Worst car break down - place/time/mechanics?

I have twice had my car break down on the approach to the Bay Bridge. No place to pull over and get out of the way, and too far to push, plus it’s uphill. 10,000 assholes driving by you, screaming obscenities.
I do not miss that commute.

I owned a VW TDI Passat. Need I say anymore!!!!

@filmfann I was also on the highway in the fast lane. I shat bricks.

Yugo during a blizzard when I was attending University of North Dakota. I lived in an old farmhouse about 15 miles outside the city limits. Spent the night in the car, walked half mile to the nearest farm in the morning, the temperature on the thermometer by their door was -40.

MGB caught fire while I was driving it. It was an electrical fire. I was just a young silly teenager, so I pulled over and was just sitting there in the car. A mailman yanked me out and put the fire out.

On a highway with a couple toddlers in the backseat and a 10 below wind chill outside. This happened during the pre-cellphone days. It took at least 30 minutes before someone pulled over to offer assistance. It was 45 minutes before highway patrol came to help.

good times~

Betcha keep extra blankets and stuff in the boot after that, eh?

Ohhhh have I got a good one for you guys.

In my senior (or maybe Junior) year of high school I was dating a girl who lived a few towns over. The drive to get to her place was a pretty rural drive, just some truck stops and occasional gas stations along the road. One night I was returning home around 11 or 12 at night, driving along in my Geo-Metro. I was on a part of the road that was under construction, so there was no curb-lane, just a cement barrier. Suddenly I heard a loud bang from under the hood, and one of the most excruciating metal churning sounds I’d ever heard in my life. I immediately thought that I must have blown my motor, but I couldn’t even pull over because it was construction. I hadn’t lost power on the car yet (I could still give it gas), so the motor wasn’t blown, and I drove probably half a mile until the construction ended and I could pull over. I pulled into an abandoned gas station with zero lights whatsoever and pulled up to some bushes. I got out, and thought to myself “maybe it just needs oil…..” So I popped the hood and took the cap off the engine block, and started pouring oil in. Much to my surprise… the oil, along with the engine, ignited into huge flames almost immediately. The fire went out after a few moments, and I crawled out from the bushes I had dove behind. I decided there was no way I was driving this car anywhere tonight, and I ended up walking 2–3 miles… in the dark… along the empty road-side with woods and swamps on either end of me… to get to a truck stop around 1 at night and call my older brother to come get me.

A day later we recovered the car to find it had about ½ a quart of oil in it. Much to our surprise, it started up and we were able to drive it home, fill it up with oil… and it worked for several more months before the timing belt went out and we finally had to call it quits on the car.

I drove someone else’s car from NC to Buffalo New York to deliver some caracals to the Buffalo Zoo around Thanksgiving one year. If was 70 degrees in NC, and a blowing snowstorm in Buffalo. The windshield wipers died (in what was to me a blizzard), so I pulled off at the nearest exit to find someone to fix them for me (sticking your head out of a window to see during a snowstorm doesn’t work very well). The guy at the car shop looked at me and said “What are you doing here? You need to get out of this neighborhood. Quick.” Luckily, he fixed it for me quickly and I got out of there. Quick.

I finished my meeting at the zoo and on the way home (with week-old serval kittens tucked inside our shirts to keep them warm), in heavy traffic and ice, the car in front of me slammed on their brakes. I had no choice, so I tapped mine, we spun 90 degrees on the ice and continued sideways down the highway at about 50 mph. It lasted long enough for the person sleeping next to me to wake up and for me to say “Hang on, we’re going off” just before we plummeted down an embankment on the side of the road. We came to a stop at the bottom, but the angle was too steep for me to get back up to the highway, even with 4 wheel drive (not a single soul in that heavy traffic stopped).

The guy with me passed off his kittens to me, climbed out, and jogged in front of the car cross-country (everything was covered in a blanket of snow so I was concerned about driving into a ditch or creek). We eventually wound up in the middle of a Native American Reservation, where some very grumpy individuals gave us instructions on getting back to the highway.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Thankfully.

Back in 1999 (or close to that time) the rear main bearing went bad on my F150 while driving to work. I was several miles from the nearest house, and it was very cold, like single digit cold with strong winds (I remember this well). I didn’t have a cell phone at that time so I had no way to contact anyone, and on top of that I wasn’t able to get to work. I couldn’t notify anyone where I worked at neither. A state cop eventually drove by while I was walking (to nowhere).