Vehicle Quirks

Zargon

Zargon

Rank V
Launch Member

Pathfinder I

1,798
Goleta Califonia
Many of our overlanding rigs develop little quirks as they age. These quirks are what give a vehicle its character, what distinguishes it from others.

I want to hear about the different quirks of all of the rigs here on overland bound! They can range from the smallest of things, to the largest of things, positive or negative. Please, share them below.

Ill go ahead and share the first two that pop into my mind.

The drivers door on my rover doesn't have the factory grab handle. When I first bought the truck the P.O had broken it off, and I have left it off ever since due to the extra knee room it gives me!

The next quirk is that the rear door will never unlock fully, unless the key is in the door and is being held in the unlock position. While this doesn't sound too terrible at first, it means that if I am every picking someone up, dropping something off, or want to quickly get at something in the back, I have to first turn the rover off, get the key, and go to open the door. Every time.
 
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My quirk is that the transmission on the Canyon's is notoriously bad. You press the gas pedal, the revs jump, but there is a 1 second delay until you actually go anywhere. You get used to it after a while, but its kind of annoying.

A much more minor quirk is that the tonneau cover won't close all the way, so you need to give it a good rap to get it down 100%.
 
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Jeeps come from the factory with quirks, haha. My Jeeps hard top will whistle past 60km/h no matter how many times I adjust it. Also, if I get stuck in a typhoon my hard top will leak perfectly center over my dash, but only with 1 or 2 droplets.
 
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Zargon said:
Many of our overlanding rigs develop little quirks as they age. These quirks are what give a vehicle its character, what distinguishes it from others.

I want to hear about the different quirks of all of the rigs here on overland bound! They can range from the smallest of things, to the largest of things, positive or negative. Please, share them below.

Ill go ahead and share the first two that pop into my mind.

The drivers door on my rover doesn't have the factory grab handle. When I first bought the truck the P.O had broken it off, and I have left it off ever since due to the extra knee room it gives me!

The next quirk is that the rear door will never unlock fully, unless the key is in the door and is being held in the unlock position. While this doesn't sound too terrible at first, it means that if I am every picking someone up, dropping something off, or want to quickly get at something in the back, I have to first turn the rover off, get the key, and go to open the door. Every time.
Click to expand...
I have just the opposite problem, my backdoor won't lock. I really need to get it fixed.
 
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When it is really cold, my transmission does not like to get into 1st gear. The Nissan manual transmission has to use the Nissan brand gear oil (the sulfides in aftermarket oils bond to some of the alloys in the transmission and goup everything up) but they don't make a thinner viscosity for cold weather. Until the transmission warms up getting into first requires a full stop and some fiddling with the shifter.

The blower fan makes noise when it is cold.

The driver's window rattles when it is not fully up or down.

Under WOT and above about 3K RPM there is a heat shield or something that makes a hell of a racket. I still have not been able to track it down and I have put new clamps on every heat shield I could find.

The lower half of my radiator fan shroud broke loose from the plastic clips and is now held in with a bunch of small stainless screws.

Every fall I go over the rig to sand and patch rust spots before winter. The patches get bigger every year.

There is a small tear on my driver's seat where my pocket knife clip snagged as I was getting out.

My front gill is held on by two of the six plastic fasteners and a zip-tie.

Despite the lift and the tail-up orientation of the rig, I still managed the dent the crap out of the underside of my bumper down in Moab.

I have a dent in my fender, not from off roading, but from knocking over @Maxterra 's trash can one day. He needs a dune flag on his trash can, it's too short. I'm not sure he actually knew about that until now.
 
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Dash rattle in my 1998 Tacoma. Had to stuff a folded piece of cardboard between it and the windshield or else it drove me crazy.

OB 3319
 
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My exhaust ends just after the cat because I smashed it on a rock and haven't had time to fix it.

Also, my steering wheel is crooked and traction control is inoperable ever since I accidentally got airborne a couple months ago... [emoji23]

Sent from my Pixel using OB Talk mobile app
 
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ColoradoPacific said:
My exhaust ends just after the cat because I smashed it on a rock and haven't had time to fix it.

Also, my steering wheel is crooked and traction control is inoperable ever since I accidentally got airborne a couple months ago... [emoji23]

Sent from my Pixel using OB Talk mobile app
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I want to hear about geting airborn.
 
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Egan said:
I want to hear about geting airborn.
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Coming down the mountain after a trail run with my Toyota club. Was enjoying the scenery instead of paying attention to terrain and speed. Hit a rather sketchy whoopdedoo, and all I could see was sky.

They guy in front of me claims I got almost 2 feet of air in the front... [emoji16]

Sent from my Pixel using OB Talk mobile app
 
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ColoradoPacific said:
Coming down the mountain after a trail run with my Toyota club. Was enjoying the scenery instead of paying attention to terrain and speed. Hit a rather sketchy whoopdedoo, and all I could see was sky.

They guy in front of me claims I got almost 2 feet of air in the front... [emoji16]

Sent from my Pixel using OB Talk mobile app
Click to expand...
And who said rigs aren't ment to fly!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using OB Talk mobile app
 
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ColoradoPacific said:
Coming down the mountain after a trail run with my Toyota club. Was enjoying the scenery instead of paying attention to terrain and speed. Hit a rather sketchy whoopdedoo, and all I could see was sky.

They guy in front of me claims I got almost 2 feet of air in the front... [emoji16]

Sent from my Pixel using OB Talk mobile app
Click to expand...
That's great, as long as there was no damage. To bad you don't have video!
 
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When I start her cold she roars to life and the CEL for the vacuum leak/misfire clears. The problem still exists obviously, and I have to keep a couple jugs of coolant on hand when it gets low.

The locks don't work quite right, and the passenger side rear door will never, ever lock/unlock even if all the others do. I've given up on the switch and just reach behind/over/get out and unlock the back every time.

There's not a speaker in the driver's door either. So all the sound in the front comes from the passenger side and (poorly) from the speaker bar in the back.

And the door check for the driver's door is broken (not the pin--the assembly, unfortunately), so if you park sideways on a hill you have to hold on to the door while you get out. Usually ends up in me holding the door with my foot while I transfer my hand-hold from the actual door handle to the grab-bar (or whatever it's technically called).

Sent from my XT1254 using OB Talk mobile app

edit: Oh yeah, and nobody ever adjusted the speedometer when the tire size was changed, so at highway speeds I'm 5-8 mph off, give or take. Made for an interesting realization that when I was doing 64/65 according to my speedometer, I was just keeping pace with traffic. And this is everywhere in California.
 
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Yes, have had a few things over the years. My first Jeep, a ZJ, I bought it used and it was solid. Got up to the mountains the first time with it after having it about a month and was driving down a dirt road. Something flew up off front left tire and really smacked the floor board to point where I could feel it in my left foot. That started a rattling that in the 12 years I had it was always present. At first I asked a mechanic to check it out. Found nothing. Rattle stayed! Other issue with that car was transmission eventually got to point where when accelerating, after getting up to speed where trans should have changed gears, it wouldn't unless I took my foot off the throttle, it would then change gears and then I could go back to throttle again. Strange thing is, that lasted several years and then it healed itself!

On my newer Jeep WK, sometimes when cold it gets into gear (reverse) but doesn't quite feel like it wants to really move at first and will gradually get going in a few seconds.


Sent from my iPad using Overland Bound Talk
 
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Jeep JK owner so it comes stock wih quirks. #1 for me is how it moves around with a slight hint of breeze. It can get annoying on long drives but the good thing is it keeps you busy and awake.
 
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I'm the only person that's able to start my '03 Discovery. Ever since I got it, you have to push the key in all the way and then pull it out just enough while turning the steering wheel slightly. I've done it so many times I don't even think about it. I can start it as fast as any other car, but when I take it to get new tires, I have to move it for them. Taking the key out is a whole nother process...

Sent from my SM-G930T using OB Talk mobile app
 
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