What is the most Expensive Thing That You Have Broken | 4WDTalk - Overlanding and offroad Forum
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What is the most Expensive Thing That You Have Broken

Pado

Pado

Well-known member
Oh this should be a fun thread. So the rules are simple, post what is the most expensive thing you have broken, doesn't matter what it is. On your rig, at home, someone else's stuff.
 
We just had a family reunion, which is where I was reminded of an innocent that takes the cake for me. I was 14 years old and decided I was old enough to drive my dads Ford Ranger. He was off on business and I thought I could have a little fun with it, have it washed up and no-one would know I had touched it. Well, let me tell you swamps are deeper than you think and swamp water is very damaging (plus stinks) and is like cement when you have something heavy in it. The motor ended up getting water in it, interior destroyed and by the time my dad got home, learned of the fate of this truck and was able to get a tractor down there, it took nearly a half a day to get that out of the swamp. The truck was destroyed.
 
Hmm.
Should have set a rule, no maintenance items. maintenance items being things that wear due to normal use. Not replacing them can lead to disaster. What people don't realize is, the harder you drive, the maintenance items start to change. Early rock crawling showed us that axles, driveshafts, knuckles, shock's and gear boxes are now maintenance items. desert race showed me that axle housings dont like it when you leave the ground. Actually, they don't care if you leave the ground, they don't like it when you land.

So, lets see. I learned that if you over torque an aluminum transfercase, you can actually spit it in half. This also cost me a transmission.
When torque is properly applied to a rear drive line, the driveshaft is actually capable of coming through the floor. This is what drive shaft loops are suppose to cure.

Hitting something higher then your front bumper (stupid Joshua tree) means you learn that your grill doesn't like blunt things hitting it at high speeds. Then you learn that your radiator is not stronger then your fan. You may also be lucky enough to learn that a broken fan blade is actually capable of piercing your hood.
Large quantities of mud into an engine at high rpm isn't real good either. The radiator wasn't happy there either.

I cant take credit for my last engine issue because it happened to my wife. She wrecked her car and was driving my cruiser while it was repaired. She failed to mention a coolant smell over the course of a week. When the engine seized, she didnt notice the blinking coolant light, the check engine light, the pegged temp gauge, the steam cloud or that the engine actually stopped. She did notice that it lost power when she tried to change lanes.
This was all because of a 1/4 inch coolant hose, I didn't know I had.

Other then those, I never actually totaled a vehicle. I don't count sheet metal, windshields or suspension no longer attached to the frame. That was the normal learning curve for early rock crawl.

Too bad i cant mention all the stupid things I've watched others break.
 
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Fun question, yeah rules might be needed on this one. When I was younger, I broke the speed limit so bad that my car was impounded and I got slapped with huge fine and had to spend nearly $5000 on lawyer to get me off the hook. I was doing 117 in a 65 freeway. Yep, that one hurt.
 
Motor in a 1988 Ford Mustang that I pushed to hard. But then again that motor had sometime like 130k of hard miles on it. I was the second owner of the car, but I always drove it like I stole it. 5.0, those were the days!
 
Motor in a '78 Camaro. Lets just stress the importance of keeping water out of the motor at all times
 
Knock on wood, I'm doing good: not going to include windshield as insurance covered that. But I broke a exhaust once. But then again that was able to be repaired. Nothing exciting for me gents!
 
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