Classic car design faults.

carchaeologist

Following on from the other thread about the Ritmo crossmember splitting allowing the driveshaft to pop out of the gearbox, what other cars had built in issues like that.

I remember the Mk1 Corsa had the brake linkage inside the car allowing me to press the brakes from the passenger seat. Not fully but enough to slow the car. Huge fun with nervous drivers!

Grimreaper666

Cars nowadays still have loads of design faults, that's how they make money by selling spare parts!! One of note though was the Fiat 131 that would catch fire and lock the central locking so you couldn't get out!! Fiat, in their wisdom, decided it would be cheaper to pay off the victims rather than recall and rectify the problem.

piston

I'm not sure if it's true but I remember reading that there is a particular point on the Austin Allegro that if you use it as a jacking point, the shell distorts and pops the rear windscreen out of it's rubber.

Kenny Logins

Pre '71 VW beetle - you need to crack open a window to slam the door shut.

Monty Burnz

Without wanting to labour the FIAT point, the first example that popped into my head was the overheating problems that Abarth had with the souped up FIAT 500. What's the most low-tech solution you can think of for overheating? How about having the engine cover permanently locked open?

piston

Ford Cortinas, MK II Escorts, etc where one key seemed to open them all.

w124man

piston wrote: »

I'm not sure if it's true but I remember reading that there is a particular point on the Austin Allegro that if you use it as a jacking point, the shell distorts and pops the rear windscreen out of it's rubber.

Yes that one was true!

hoodie6029

Not quite a fault (or sure of the truth) but the rear window in the 105e anglia was the front windscreen from the previous prefect. Ford had surplus stock they needed to get rid of!

Stained Class

I was taken on a tour of a body pressings plant here in Ireland back in the '80s.

One of the guides admitted to me that some of the panels they pressed were deliberately designed by their customers to have weak points to encourage rust etc..

johnayo

Tin Worm in general. Jaysus the rust was awful:mad:

Tzar Chasm

fiats were kinda notorious for sketchy 'features'
we had a strada (2 door ritmo) when i was a lad which had racing seats, however they didn't come fully forward so it was a fair squeeze to get int the back seat

w124man

Early S124 Mercedes used to be a bit weak across the rear floor but this was sorted by the time the first facelift appeared

macplaxton

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I know it's only demonstrating a point, but that's a Fiat 600.

mamakevf

Not sure of the truth in this, but I think the early P205 1.9GTI's were kinking their roofs as they were too powerful. They were using the 1.6 shells. Later cars had extra strengthening.

antodeco

The fact that the bonnet opening latches were on the outside of the car!

kev1.3s

Lancia gammas had a tendency to snap timing belts when the steering was locked full!

Pdfile

mk3 cortina could be started with the windsheild wiper & the mk1 micra never needed the key ( from new... ) :pac:

iverjohnston

Montegos with the metric size rims? Some smaller garage's tyre machine's unable to press them off, and only Michelin made the tyres, mucho bucks! I would usually buy a pair of rims with good tyres from a breaker, rather than give Michelin over £100 for 1 tyre in 1993

Mk 2 Cortinas, the floor of the boot wat the top of the fuel tank. When the rust got a hold you would be 1) Overcome with fumes
2) Under the bonnet cleaning the carb.

Anything to do with a Citroen Xantia !

JabbaTheHut

Donno how ture it was, but I worked with a guy that used to work in an FSO dealer. He reckoned that the gear leaver used to pull out of the floor in some of the models. Also, the drivers seat would suddenly drop the backrest without warning. He said that one day a customer came in with the gear leaver in his hand. He said that the seat back went back, and he went with it. To try and stop himself from falling back, he grabbed the gear leaver, and it came away in his hand. lol. Like I said, I don't know it it's true or not, but it makes for a good story.

Remember the Talbot Solara/Alpine/Horizon. The way the front suspension was designed, if the bottom balljoint wore, it would pop out and hit the ground. There wasn't too many that didn't suffer from that flaw. And don't get me started on those Cadbury gearboxes they used !!!

Ford4000

Mk 4 and 5 Cortinas when rust took hold below the back window the would basically just break off or sag down to hit the road, often remember dropped arse Cortys back in the day,
Boxy honda civics had the same bother with the bottom ball joints after a bit of wear they would just pop off,
Hillmans with the exhaust manifold directly below the intake manifold/carb- recipe for disaster and they had a habbit of earthing through the choke cable if the main earth wasnt good and going on fire,
Whatever way older vws were wired if u turned on the lights and flashed the heads once then held em on all other internal electrics would work without a key in the ignition
Meant t mention the front suspension set up in a mk5 cortina....particularily horrendous

w124man

Mk1 Sierras used to buckle the floorpan up front if you had a towbar fitted and towed a caravan .....

I think

beanderb4

Minis. Battery in the boot with the cable running up alongside the exhaust to the engine bay. If the cable displaced in any way the battery shrouding melted and shorted into the exhaust leaving you stranded. Happened me one at one thirty in the morning while going thru Dundalk in the late eighties.

Sam Russell

Talking of Minis - the early Mini had lots of faults.

1. The distributor was just behind the front grill, so if it rained you lost ignition which kind of stopped you. I fixed mine by using the cover of a diary shoved into the grill.

2. Door locks were just like you get on a house door, so in a crash, the door popped open dumping passenger or driver out onto the road. Proper car locks were fitted later.

3. Battery in the boot, caused lots of horrors. Starter button was under the drivers seat. Interesting.

4. Not sure, but I think a heater was an option on the first models.

5. Nowhere to put a radio either.

6. There was an idler gear between the engine and the gearbox (to reverse the direction of rotation (don't ask) with one end mounted in the clutch housing and the other end mounted in the gearbox housing. If the gearbox end failed, it required a new gearbox, as the housing would be destroyed. Nice.

It's a wonder they ever sold any. Mind you they were cheap.:)

mamakevf

A lot of older classics circa pre-70 had petrol tanks that could be looked into to see if there was any petrol in them.
I heard stories of people looking into them using a lit match for illumination with hilarious consequences.:eek:

Rovi

carchaeologist wrote: »

I remember the Mk1 Corsa had the brake linkage inside the car allowing me to press the brakes from the passenger seat. Not fully but enough to slow the car. Huge fun with nervous drivers!

Didn't a Fiat or two from around the '70s or so have a similar 'feature', except that it was the throttle linkage that the passenger could operate???
Much hilarity ensued

Mycroft H

iverjohnston wrote: »

Anything to do with a Citroen Xantia !

Like what? Running them for years! Not much apart to go wrong with them other then realising that the suspension is an ordinary service item and not something that you replace when it breaks

Land Rovers and defenders. Doors that never actually we're waterproof and ventilation holes that never closed right. Galvanic corrosion between the aluminium body and steel chassis. One of two cars with 13" wipers, itself and the mini. Great jeep apart from that, very fun thing to own.

Mycroft H

Actually now that I think of it, Land Rover produced a "Water Ingress manual" for their mechanics with a list of common leaky points

http://www.zee-rover.nl/downloads/water-ingress-manual.pdf

PaulK_CCI

the design of the VW Beetle's heating system: heat exchangers piped around the left and right exhaust pipes... as time wears on and the exhaust starts to suffer from rust.... yes, you guessed it.. the exhaust fumes end up in the cabin when you open the heater channels!

and to remain in the same rear-end engined family: the 2.7 lump of the Porsche 911 from the mid seventies got a very bad name because of warped heads/push rods due to overheating: turned out this mostly affected US spec 911 that had their retro-fit emission control systems plummed underneath the engine, adding an extra heat source and blocking the air stream over the air cooled cylinders...

sogood

The Jag xj6 (x300) model from 95 to 97 has the most ridiculous, complicated, non sensical bumper mounting system known to man. The bumper bolts on from below and the long bolt pases up through an aluminium tubular sleeve, into a brass bush/nut, pressed into the inner plastic bumper lining. So, thanks to al the water and muck present, first thing that happens is the nut seizes in the brass bush, which in turn rotates as it is circular and not square or hexagonal, which would give it some chance of holding fast. Then the aluminium sleeve , which is a bumper height adjuster,crumbles and disintegrates, as the "adjuster" section seizes inside the outer sleeve, section! You can't get at the brass bush as it is beneath the chrome metal strip on top of the bumper, which can only be removed after the bumper has been removed! Catch 22? And the actual bumper mount assembly which houses all of these parts can also only be removed after the bumper itself has been removed! Double whammy!

Calculated obsolesence brought to a whole new level! Otherwise, I love the car!

mustang68

Mustangs:

After the body was assembled, it went to the next part of the factory to be painted...the cowl was already welded together so it wasn't possible to paint inside the cowl...bit of a rust spot that

Headlights are on a thermal fuse, if the electrics are a bit tired when you flick on the high beams on a really dark country road, after a minute or two the fuse would click switching off the lights....fun times

The space shuttle had less complex steering than the Mustang

piston

MK1 Golfs always crack the bulkhead at clutch cable mounting which then pulls into the car and leaves you with non-functioning clutch.

Kenny Logins

Wiper sweep on RHD Porsche 924 leaves a large uncleared area. I know this is the case with a lot of RHD cars (VWs too) but it's very noticeable in a 924.

manta mad

piston wrote: »

MK1 Golfs always crack the bulkhead at clutch cable mounting which then pulls into the car and leaves you with non-functioning clutch.

ford fiesta mk 1 had the same problem !

carchaeologist

All the doors on MK2 Fiestas and MK3 Transits used to crack just under the quarter light window for some reason.

iverjohnston

We had a Mk 3 Escort Diesel, about 1986, and the alternator was mounted down at ground level on the drivers side, underneath the diesel injection pump. Between the constant weeping of diesel from the pump, and dirt and water from the road, alternators only lasted 18 months. Iver in Cavan

who the fug

Pdfile wrote: »

mk3 cortina could be started with the windsheild wiper :

Glad somebody found a way starting them.



First Mini, water in the footwells when it rained

JabbaTheHut

iverjohnston wrote: »

We had a Mk 3 Escort Diesel, about 1986, and the alternator was mounted down at ground level on the drivers side, underneath the diesel injection pump. Between the constant weeping of diesel from the pump, and dirt and water from the road, alternators only lasted 18 months. Iver in Cavan

Just as you mention it, the MK2 Golf and Jettas diesels had the starter motor mounted low down too. Which was grand till the winter, and some of the roads would flood. Being a deisel, you could drive through a sizeable flood that a petrol car wouldn't. Happy days. Then the summer would come along, and the car would be either really slow to start, if at all. The water that got into the starter had it's job done by then.

Also with the same cars, when they'd get a to be a few years old, when the brake pads needed changing, you would need to be really careful pumping up the brake pedal afterwards, because if you pushed the pedal down to the floor, the seals in the master cylinder would go past a spot where water would lodge (if the brake fluid was not ever changed), with a result that a simple brake pad change would result in the master cylinder needing to be changed also.

The Sierra diesels: When you needed to change the fuel filter, it was very common that if you used the hand pump to prime the system, the diaphragm in the pump would crack and leave you with constant air in the system . Lol. Those were the days

who the fug

What was the problem with the suspension on the first Sierra, remember the brother went through three of them in a week when he was home from Saudi circa 82/83

ba_barabus

Austin Maxi had LHD wipers in RHD form and RHD wipers in LHD form.

Mind you, it also converted into a bed for 'happy' memories

gobnaitolunacy

My father's NSU Prinz had a disturbing knack for catching fire.

Corrosion problems with anything that had a chrome plated strip fixed to the bodywork.

Vanishing Point

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Without wanting to labour the FIAT point, the first example that popped into my head was the overheating problems that Abarth had with the souped up FIAT 500. What's the most low-tech solution you can think of for overheating? How about having the engine cover permanently locked open?

Was this just for overheating reasons or was it also to make room for mods that wouldn't fit?

Pdfile

Vanishing Point wrote: »

Was this just for overheating reasons or was it also to make room for mods that wouldn't fit?

bit of section a, a bit of section b... frankly they wanted something sporty but cost effective if memory of them serves so thats exactly what they done... They'res no replacement for displacement... and an extra rad.

who the fug wrote: »

Glad somebody found a way starting them.



First Mini, water in the footwells when it rained

them cortinas where dogs... but hey, a car's a car then your skint & ironically from previous discussions, my father after 3-4 attempts to own a decent mini replaced his late with a cortina... which got robbed in the previous method mentioned which he replaced with either a hunter or a 131... the fiats brakes lasted about 3-4 weeks give or take... either a serious leak or the pads came slightly loose... h/b never worked.

kev1.3s

The door locks on renault 19's used to be a bitch to catch when they wore.
I remember we pulled in on O'connel st one day to pick up someone only for the passenger door to refuse to close so the driver got out to close it with the result that now both doors wouldn't close! Can't remember how we got past this but iirc both rear doors popped open with all the slamming.
I also had a 19 supervan that suffered the same problem.