a diesel
for a mile or so then went to bang,bang BANG BANG thump …Friend took the head off after I sold it to him – told him it dropped a vavle + blew
They found nothing in that cylinder !! No piston, no rod , no valve, no nothin’
1977 – was in a Delta 98 land yacht on the high way in Ca that lost the drive shaft
Work had been done + a CV was junk – dropped the front of the shaft which
commenced to : Slamming the shit out of the car floor – taking out the exhaust and cracking the transmission all at once .As we slowed down the trans fluid leaked onto the hot cat convertor and flashed !! Flames up the side of the car !
Needless to say we exited the vehicle at a suitable rate of speed – one guy threw his six year old over the guard rail + down the embankment -but gently
Big rpm in the mudhole WAAAAAAH WAAAH BANG split the turbo 350 case in half longitudinally tranny dude said he’d never seen one split like that
I could play this, but I’m not going to. If you’re curious, it happened on May 1, 2008 and I mentioned it on the forum…
I had a 96 k1500 single cab long box. Engine was hopped up a little. Out racing my friends import one night, beat him in the race, got to the cool down area and I hear what sounds like a hammer on the fire wall, I limp it back with the engine light flashing and what sounds like a trio of hammers on the firewall coming from the front. A bad mix of oil additives gelled the oil, and the pass blew all the mains, blew all the rings on the pistons, and blew all of the rod bearings. It wasn’t pretty but, I still won!