In case of car trouble...

[SAC]

What would you do if you broke down on the road? 
I'm not saying five miles from your house, or in your hometown, but hundreds of miles from home. 

I got a call last weekend from my best friend who was broken down in a snowstorm two hundred miles from home.  I hooked up my car trailer and spend all day driving round trip to pick him up.  Was wondering what if this was me, and I was even further from home, like on that long road trip I dream of (after I get my Charger finished).

I've taken my project cars on long trips before, notably driving my 1978 Power Wagon to Wyoming and back (two years later), and a trip from Nebraska to Texas in my Trans Am, but I was never challenged by any problems.  The only time my Trans Am ever broke down was at midnight at the airport returning from a business trip (HEI coil burned out).  What if that had happened miles from home?  What would you do?  Any options from bucks-up to on the cheap.  Ideas I've always had include renting a uhaul and trailer to bring my car home (though it may be difficult to get a dead car ON the trailer).

[stripedelete]

AAA Gold.

[Ghoste]

On long trips I carry a pretty extensive list of tools and parts with me, anything beyond that its cellphone and credit card time.

[twodko]

AAA Gold, Leatherman Tool, cell phone. I've also always carried a small backpack containing emergency rations for 2, 2 gallons of water, first aid kit, road flares, flashlight, car blanket, jumper cables, small tool kit blah blah blah and a sleeping bag.
Yeah yeah, I know.....Cub Scout Boy.
I've carried this gear in every vehicle I've owned since I got out of the military. 

[moparguy01]

I have AAA Gold as well for when I can't fix something. But when I go on the mopar cruise in KS every year I usually have more tools than any man should ever need on the road, and if you ask people who go on the cruise I'm pretty good at getting things back on the road again in short order. And if I can't we usually have plenty of other guys who who their stuff who are more than willing to help out.

[SAC]

Thanks for the ideas.

I also have AAA gold, but that only gets you so far (100 miles).  Of course in my worst case scenario, I would use AAA to tow me to a town where I could rent the aforementioned truck and towing equipment.

KS Power Cruise scenario- points out the benefits of travelling in packs.  Not my thing, though.

True on the parts and tools.  When I drove the PowWag, I had a spare ECU, fuel pump, a used but known good coil, etc.

However you just can't plan for every scenario- I was thinking worst-case.  Once I lost the front pump seal in my old Ford truck on I-25 in Denver, causing the Neon behind me to turn on its windshield wipers for the sudden shower of trans fluid.  Poor girl!  In that case, of course I didn't have the tools to pull the transmisson on the side of the interstate, so I parked the truck at a transmission shop and finished my trip in a Kia!

I am really anti-anybody working on my car except me, but was the only choice at the time.

Anybody with any interesting or resourceful stories?

[68X426]

or resourceful stories?

Slap a "For Sale" sign on it.

[stripedelete]

or resourceful stories?

Slap a "For Sale" sign on it.





......and keep the title in the glove box.

[moparguy01]

Oh lord, I have done many. Lost ECU's on old mopars so I bypassed it with a hotwire. We also had to do this on the mopar cruise once, and the wire was the trunk light wire off my 78 new yorker. I should maybe put a new wire in there one day.
One time the throttle cable snapped and I tied my boot laces together and pulled with my hand to get throttle......for 3 weeks.....
Had brake hoses blow on me so I used a vice grip to crimp it off till I got home to fix it.
Those are a couple of my more infamous ones. I have many.