Zoomed into the parking garage this morning
Sat for a moment, listening to the end of a news story
Set the hand brake and absent-mindedly let off the clutch
YIKES!!!

I was still in 1st gear and the car tried to lurch forward
Right toward the concrete wall
Inches from the freshly Zainoed front bumper

But she stalled before moving more than a centimeter
I love my wimpy and still uncrumpled 8! :o


P. S. I have no recollection of what the news story was about. Heart-in-teeth does that to me.

 

Lucky you...............as a side note the other day I parked next to the curb in front of my house to run inside real quick (I always park in the garage)..........for some reason I looked back only to see my 8 rolling down the street right next to the curb..........luckly the alignment was good and I didn't curb the tires............jumped into the car pulled the e-brake and looked over my shoulder to make sure no one else was watching............close one

 

OH DAMN! Lucky no one saw you guys! I remember back when I was learning to drive standard, i was stopped on a hill and the light turned green. My rookie skills were not good enough to handly the "steep" 7-10degree incline and started rolling back. The guy behind me honked like a mad man. Like I wasn't scared enough! Lucky I busted out the ebrake trick.

 

misterwilson007,
You win!

BlueFrenzy,
When I was 20 or so I stalled out at a stop sign going downhill. This was about week after buying my first car (1965 Pontiac Tempest, in 1975). The guy behind me in his shiny new BMW whacked into my rear bumper. I ran around like a frightened chicken, all worried about my ten year old rust bucket. He was probably pretty annoyed, but what could he say? Technically/legally it was his fault! Fortunately Tessie suffered no damage. No idea about the BMW. :D

 

Speaking of the e-brake thing; Where I used to live we were on a fairly decent slope across the road, so the guy's driveway across the street went up maybe ten degrees and ours went down maybe ten degrees, although ours was fairly long and curved around in a loop too, as well as running straight up to the house.

One day I was walking out to get the mail and I looked across the street to see the neighboors compact truck start to roll. He had left the e-brake off. It picks up pretty good speed coming out of his drive way (which was almost flat at the top so he didn't notice and went inside), then accelerates even more as it starts to enter ours.

It was doing maybe 15-20 mph as it went into our driveway headed straight for our house and there was nothing I could do but watch. As the front wheels of the truck came into our driveway, one of them just left the driveway into a slight ditch, the wheel immediately locked over and the truck made a 90 degree turn. It rolled across our lawn and up a slight bank where it came to a stop under a tree. It had just nicked the last brick off the top of a short retaining wall along side the house. That was the only damage to either the house or the truck. I then had to go across the street and tell the neighboor to come get his truck out of our front lawn .

It was absolutely incredible, I couldn't believe it ended with basically no damage. I don't think you could get that truck to do that again with a hundred tries.

Well, that's my story,

David

 

Unfortunately, this is a very common mishap that causes a lot of damage.

You were lucky.

 

If this is directed at me, thats the understatement of the week.

I'm glad the original posters ended up with no damage as well. As you said, I'm sure it doesn't always work out like that.

 

I had a similar thing, but stupid me it was at startup. At first I only used the ebrake when parking at the house because it wasn't much of an incline, but then when I read about the cars with only the ebrake on rolling I started to put it in gear. Early one morning (I can't think in the mornings, I just try to follow a set pattern) when I started it up, I let out the clutch so I could go back in to get everything that I needed for work while the car warmed up for a minute. Well the car was cold so the idle was high, around 2k, and I let off the clutch like I normally did every morning, but the car was still in gear and the ebrake was not pulled very high. The car lurched forward and came about an inch away from hitting the metal pole of the basketball goal, then stalled. Now that woke me up, luckily the car wasn't flooded either.

 

djbentle,
Your story reminded me of something I watched when I was 8 or 9 years old (yes, they had cars then). It was a cold Michigan winter morning. The lady in the house behind ours started the car up in the garage and propped the gas pedal down with her snow brush to warm up the car while she ran back in the house for something. Not too bright, I know.

She jumps back in the car, slams her door and shifts into gear, forgetting about the brush. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOppps! Talk about zoom-zoom, that Chevy was cookin'!

Slam! Through the back wall of the garage. Crash! Through the hurricane fence dog pen. Zip! Across the snow covered lawn. Boing! Over the 12" stone wall into our next door neighbors' back yard. Whew! She stopped it about 4 feet from their dining room window. Thank god they didn't have a swimming pool.

I nearly choked on my Cheerios. At the time I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. No one was hurt, but I'll bet it took her awhile to warm that garage up again!

I hear she later took a job with Audi, designing accelerators! :D

 

When I was about 19, and had my first car, a 1979 VW Scirocco, one evening the police came to our door. I answered it and they said, "Are you [my name]?" "Yes, I replied." "Well, do you know your car is parked in the middle of the street?"

I turned white as a ghost, and blew past them out the front door and sure enough, there's my 'Rocco sitting dead center in the middle of the street.

I went out, started it up (noting that the parking brake was not engaged), and pulled it into the driveway. The cops were laughing their butts off at me. Then my neighbor buddy walks out and says "that was the mosting amazing thing I've seen. Your mom comes home driving your car, hops out and walks inside, as the car rolls away from her. I was ready to bolt out the door and catch it but it rolled across the street, halfway up the neighbor's drive, and then stopped and went forward, back down across the street and into your driveway. It made four trips like this until it stopped. I was just headed out the door to get you to move it when the cops came."

We were all amazed that the alignment of the car (and our driveways for that matter) was such that it could do that and not even get off center in the driveway.

And what's also lucky is that no one was walking or driving by.

My mom never used the car again after that ...

 

Great stories.....keep um coming!

 

Of course, there's the other story - from just about 4 weeks ago - first time the wifey drives the -8. It's been 8 years since we had a mannytranny car.

She hops in it to head out, all bravado, no skill. Takes her at least six tries to get it into reverse, stalling it twice in 6th. Finally she gets it into reverse, manages to back out, then with several of our neighbors in their yards and driveways, she gives it WAY too much gas, and does a smokey, wheel-hopping, traction control chattering, car jerking and hopping, burn out start away from the neighborhood. We all about collapsed laughing.

One of the neighbors bolted inside to his house and got sharpies and a bunch of paper and we all made "score" signs - 8.5, 9.2, 7.7, etc. for when she arrived back about 10 minutes later - we lined up on both sides of the street for a half block - about 20 of us.

She about killed me.

then she took the car to go practice and I've been "fighting" with her every since over who gets to drive it for the day.

 

Funny stories guys.You should try the forget it's in gear trick with a 400 lb ft of torque(at 1500 rpm)diesel monster with the snow brush wedged on the accelerator to warm it up quicker.Even with the e-brake set it will move right through it.That wakes you up pretty quick.I make sure I check from now on if it is in gear.I usually park all of my cars with the e-brake on and the tranny in nuetral,unless i am on a hill then I put it in gear.

 

"Almost choked on my Cheerios"

Thats a great one, I busted out laughing!

-JiM

 

Scary. Pay more attention next time!

 

My roomate has a 2002 Honda Civic. One morning he parked the car and headed into a quicky shop to get some coffee. He got back out and his car was gone! He looked around and was like wtf - no way somebody could have stolen it that quickly.

Then he looked way across the street (Congress Ave. here in Austin - pretty good size street - 2 lanes each way) and there his Civic was with a crowd of people around it. He'd forgotten to put the e-brake on, and it rolled back across Congress during rush hour (luckily it didn't hit any cars or pedestrians) and rolled to a crunching stop, hitting a dumpster on the other side of the street.

Oh man I bet that was embarassing haha. I wish I was there to laugh at him.