Your Coupe Paranoia

What are your constant paranoid thoughts?

Mine are:

The engine won't start (I always roll the window down when I start the engine, looking out for anything that sounds odd).

The bonnet will come flying open when I'm driving along.

One of the wheels will come off when I'm driving along.

The engine will suddenly cut out when I'm driving along.

I'll find it one day badly keyed.

I'm very confident in my Plus mechanically (*toucheswood*) but stone chips, or rather more stone chips worry me, particularly with all these pesky gritters flying around recently!

The engine won't start (I always roll the window down when I start the engine, looking out for anything that sounds odd).

Check!

The bonnet will come flying open when I'm driving along.

Check! (that was not a nice experience)

One of the wheels will come off when I'm driving along.

not yet, and no, thats not on the list

The engine will suddenly cut out when I'm driving along.

Check!

I'll find it one day badly keyed.

Well, not keyed, but 10 new dents down the side of it

Poo happens!

Other people

Someone stealing it.....

All of above, I'm really bad about the bonnet, I always check it before driving, even if I was at a petrol station/resturant, even though I know it's locked, before driving off again

TESCO car parks, after spending a nice sunny afternoon washing and waxin the coop i decided to nip to tesco, 2 months earlier i had just had a full re-spray of the bonnet, anyway i did my shopping came out of tesco to get in the car and some t#*t had reversed into it and dented and made a rite mess of the passenger side corner, im so paranoide now when parking at tesco i try to park as far away from the store as possible

> Being hit by a kid on a bicycle sustaining minor damage
> Rust appearing where its shouldn't
> Wheels coming off
> Clutch failure

All are improbable but possible

I don't really have any, been so good to me over extended period of ownership, but now looking out to 10-15 years rust is starting to worry me....

[*]Accident damage writing it off
[*]The existing respray and touch ups not lasting much longer forcing me to get it resprayed
[*]Bashing it on some speed hump or pot hole

mine are...

Bottom end going
bonnet flipping open
clutch AGAIN

thats it really!

Belts going

Oil/oil pressure.

It doesn't matter that you've sat in traffic on a blazing hot day, for a long period of time, after a long journey, with the engine very warm and idleing. The paranoia voice creeps in and says "your oil pressure is not at the top of that gauge, so you therefore have a knackered engine/no oil".

- Auxiliary belt of death AGAIN!
- Waking up to find it in a heap at the bottom of our hill - steep drive & frozen off handbrake = major paranoia!
- Reversing into something
- Someone vandalising it

why dont you leave it in gear mikey? and chock the wheels?

Clutch cylinder (s), Sitting in stationary traffic for an hour solid in the snow watching the temp gauge and praying it stays at 90 and oil pressure keeps steady, making sure that damn alt charges the battery, moving off the drive and finding oil on the floor, all random noises, bangs, knocks.

Setting off on a long journey and thinking "did i check the oil" "did I check it properly" "should I have checked it again" "will it be ok or should I stop half way and double check" "was the ground level that I checked it on" - you ca guess how many miles these line of though can occupy.....

I do both but the paranoid thoughts are still there!

Having my car stolen....I actually dreamt this the other night & woke up 'gutted'

That's a little bizarre, so did I!!!

Woke up truly believing I had just walked back to where I'd parked the coop in the snow (can picture exactly where this was as well!) only to find a patch of snow-less ground where it had been and a few skids where an amateur had tried to drive it and torque steered into the hedge - then off the tracks went further.

Very vivid, and very odd - not once parked my car where it was in the dream.

[On topic]
Not a lot of paranoias about the car really for me, apart from getting nicked, or crashing her in the ice at the moment.
HA - actually, I have a big paranoia - people not noticing me as I go past

tesco oaps.

oh, no, wait thats reality not paranoia

None for me either

my paranoia at the moment is some nob driving into me - why drive so close in these conditions ffs????

Have you not heard? Everyone has become a super cool rally driver over the last week or so, and all of them have magic traction tires that grip without friction!

I politely, (ok it started politely) requested a driver up my backside to back off as we were going up a hill (Where I crashed the Mazda in the snow last year) only to be met by open palms and a confused look.

If these people are driving 10 times the normal distance away, I'd hate to meet them when it isn't snowing!

My paranoia's;

Aux belt snapping again

Boost hoses blowing off

Clutch going

Overheating

After driving an Alfa 156 2.4 JTD for 6.5 yrs there are a few things that seem to sound like a common problem.
In the Alfa i was spooked of grounding the sump, cracked one before. Wishbones wishbones and more wishbones.
To top it all off worst thing was the Aux poly belt. Car was so low, if parked too close to footpath would cut the Aux belt, i think i put 5 in over the yrs, and the aux tensioner seemed to last nothing more than 10k before screaching and the AUX belt.... the joys of car ownership.
Had to replace turbo too in it, and looks like the LE is get one soon too...
Other than that, once the ice disappears ill be looking fwd to some fun driving

A tight hairpin bend,full lock, and a 30 ton truck following close behind.
And guess whos got the better turning circle.

I did suffer from the paranoia floyd's, but couldnt care anymore. Its just sods law if your car falls ill.
On a personal note
I've come to the conclusion that even when broken down, the car is still good looking on the back of the AA truck

Great statement!

Oil and checking it correctly. I've done about 1500 miles since the last service and keep checking the oil. It's been full all of the time and I got to a point where I got my next door neighbour to check the oil level for me because I was convinced that there couldn't be any oil in the car and that I wasn't reading the level properly.