Yes.
But I don't want to talk about it. Even now. After many years. And all the therapy.
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A friend had a job driving a double decker bus for a while. One of the rules is never reverse without a banksman. Both times he reversed, he hit a metro. The driver of the second one said "It's my wife's car which I've just collected from the bodywork shop and was on the way home - she'll never believe this!"
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Could I be the first to mention colour in this thread?
It was always said green was unlucky, to the point were cars of that colour were harder to sell and therefore worth less in part exchange.
I speak as the owner of a Focus finished in Neptune, alright then, a Focus finished in Neptune, er, green.
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In 1.2 million miles I have only had one accident which was my fault. Green car. Make of that what you will.
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In 1.2 million miles I have only had one accident which was my fault. Green car. Make of that what you will.
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>>I have only had one significant accident which was not my fault. Green car. The only one that came to me rather than me go out and buy one.
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As so often ifithelps, we concur somehow if not agree despite your curmudgeonly assertion that it has only happened twice.
Minicab drivers have the green superstition to an advanced degree. The only guy in our firm in the 70s with a green car had a metallic light green Victor Mk III I think, quite a handsome beast with one of the first belt-cam engines. He was a country boy who drove like a maniac. His top hose burst one day just as he blasted past me into the S-bend under the railway bridge at the bottom end of Chelsea Bridge Rd after you cross the roundabout and the lights. Later he wrote it off against an innocent citizen's car doing 70 down Lavender Hill. Not cut out for metropolitan life one couldn't help feeling, and the car was an innocent victim.
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As so often ifithelps we concur somehow if not agree despite your curmudgeonly assertion.. >>
Curmudgeon - moi? Surely not!
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Parents had a green hillman imp, one of the first ones built in 1963, worst car they ever had poor reliability and you could see the ground through the sills from the back seat within 2 years.
Must have been because it was green :-)
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My current car (Avensis) - the only one I have bought new - has been my unluckiest. At just shy of 6mths/10k miles a car in the outside lane approaching a roundabout lost control and spun into my lane. Crunched front right corner, other driver immediately admitted liability. Had it back no more than six weeks when I was sat stationary alongside a bus (dropping off) whilst I waited for an obstruction to clear. Bus pulled out. Crunched left font wing. Long insurance battle to 50/50. At 14 months old the windscreen cracked from a chip. Now at 21 months old it has another huge chip on the windscreen (thanks to that man in the super wide tyred X5 two weeks ago!).
In previous 17 years of driving I had one accident (my fault) and one windscreen replaced.
I love the Avensis, but it is clearly cursed :-) When I bought it new I had thoughts of keeping it at least 4 or 5 years, but right now I doubt I will keep it 3. And due to the bus incident I never want another low profile silver car - if it was bright red I genuinely think the driver would have seen me alongside in his mirrors.
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White Astra 1.7 DTi estate, which I had to collect from a colleague in order to carry out a company car swap. Emerging from the robotised carpark, my heart sank - it had come to this after a year with my manager's old Vectra, which I'd had to give up:
Initial damage - missing offside door mirror, rear lower tailgate moulding, two hubcaps and a spare tyre that had been kerbed to death - was dealt with on expenses.
One evening I ran over a shard of crash barrier on a motorway which a Golf had smashed into five minutes earlier, and a close inspection revealed a peeled sidewall (new tyre no.2)
An evening orgy of vandalism by a local nutter left 54 tyres slashed in the neighbourhood, including TWO of mine (complete set of new tyres in two months.) I had now become good friends with staff at the local Firestone centre, who seemed convinced I had a fetish for rubber. I had a phone call two months later, by a concerned service manager who thought I'd taken ill as I had called round for a new tyre for so long.
A motorist cut me up at a junction and impaled her rear door on my (stationary) bumper. When we filled in and sent off our forms for some knock-for-knock, it turned out that my car had only been insured 3PF&T (the company held full insurance details; my paperwork did not mention class of cover) so I needed to get it smartened up and checked over by the insurance agent before switching it to fully comp.
Before I had the chance to do so, I was still using the car and returned to it one afternoon to find the passenger door had been dinged in by a car, parked parallel to mine, reversing out at too wide an angle. A note with full details was left on the screen and that job, at least, didn't cost my company's insurance a penny, although the body shop had to carry out two lots of repairs simultaneously, charged to two different policies!
The growling power steering pump was never replaced as a recall job, although I did persuade the dealer to replace the dodgy alternator under warranty.
I don't think I'd ever been so glad to see the back of a car. My next one, a 2.0 DTi Astra, never missed a beat in 4 years and 90K. My new Focus TDCi 109 ECOnetic, collected last week, suffered a burst power steering pipe at 150 miles and 2 days' use. Here we go again...
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1984 Ford escort 1600 diesel
bought at 6 months old. drank fuel like it's gone out of fashion.
Earth failure on rear lights leading to odd lighting from day 1
first cool day led to churning to try and start the beast
anything under 5 deg C and it took 30 sec to start from cold
only started in cold weather with a bump start
new battery bought, one of the new fangled high capacity ones
filled it with diesel then five min later got written off by a lad trying out his newly restored TR6
Police met TR6 driver by first name
50/50 lucky to get away with that given circumstances
car written off. new battery, full of fuel and £1500 out of pocket
contract for the house exchanged three days later
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After months of looking I found exactly what I'd been searching for on ebay.
Saab 9-3 with leather, ACC, memory heated seats, full ICE pack, nice alloys, low miles, FSH, everything basically.
I put a bid on just to see if I'd reach the reserve price. I did then forgot about it.
A week later and I won! A good £2k under price!
The first time seller (a dealer) was not impressed but took it well and even offered to deliver it and take it away again if it wasn't up to standard.
Within six months it had been run over by some lout (creasing the roof and bonnet), had a quarter light smashed, been gouged down the side by a cyclist, wife had run into a bollard, someone nicked all the signage off it, a stone flew off the back of a lorry and cracked the windscreen, had BOTH wing mirrors clipped and broken and then finally I was hit from behind and the car written off.
It's replacement (not as good spec) does the same commute and is parked in the same place and hasn't had a single incident.
So yes. I've had an unlucky car.
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