Biggest failure ever

[GeneralJ]

We overland enthusiastics usually try to be prepared for everything when heading to our journey, but sometimes something happens with the car, equipment, gear, food, water or clothes, that just leave you wondering "is this the biggest failure ever".

What is your story? Did a flat without spare tire or repair kit end your trip or was water tank suddenly empty because you forgot to fill it before start? Share your best failure below and why not give a hint for rest of us how to avoid what happened to you.

 

[Levidale]

My biggest failure was I didn't pack enough beer! Ran out the last night camping on a three day weekend. I now over pack that product.

 

[jeffs blackjeep]

yeaaa...for me it was forgetting the cooler and the beers in the fridge...at least we had a fishing rod

 

[GeneralJ]

I will start this by saying that having an radiator issue in sunday in middle of night and in middle of holiday season while being tens of kilometres from the nearest road is not funny.

While I was driving in remote landscape, I noticed that the engine coolant temperature started to rise and suddenly went full red with "Check Gauges" beeping. I stopped my Jeep, kept the engine running, opened the hood and started to look for reason. Coolant level in reservoir was normal, radiator cap was hot and I didn't find any evidence of leaks. Oil was also in its normal level, smelled and looked normal. When checking the temperature gauge again, it seemed normal and I started to think was I seeing delusions here. Well, after five minutes of drive, it happened again. This time coolant reservoir level was at lowest and I could clearly see how radiator was heavely leaking coolant from below. I had a chewing gum in my mouth so I stucked that to radiators crack and it seemed to help a bit. All I had in my mind was to keep the engine idling tills it reached its normal operating temperature and shut is down after that. Thank god I had 2 litres of coolant in back of my Jeep. I dumped the coolant to coolant reservoir and it was almost immediately sucked to radiator so I kept adding water to reservoir. After 2 litres of coolant and 1 litre of water I went to check the temperature from the the gauges and it seemed normal, so turned the engine off.

Well, there was I with my broken radiator without any spare coolant in middle of nowhere, so time to call towing service emergency line. Thank god Finland has a great mobile network coverage even in remote locations. I explained the situation and told my GPS coordinates and got an answer that help is on the way in few hours. About an hour later I got a call from a tow truck driver and he was just making sure that he understud were I was and what happened. Two hour later he was lifting my Jeep on his tow truck and my expedition took a 90-degree turn back to civilization.

Today, three days later my Jeep is equipped with a new radiator and I am looking for some underbody protection. I think I hit my radiator with some tree branch or something on my trip and it caused it to fail, so protection is a must, even though you are not doing some serious offroad crawling.

 

[Quicksilver]

Didn't leak check my tent before a camping trip. Sometime during the second night, it started raining. I woke up at about 3:30am in more than an inch of water. Everything was wet...clothes, sleeping bag, me, all of it. Threw my soggy duffel bag and sleeping bag back in my rig, threw the tent in a trash can, and drove home early. And wet. Moral of the story: always check your tent, have your clothes in a dry bag, and have extra clothes in your rig too. Driving for 5 hours in wet clothes is not a good time.

 

[FeralBoy]

Air mattress had a slowish leak. Woke up at 5 a.m on a bed of pointy rocks

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[odingrey]

https://davidsworlddotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/stranded-in-death-valley-epilogue/

Found this a while back, long blog, but well worth the read. I'd chalk this up to the biggest failure I've ever read. My wife and I still bring up if we brought our broccoli stalks before we hit the dirt.

 

[Murphy Slaw]

It took me 16 years to get rid of my biggest fail.

The last I heard she was in Mississippi.......

 

[crit_pw]

1st major failure. While climbing over a large boulder the sector shaft in my steering box failed and seperated leaving me with no steering whatsoever. At that time I was working for a dealership with a tow truck and I had keys to the building and the tow truck. After catching a ride back to town we babied the tow truck up the trail to where I was stranded, I towed my rig back to work and took the tow truck home that night. Come Monday morning I had to explain to my boss why I was driving the tow truck and my truck was sitting in my bay. 2nd major failure. While doing a deep water crossing after some heavy climbing, my exhaust was extremely hot and when the catalytic converter hit the cold water the honey comb inside shattered partially plugging the cat reducing the surface area for my exhaust to exit. This caused the catalytic convertor to quickly overheat and melt totally shut, leaving me stranded in 3ft of water and mud. It took 2 rigs to pull me free. I drove back to civilization with the pre-cat O2 sensor removed and the ECM keeping the truck in limp mode. This made for a long tedious and no power ride back to town.

 

[TerryD]

https://davidsworlddotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/stranded-in-death-valley-epilogue/

Found this a while back, long blog, but well worth the read. I'd chalk this up to the biggest failure I've ever read. My wife and I still bring up if we brought our broccoli stalks before we hit the dirt.

Wow... That really makes you think, but even the hard core 4x4 guys get in those situations. I'll look for the story I read some time ago about a guy stranded a couple days in the trail after his "buddies" abandoned him with truck issues. But I think for $16k I would have just bought the car! At least them my payments would be going for something.

 

[TerryD]

Found it!

https://ck5.com/forums/threads/my-emergency-rescue-on-fordyce-creek-trail.322530/

 

[Anak]

https://davidsworlddotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/stranded-in-death-valley-epilogue/

Found this a while back, long blog, but well worth the read. I'd chalk this up to the biggest failure I've ever read. My wife and I still bring up if we brought our broccoli stalks before we hit the dirt.

Folks have been doing things of that sort for about as long as there have been vehicles. Louis L'Amour did it sometime in the 1930s. Broke an axle on a Model T and had to walk from the Owl's Head Mountains (south end of Death Valley) to Barstow. No canteen. Nothing more than a can of pears and some basic information about where some springs could be found.

I have had one wet tent failure: Went to bed with it starting to rain, woke up at about midnight to find that the middle of the tent was a small lake. The only one who wasn't soaked was Varmint #Last. He was in a pack-&-play. The 3" (or so) legs kept him elevated above the waterline. We all relocated to sit in the Suburban until morning, then packed up our soaking gear, drove to where there was clear weather, to a campsite to set up the tent to dry out, found a laundromat to dry out the sleeping bags and a hotel to spend the night. That one is quite thoroughly remembered by The Bride. There is nothing like shared adversity.

The worst vehicle failure is probably the time the fuel pump went out in the Suburban on I-5 near Twisselman Road (a middle of nowhere sort of place). The temperature was in the triple digits. Triple A was supposed to be sending a tow truck, but we were there for nearly two hours. The only shade was the exit sign for Twisselman Road. Triple A couldn't come up with a tow truck for a family of 5. We were finally bailed out by a tow truck driver who was willing to put the Suburban up on the flatbed with me and the two older boys in it and two way radios to communicate with the cab of the tow truck. The cab could accommodate The Bride and Varmint #Last. He took us to a parking lot by a parts store where I could proceed to diagnose and repair the Suburban while The Bride and The Varmints went and hung out inside an air conditioned McDonalds.

 

[TerryD]

A buddy and I found out the plastic hose for his little portable compressor had decayed and broken into pieces at the top of one of the mountains in Harlan, Ky all alone when he bashed a when into a rock and bent it and we out the spare on to find out that the spare was also flat. Good times!

I also realized I hadn't downloaded enough map tiles to cover my whole trip right when having the map would have helped the most. The paper map to the rescue but it was difficult figuring out where I should be and where was going with all the closed logging roads that are in the Gazetteer.

I'll add to this, if you are unsure about the trail, always take the time to walk out out to the next spot you feel like you can turn around. That kept me from taking a way wrong turn on that trip after which, if I had managed to stay upright, I could not have gotten myself back up to the trail.

 

[FeralBoy]

Today I got a flat tire on my 88 F 150. 31" tires on 15s means the jack was too tall to get under the end of the axle , frame is too high to lift the tire adequately..
Then I remembered my tie down straps, cinched it around the now compressed end of the axle, and eliminated the droop.

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[hairy_apple]

Snapped a steering arm clean off the knuckle on a dirt forest road in half an inch of snow. The steering wheel spun around suddenly with no resistance and I slide into a tree... huh.. that was odd.. maybe I hit ice... backed up.. nooo.. something's fabared in the steering. I got out and looked, and sure enough, the steering arm is just hanging from the tie rod and drag link. No longer attached to the knuckle at all.

My friend's parents were with us, and had an FZJ80, so they turned around and went back out to get a tow dolly, because it was clear there was no easy fix on the trail for this, and we waited.. and waited.. and waited. 10 hours later, they finally got back. It was a long cold night in the snow at 8500 feet waiting for them to come back. One of the few times my FJ40 has failed to come home under it's own power.


My favorite fail but not really fail was this one....


Rear pinion snapped on his cruiser. With the help of a bunch of Hilift jacks, and a few vehicles holding the cruiser from falling off the jacks, we got the broken diff out, and the replacement one in, and everything back together in about 45 minutes. I was pretty impressed with how quickly we were all able to fix a major failure like that. 6 cruiser guys all working on it though, so we all knew exactly how to take it all apart already.


This was another epic failure, although not mine. My buddy didnt reinforce the fame after doing an SAS on his Toyota. The steering box tore off, and left him broken badly. Lucky me, it was 108, and only one person knew how to stick weld... I welded a plate on, and we redrilled holes using the OBA and an air drill, and remounted his box and got him limped off the trail. It was a total bust of a trip, since we spent so much time doing this we knew we couldn't make it back out in time and turned around and went back out the way we came, but I was impressed with the fact we were able to pool our resources together and get it figured out.

 

[caleath]

Nothing real big..getting stuck while by myself pre winch days. My biggest fear is breaking something while by myself or way out of range to get help. Its the big reason I carry so many tools and spares..and one reason I am using a vehicle with no computer that I can get running in the field. I am a mechanic by trade and training...I dont trust machines.

 

[Craig M]

As I'm knocking on wood I'll say that I have been pretty fortunate and sometimes just plain lucky. I've only had one issue offroad and it was a flat last week in CO. I had a spare and the change went perfectly, but it was a trip ender since I could not source a replacement for the damaged tire locally and with only a day left it wasn't worth driving for hours to get one.

I have a compressor and tire repair kit and was looking forward to fixing it myself until I found the puncture was actually a slash in the sidewall.

Besides that I have broken down on the road on the way home twice.. Once in my Bronco and it was just the TFS module. The other was in an old car where the timing belt broke somewhere in AZ while on my way home to CA at the time. Got a tow and slept in the car in a pep boys parking lot. Got it fixed the next day and finished the drive.

 

[stoney126]

So far only a bent axle flange. And some bolt shaking loose.

 

[buckwilk]

In the high desert east of the sierra mtns. We were in a 2wd Ford van chasing up and down every road we could find. Went down a narrow 2 track steep and gravely. Got to the bottom where a river was flowing by. Messed around awhile and turned rig back up the hill. The hill was so steep and loose the 2wd just spun. Backed down and tried again, not happening. Looked at the river waded out away's got back in the van and launched ! It sailed about half way across before settling in the water, held pedal to the floor and out we came. That was the last vehicle I owned without 4wd.