What happened to your first car?

Gathering information for security questions?

My (terrible) dependable chariot had completed a roughly 3,200 mile round trip and after getting me to my destination, lasted a few more months before the transmission decided it had done it's work and blew up on my morning commute.

For visual reference, this car had a right headlight made out of packing tape, a rattle can painted hood that didn't quite fit because it was from the previous model year, and an unpainted front bumper - so it was a shit box of a nugget. But it was a nugget that could hit 190km/h.

I still miss that little thing.

My first car was a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt. It was my grandmother's car (on my father's side). She died about six months before I turned 16, so I inherited the car.

On the morning of New Year's Day, I was driving my girlfriend (we started dating the night before), her sister, and her dog home from a party. I was not hungover or under the influence. This was January, in Western North Carolina, high up in the mountains. It was cold, but there had been no snow or rain, nor was there any ice on the roads. I grew up in the area. Twisty mountain roads were nothing new to me in general, and I had been on this road dozens of times before. I was not speeding.

About five minutes after leaving, I approached a particularly sharp curve and was braking when I noticed that the brake pedal was very stiff. The car wasn't slowing down. I tried to turn into the curve early to give us a better chance of staying on the road, but then the steering wheel locked. I couldn't stop. I couldn't turn.

We flew off the road and down the mountain. Mid air, we hit a thin tree that immediately buckled under the car's weight, but also flipped us upside down. We flew so far and for so long that when we landed, we did so on the roof of the car. After sliding for what felt like an eternity, we finally came to a stop a long way down the mountain. The airbags did not deploy.

Miraculously, everyone was okay. A few cuts, scrapes, and bruises, and glass particles everywhere (I vividly remember rinsing glass out of my ear the next day).

After unbuckling and crawling out of the car, we hiked back up the mountain, then walked down the road until we had cell service, and called 911.

In hindsight, that turned out to be a mistake. Of course we should have gone to the hospital to be checked after an accident like that, but we really didn't need the ambulance to take us there (or the bill for it). Calling 911 also meant the police got involved. They did their accident investigation and, at the hospital, said to me "it's your lucky day, we aren't giving you a ticket" because they couldn't prove that I was speeding (they made it absolutely clear they thought I was), or high or drunk. They were generally just assholes about the entire thing and made the day even worse.

After getting checked out at the hospital, we got a ride back to the scene of the crash to collect things we had left in the car, and to watch it be towed up the mountain (a tedious process). During this, I realized that I left the keys inside the car. I never turned the car off or removed the keys. In fact, the keys were not just still inside the car, they were still in the on-position, but the car was completely dead. The battery was not, and was still connected. I started putting the pieces together that the car somehow turned off while I was driving. It sounded insane, but that was the only explanation that was consistent with what happened.

Long story short, I spent the next month feeling like I was being gaslit by the universe. I got so much shit "for almost killing girlfriend and girlfriends_sister". By my friends, by her friends, by some of her family. Literally the only people who didn't give me a hard time about the crash were my girlfriend, her sister, her parents, and my parents. I even had a random person in town who I never met before tell me they heard about the crash and told me to "slow down out there".

But then, the first week of February, I got it: the recall letter from General Motors.

It turned out that, for over a decade, various General Motors vehicle models had been sold with faulty ignition switches. The faulty switches could cause the vehicle to turn off while driving.

Specifically, if you kept your car key on a keychain (like I did), and that keychain had any significant weight (say, as much weight as the car key itself, like mine did), then that extra weight hanging off the back of the car key could cause the key to become dislodged. When the car key became dislodged in the ignition switch (such as after going over a bump), the vehicle would turn off. No braking, no steering, no airbags.

A tragedy in two parts:

2016 blue Hyundai Accent. Late July the Kia Boys hit my car, rear passenger window smashed, ignition wrecked by their attempt to jack it. Get it back the friday before Labor Day.

Driving home from Micro Center with a $500 graphics card in the passenger seat after troubleshooting my PC to try to play Starfield (it was a stupid motherboard firmware setting). I go to take a 270 degree, sharp on ramp on to a freeway. Graphics card falls, I (stupidly) dive after it.

WHAM THUDHTUDTHUD

I turned too sharp, jumped the curb, knocked a lightpole over. Totalled the car by destoying the passenger-side suspension. I called highway patrol who assessed and took a report, filed with Caltrans, my insurance, and waited to for the bill. Still waiting, technically, but the adjuster I spoke to said Caltrans hasn't even had an order for the repair, despite the light pole being fixed, so I might be home free. I have one more year for me to get a bill, then they'd have to take me to court to charge me for the repair, which they don't do.

Once the car stopped moving I just screamed incoherently for a couple minutes, after three days of PC repair and now whatever the heck I did to my car. The highway patrol folks were cool about it, even cracking jokes. I went to pick up the parts and the officer on a motorcycle saw me going towards the pole and said "You can't take that," and when I asked if there were any charges or anything, the other officer I mostly spoke to asked "Were you drunk?" We laughed it off when I said no, and he gave me the report number for insurance.

I got the payout, spent the rest of my savings and the payout on a 2020 Honda HRV my broker found for "okay" (used market is trash) with low mileage. It's a considerable upgrade, at least.

Never had one :)

1985 Toyota Cressida, a hand down after my step-grandfather passed away when I was a teenager (late 90s). I crashed it...multiple times (I was an idiot when I was younger).

I really did not realize how cool of a car it was for its time, it was a luxurious model in the mid-80s. Rear wheel drive! It did awesome brake-stands :) It ended up written-off in an accident that was for once not my fault, I think I had it for around 10 years.

Edit It also got stolen once and I actually got it back! It was full of other peoples stolen stuff when I got it back and the cops didn't seem to care.

2000 Nissan altima with blackout windows and black paint. My youngest sibling called it the batmobile. I rear ended someone after picking my sister up from school. I will always remember that "Bittersweet Symphony" was playing - it still brings me back. My parents gave me so much shit for it.

Then I got a courtesy car, a brand new (3 miles on the odo) 2007 Nissan altima. I ran into a curb and broke the bumper. Fuck.

Edit:

My first car that I had that was just for me (not that my parents bought for me) was a 2005 Ford taurus (in 2010) with a rebuilt title after being totaled. I drove that thing into the ground. 7 years later it had a hole in the floor and couldn't pass 3rd gear. I sold it for scrap and got a 2000 Honda civic. I loved that car, but the windshield leaked in the rain and eventually my wife forced me to trade it in for a family car, a 2009 Hyundai santa fe that she currently drives.

I now drive the 2015 Hyundai elantra.

I've never had, and never will, have a new car.

BMW 325i from somewhere in the 90s or maybe early 2000s, bought second hand at an age of something like 5 years old. Eventually traded it in for an SUV when I had my first kid.

A blue, 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra. It was the family hand-me-down car. My grandparents bought it new, gifted it to my uncle, who gifted it to my aunt, who gifted it to me when I graduated high school a decade or so later.

Eventually I crashed and totaled it, but it was mostly just body damage so my dad was determined to get it fixed up. So we hit up junkyards and took all the parts to a mechanic friend of his and they cobbled it back together. It was a little sketchy...I definitely recall there being welding involved... But I was just happy to have it back. I called it my "patriotic frankencar" because the front end of the car was basically 3 different Cutlass Sierra's mashed together and the colors were red/white/blue.

I drove it for a few more years before something major and mechanical went wrong with it. I loved that freak of a car.

You put some pretty good years into it! I'd feel emotional too. Every car I've owned def feels like it coincides with an era of my life. I have a lot of great memories loading everybody into someone's car and car pooling to Asheville for live music. So many conversations ranging from intimate to the dumbest shit you've ever heard. The energy that a car full of friends has is hard to beat!

My first car was a 96' Chevy Lumina! A bit of a tank. Everyone at school said I had a grandma car lol. My mother kindly bought it for me, I think it was around $1500 when we got it around 2006? Here's a picture I found online: 96 Chevy Lumina Pic

A girl from school in a decent size truck ended up backing into me at a red light. The bed of her truck just kinda dug into the hood of the car. It turned out that the cost to replace the hood was more than the car's worth so it was technically totaled( I think? not entirely sure how all of that works). So my papaw went to a junk yard and paid basically nothin' for the hood off another Lumina and then we replaced it ourselves! That means we ended up with the insurance money and Lumina in perfectly fine condition!

One of my mom's friends were selling a little pickup truck that my mom wanted to get for me to drive. So, we sold the Lumina and used the combined money with the insurance payout to get the truck! There was still several hundred dollars left after that, so my mom put that towards a car for my younger brother several years later. So getting backed into ended up being a pretty good deal in this situation lol. So that's how we want out separate ways. I thought the truck we ended up buying was kinda dinky and ugly at first, but I became insanely attached to it. I loved that truck so much. It was a 92' Toyota Pickup. Here's a picture I found online: Picture of 92 Toyota Pickup BUT mine was more of a dark steel color with a really nice glitter effect. So many nights loitering in empty parking lots, sitting in the back of the bed, smoking cigarettes, and just being kids. I know who the current owner is and I lowkey hope I come into some money sometime so I can buy it back and get it running.

I still remember my first car. It was a 1990 Toyota Hilux Surf. Basically a 4runner, except diesel and right-hand drive. It has the same engine and transmission as the one in the Top Gear episode, same transmission, frame, etc as the Whistlindiesel torture tests on youtube. She wasn't the fastest on highways, especially on hills, but once you got onto a dirt road she would climb over anything.

Her name was Frank, short for Franklin, as in the turtle (Canadian cartoon/book series). I chose it because it really pisses some people off that I identify my car as female but gave her a male name. Anyway... Here she is in her native habitat: https://i.postimg.cc/hGqgqB9W/hilux.jpg

Anyway, despite 350,000km on her, there's absolutely no rust on the frame, only a patch of rust the size of a toonie on the rear fender. I bought her a year ago. I am 43 years old. Only got my license recently. I figured my first car should be something special, so I got some weird and backwards indestructible Japanese tank from 35 years ago. Starts great every time and I've put maybe 10,000km on her so far.

My first car was a 93 Honda Accord that my brother gave me when he left for college after he got a newer 95 Honda Accord. My Dad bought the `93 for cheap that was in pretty terrible condition. He said he'd pay for parts (taken from a junk yard), but all the work on the car and getting the parts we would have to do. He'd help if we needed it, but 95% of it was my brother and I. Super easy to work on car, and my emergency kit in the trunk took up half of the space because I carried around so many extra parts for road side repairs.

It worked great after a lot of work was put into it with the occasional plan being cancelled because it broke down. It was eventually sold to my cousin as I was going to college and my parents wanted me to have a more reliable car, so I got my parents `91 Honda Accord which my Dad had taken meticulous care of over the years since it was an anniversary present for them that they bought brand new. Hence why we had so many Honda Accords over the years, easy to work on and my Dad was very familiar with them after all the years of doing his own work.

My cousin proceeded to trash our old `93, treating the inside terribly and getting into minor accidents/hitting things. IIRC she eventually sold it for so she could buy more meth. The car definitely deserved better, and I get a bit nostalgic if I ever see a Honss from that time.

1997 Ford Thunderbird. I got it when I was 19 and managed to get over my fear of driving (due to a car wreck I was in as a passenger.) It used to be my grandma's car until she passed, and before that it was the work vehicle of my mother's old boyfriend. I named her Emma, and drove her until this year when I managed to save/borrow enough to purchase a 2025 Mazda CX-50 that I fully intend to keep for the next decade if not longer. Emma still has some use and a lot of heart, but she'd need someone who really cares about that type of car and has the money/know-how to maintain it. By the time I got the Mazda, I could only drive her during the day and not on highways or interstates, because the likelihood of a breakdown was high enough to need good lighting and a place to safely pull over. Still, it wasn't easy emotionally. The car became a family heirloom and honestly, she still looks cool as hell. Speakers work well too! The A/C, not so much. Deep South summers, man.

Chevy Cobalt, dark blue. Bought it used after I graduated from college and had enough cash. I loved it. I felt so good having my own car and being able to go wherever I wanted without relying on public transit. I ended up driving it from Ontario to Alberta when I moved there back in 2011. A few years later I ended up trading it in when I bought something else. Nothing special about it really other than it being my first car. I did love the round back lights.

A 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix SE. Man, I loved that car. Black with red accents. I lucked out and found a pair of rear bucket seats and rear center console from one of its sister models (a Bonneville, maybe?) in immaculate condition from a junk yard, and I bought a Driver's Information Center (DIC) display that was a rare, optional feature off someone on the Grand Prix forums, which displayed fun info like real-time MPG to the left of the dash.

I drove it from 2000 until 2013. Bought it with 96,000 miles on it and it had over 220,000 miles on it when I said goodbye to it. Incredibly, I had basically zero mechanical issues with the car.

In the end, though, it was rust that did me in: the struts on the rear wheels rusted through the frame. The alignment on the back tires got out of whack and there was ultimately no way to fix it. Definitely should have washed it more frequently, especially during winter; all of the salt and brine from Midwest winters really took its toll.

R.I.P., sweet prince. You saved my sanity in high school, coming from a small little backwater town and being able to go somewhere that wasn't a cornfield.

Great question. We'd be talking about Benny, my 1986 Volkswagen Golf. It was a little white manual, 300,000 mile, 2 door dream. I bought it off of a friend's mom in 2005 for $150 as that is what she was getting for donating it as it no longer passed smog. I had a new catalytic converter installed for $350 and I was off to the races. I freaking loved that car. We drove that car everywhere and drove everywhere way too fast - or at least as fast as it would allow us to go.

One time I got the "butterfly" that sets how much rev the car has into the fully open position so it was always pedal to the metal - driving that to the mechanic was fun. We used to go over highway 17 to Santa Cruz like every other day, and doing that with 2 of us upfront with the seats all the way forward and leaned up so that 2 surfboards could fit over our heads from the backseats to the windshield was always wild. I also didn't understand downshifting, so we'd always go over in like 4th or 5th gear on the absolute edge of stalling. One time we drove back home and were metal to metal on the drum breaks the whole way down. Another butt puckering ride that ended up costing another $500 to replace everything.

All in all the car lasted me a year, taught me an unbelievable amount about cars in general, and somehow did not get us killed. I had my first make out in that car. I went through my "glow up" summer in it. I spent the best days/nights of my teenage years in it. I still think back so fondly on that little car. It ended up getting hauled off for donations when it was too broken to fix and I'm sure is now parts of plenty of other things made of aluminum.

I bought my first car off eBay. This was around 2008. It had a salvage title in New Jersey, only 20,000 miles, and cost around $3000. Loved that little car. A nice Ford Focus hatchback that had hand cranked windows.

I had for a bit over a year. It was a bad winter for snow and school had been cancelled for nearly a month by the end of January so the county was resisting delaying any more. We had a two hour delay and on the way to school, a truck was backing out of their driveway, my car hit a long sheet of ice, and I hit the back of the truck. Surprisingly, did not get a ticket. Insurance totalled the car and took it away. I ended up spending several years driving Ford Taurus SHOs from 96-98 years. My dad and grandpa had an unhealthy, obsessive obsession with buying them, welding the cams, and then selling them for a profit. Fun cars, but they devoured gas compared to my old Focus.

My first car was an '88/'89 Volkswagen Fox. I got a pair of Foxes at a good price and frankencarred them together into one working vehicle with the help of my dad, one of my cousins, and some friends. I took some of the engine, the hood and trunk, and the back seat from one car and put it in the other, then painted the whole thing matte black, long before matte black paint was stylish. It was a fun drive, but a disaster to try to do any work on.

I had it for almost 4 years, then as I was leaving a parking lot, a lady made a super fast turn into the "out" lane where I was trying to leave and hit me head-on. I was barely moving; she was going about 50km/h. Her car was a bit damaged, but mine was totalled.

I got my first car around age 17...maybe 18? I can't recall exactly, but it was after the realization that a car wasn't going to just fall into my lap and I would need to work for a car if I wanted one, so I got my first job at 17.

It was a 1986 Ford Bronco XLT, 351w, auto, Black on brown/beige interior, think I paid about $2600 for it in...2002? I've always been into trucks/offroaders and looked at many different cars, eventually settling on this one. I tried my hand at working on it, which I wasn't very good at, at the time. I attempted to fix the rear window motor and failed, tried to tune the carb and did a poor job, instead just making it run rich and then having a tendency to backfire and shoot flames out the tailpipe when I when full throttle.

Eventually, bumming around the local Mall area with a friend, I managed to zone out enough to ram it into a late model, probably 98-01 Firebird, completely destroying his door and my front end. I did more damage to my Bronco than expected because I had a pushbar which rammed into the front fascia and radiator. Ended-up without a ticket on that one given it was on private property and thankfully didn't hurt the poor kid (probably older than me, at the time) who was also driving his first car at the time.

Completely unexpectedly, my parents paid my neighbor, who had a bodyshop in his garage, to fix it. I don't recall how long it took, but it seemed interminable. I recall going with my Mom many a time to a specifically Bronco junkyard and buying parts, including an all new front fascia, getting the frame straightened, etc. The neighbor who did the work managed to repair all the rust and took off all the pretty ugly chrome on it and repainted it black and by the end, I had a pretty unique and cool looking vehicle. Again, kind of can't believe my parents fronted the bill on this one.

Eventually I started having issues with it. For some reason, I'd go to start it and the Starter motor would just sound like it was spinning. I replaced the Starter and the problem would be fixed for a time and then eventually come back; I probably did this half a dozen times before I finally decided what the issue was (with minimal knowledge and not actually knowing the cause of the issue), took it to a local big box mechanic and had them replace the part I thought was the issue. Well, it went well for a few weeks before the problem suddenly came back while I was leaving campus one day and that was that; I'd decided I'd had enough and I was going to get rid of it.

So I had it towed home and it sat for awhile. I bought a new car, had this one posted one Craigslist for several weeks before some younger guy showed-up and I explained the issue. He ended-up sticking a screwdriver between the Ground and the Positive on the solenoid in the engine bay and forcing it to start; I was pretty amazed by that. That he had the knowledge to do that and all. Anyway, I sold it to him and off it went.

I still think about it to this day, especially now as a person who has significantly more knowledge of working on cars and general competency with them; at this point, I've rebuilt the suspension and steering on multiple vehicles and am approaching the finish line on my first engine rebuild. I've certainly learned a lot in the 20+ years that Bronco has been out of my life and I wonder if the 41-year old me could diagnose and fix that problem I was having. My closest guess at this point are bad grounds and the starter motor receiving insufficient voltage, but at this point, it's just a guess and I haven't actually bothered researching the issue.

Got a hand-me-down from my parents when I started driving at 16: a 1974 Datsun B-210. Was truly blue at one point, but faded to a ... if rust could be blue, that's what it was. It was a 4 speed, had torn up plastic-y upholstery that would tear up your legs if you rubbed it the wrong way, hideous, and I loved it. I also got it to 100 once on the new freeway they built in my hometown, and my friend was like wow, we're going kinda fast. I was like, "wait for it... 100!" and she started screaming and telling me to slow down omg we're gonna die.
Later, some dumbass crashed into my passenger door in a parking lot. My dad went to a pick-a-part and got a replacement, which of course was orange. It became even more hideous, and I loved it even more.
It was my main driver until I saved up and bought a '65 Mustang. I "owned" both cars (my parents always technically owned the Datsun) until I came home one day and it wasn't in the driveway. Then I realized everyone was still at home... asked where it was, and they said they turned it in for the "cash for junkers" program. I was very sad, and I didn't even get to remove my "Not only am I perfect, but I'm Italian too" license plate frame... either it was that one or the "If you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk".

RIP Datsun
1974 - 1999

White 1987 Nissan Sentry became mine (in 1996). My mom's boss's wife was a politician, and she commuted by plane from where we lived to the state capitol. This was her weekend-driving-around car, and they sold it to us for $1500.

It was a great little car. It had a tape deck, so i got a tape adapter and built a suspension out of springs from an old mechanical keyboard for my discman on the dash so I could listen to CDs in it. I learned to change the oil, and once, an alternator.

I had a hidden kill switch under the dash which turned out to be pretty useful when someone asked for my keys to "get something out of my car" when their intention was to go buy cigarettes. I also had a button on the dash that could make the brake lights come on. I used it to mess with tailgaters. But you could only use it for a few seconds before it got too hot to touch because high school me didn't understand current ratings and wire gauge.

I was driving down a two-lane country road, and I came up on a car going very slow. It was clear to pass, so I signalled and moved into the left lane. Right as I passed the other car, it turned left across me with no signal. Fortunately there were some people in their yard to witness and tell the cops that the other driver (an 80 year old woman) did not signal, or it would have been my word against hers.

Insurance totalled it out, and for about six months, I drove my parents' aging Taurus wagon that had no AC and the driver window would not roll down. We called it the Shaggin' Wagon, but I can assure you, dear reader, there was no shaggin' happening in that car.

The first car that was actually mine was a 2008 Chrysler Concorde in gold. Despite being an "old person's car" I was quite fond of it. I drove it throughout high school and into the first year of college when I started hearing a knock in the engine.

I took it to my mechanic. He told me that the engine was going to need a complete rebuild, and that since I shouldn't do that, I should just drive it around locally til it dies and avoid longer trips to get the most out of it.

I told my family I needed to use the minivan to get to classes and that the Concorde was off limits for trips outside of town. The next day I get home and it's gone, so I call my mom and ask if she's got it. "Yep! Just took it up to <hour away city> to go shopping." Great. Exactly what I was told not to do, and what I told everyone else not to do. "Alright, but if it dies you owe me a car."

The engine blew about 500 feet from home. After that, I drove the minivan for a while before convincing my parents to give me the Pontiac Grand Am my sister was driving at the time. The wild thing is, my parents bought the Grand Am and got the Concorde the same day... They entered a raffle at the dealership and won while they were filling out the paperwork. So I eventually ended up with both of those cars.

1996 Honda Civic DX coupe. Had it from about 2004-2011. It was in perfect shape, I think we paid $3,500 for it and I sold it for like $3,000 after 7 years and 50k miles or so. Numbers might not be exact but I remember the depreciation was only a couple hundred dollars after all those years and miles. I took really good care of it so it looked nice, mechanically might not have been great, the first Fast & Furious movie greatly influenced my driving habits as a teenager / early 20s. IIRC it's the same car they used in the opening scene of the movie when they drive under the truck to steal the DVD players, which tremendously influenced my begging my parents to get me that car.

Backstory:
I wanted a specific car. I researched the car. Found a dealership that said they had it. I had a job and the money to finance the car, but no credit history - so I needed a co-signer. We went there, dealership lied about having the car. Sales talked my mom into a more expensive car. She said she would refuse to co-sign for another car at another dealership if I didn’t take this “deal”. Bought a car I didn’t want.

Anyways I hated this car and committed myself to driving it until it absolutely broke. I had a vendetta against this car. I drove it for about ten years until a tree shredder being towed by a truck swerved into my lane in a thunderstorm and ripped half the car off and totaled it. Airbags went off. Ambulance came. I was smiling the whole time.

It’s the most severe accident I’ve ever been in, but still a happy memory.

I have a huge amount of nostalgia for my first car.
It was a 1996 Eagle Talon TSI AWD.

I bought it in 1999 when I was 17. We did many irresponsible and morally indefensible things together in and around Los Angeles until 2003.
Then a good friend bought a brand new WRX. Right away we went to a spot to race. First race, he launched quicker and pulled about half a car length ahead. The cars accelerated almost exactly the same at that point, he held the small lead the whole way. We went back and tried again and I dropped the clutch HARD. I took the lead this time and then we held the same just as before. We laughed and called it even.

Driving home I quickly realized the last launch had taken a toll. I had broken a motor mount, the whole transaxle had swung into the frame and cracked a hole in the transmission housing. If I engine braked even slightly I could hear gears grinding against the frame.

I spent a few weeks taking the bus to work and trying to fix it, replacing the motor mount was easy but I couldnt get the transmission housing patched, I tried all kinds of epoxy and stuff but it kept opening up again or leaking fluid. I really didn't want to replace the whole transmission, it would have been super expensive. Not having a car in LA is tough, I was kind of freaking out. Eventually, I patched it and took it to a dealership to trade it in for an SRT-4. While I was signing paperwork, I was hoping they didn't notice the growing puddle of transmission fluid under the Talon. They didn't, and I think I got around $7k for it.

Hmm. First car. That was a long time ago. 1987 I think.

It was a Mk. 2 Ford Cortina with a long pole with a golf ball on it for a gear lever and a steering wheel a tractor would be proud of.

The front wings had been replaced with fibreglass due to rot, and because they needed painting, someone repainted the whole thing bright red using off the shelf metal paint in cans, using a sprayer. It was an actual okay job (it probably wasn't but my memory is that it was okay).

The best thing was it had automatic windows in the front doors. And by that I mean, if you shut the door just a bit too hard, the window would fall down inside the door and have to be fished out with a bent coat hanger stashed under the seat.

In the rain, the wiper on the driver's side had a propensity for spontaneous detachment. It fell off. So sometimes had to retrieve it from the side of the road, and attempt to wipe the windscreen by holding the wiper arm and poking it out the side window and wiggling it on the windscreen. Not ideal.

The distributor cap was protected from water ingress by the judicious application of a marigold with the finger tips snipped off, and copious quantities of black electrical tape.

Could service the engine myself though, knocking plug gaps off the head with feeler gauges and setting points and changing oils and belts.

Ah, those were definitely not the days. Give me today's reliability any time.

Went with it through a flooded street. It had a few years already. I shouldn't have done that. The car went downhill after that. It became very expensive to maintain. I eventually sold it to a junkyard.

Bought a '95 Nissan Maxima from my friend's parents in 2004 for $4,250. Great car. My mom drove it while I was in college then I sold it to a dude named Tidus years later. The end.

The ancient Ford Escort I bought with money loaned from my grandfather got totaled when a driver decided to pull directly into one of the busiest roads in my town without looking. The insurance company found reasons to tell me it was partially my fault because I was green and worded my explanation about the event poorly and they said I had bad brakes.

It was a beater car. And in retrospect it was probably better that I was forced to walk to work at that time in my life.

Bought a '93? Jeep Cherokee off a family friend for 1000$, completely manual everything and a total tank. Unfortunately I was addled by dumb teenager brain and wanted to show off at one point, so I tried going through a sizeable mud puddle after a heavy rain and managed to roll it on a back country road.

Thankfully wasn't hurt, the car was even in pretty good shape, just a mildly crushed roof. Really considered turning it into a convertible. Managed to get 500$ for it as scrap metal so not a terrible loss, but damn that was a good three years we had together.

Now I'm mostly car free as I live in a fairly walkable/bikeable city. Being able to walk to the grocery store or bike to boulangerie is really fantastic, aside from the whole six months of winter

My first car that I bought for me was the first model year of Hyundai Venue (can't remember if it was 2020 or 2021). It turned out to be the last model year where Hyundai/Kia was still not putting whatever the ignition lock thing is in the steering column. By 2023, no one would insure my adorable green apple cubey compact. I traded it to a dealer that would match CarMax quotes. They were convinced I wouldn't be able to get one. The quote I got was for only $4k less than I paid for the car brand new. So I got the trade in credit, got a 2023 Venue which is a much less fun but acceptable blue color and no one has fought me about insuring it. Yet. I have heated seats now, but they actually took features away in the time between the model years (and the new one is the highest trim; the original was the basic) and it still pisses me off.

The first car I ever received was uh... an interesting story. My brother is a mechanic and was just out of high school. He noticed that there had been a car sitting in our neighborhood under a tree for months - a soft top convertible with the windows down, in the Pacific Northwest (it had been there for 8 months by the time he got it). He found out who owned it, bought it for $800, and cleaned it up. It needed a lot of work - it had been ransacked previously, stereo and wheels(?) stolen, dragged onto a tow truck bed in a way that damaged the brakes and whatever was left under the car. The soft top was green instead of the beige color it started as. Then he said to me, who is older than him and was without a license, dealing with depression and having dropped out of college, "this car is yours. You now owe me $800 and will need a job to pay for insurance." He jumpstarted my life with that crappy car. When my grandma handed down her car to my mom and it was my turn to get one of the family cars, my brother worked out a deal to sell the convertible to our insurance agent, who had always wanted that particular model. It still didn't have a stereo.

My first car, a super crappy 1987 Cutlass Cierra, I drove all through college. It had almost 300k miles on it. After I graduated college I got a job where I traveled 100% of the time, so I gave it to one of my younger cousins as their first starter car. I have no idea what happened to it after that.

It had awesome bench seats, the aftermarket CD player I installed in it rarely would read the CD you put into it, and at a certain point the gas tank sprung a slow leak, so I could never fill it above half a tank or else it'd just drip out. Good memories.

My first car was a used Nissan. It got me through half of highschool and all of college.

Over the years it started developing problems. The main one being something wrong with the transmission. When I would try to shift it would hang. It was an automatic transmission but when I had to shift to Drive it would just be stuck with the "clutch" applied for a few seconds before rattling into place. I tried taking it to a mechanic once but I was told that with the age of the car any transmission work would cost more than the car was worth.

About a year into my first job I was driving down the highway running some errands. I heard a loud noise and a shake and smoke started coming out of the hood and the gas pedal stopped responding. I was going around 70-80 miles per hour so I used the momentum of the car to move to the rightmost lane and into the nearest exit. As soon as I got to a place where I wasnt going to block traffic I stopped at the side of the road and called for a tow truck.

Apparently the engine exploded. No idea what exactly happened, but there was baseball sized hole in the bottom of my car. The mechanic told me that the car was scrapped, which I already figured, so I just donated it to some charity that was collecting recyclable cars and accepted it.

Mine was a 2001 Honda Civic. My aunt bought it brand new when I was six years old, and when I came back home from college at 19, she'd bought a new RAV4 so the Civic became mine. She'd always hoped it would last long enough for me or my brother to drive it.

It was a good car and I enjoyed driving it, but I only kept it about a year. I ended up deciding to move to a city 3 hours away from my hometown and my dad (who's both a mechanic and a bit overprotective) worried about the car breaking down on me while I was so far away - my aunt used to drive a lot for work and the Civic was up to 435k km on the odometer by the time I got rid of it. At that point it would have needed an engine rebuild or swap to make it safe for longer trips (like between home and the city I was moving to) and my dad didn't think it was really worth putting in the work for that considering the age of the car and the cost of doing it. I ended up selling it to someone he knew and bought a slightly newer Kia station wagon off a friend of his who'd just gotten a newer car. The guy I sold the Civic to was going to basically cannibalize it for parts for his Civic initially, but then decided to just drive it into the ground and see if he could get it to 500k before the engine died. It made it to 485k... close enough.

Later I ended up with another Civic, a 2004 Si, for about three years. I'd still be driving it if I'd been able to afford keeping it running, but the previous owner(s) were nowhere near as diligent with undercoating it as they should have been and over time it became a ticking timebomb of rust... on top of other parts failing on it over the years (the fan in front of the engine melted, the battery died, it started leaking coolant and I had to top it up weekly, a belt snapped, and finally the compressor died and I lost my AC). Maybe someday I'll get another one, I really love that generation of Civics.

My dad re-commandeered "my"* 2001 Mitsubishi Montero to give to my older brother. After a few months he trashed it during a heroin binge and it was impounded. I don't really remember being that mad I just thought the whole thing was really stupid.

* I might've contributed $500 to its purchase but I don't think I paid for the whole thing.

My first car was an Oldsmobile Delta 88 that I got for $500 and fixed with my dad. My job in high school was delivering pizzas and I lived in a rural area, so I'd put on my metal albums and cruise the highway most nights in that thing. It ended up having some overheating issues that the local mechanic couldn't figure out (and I wasn't yet much of a car person) so I actually gave it away to someone in need and bought myself a different car. Besides this Delta 88 and the second car I got, every single car I've had since then was a 4 cylinder even though I'm definitely a car person now and have driven everything up to a 10 cylinder. I have been thirsty to finally get a V8 in my life or a flat 6 (porsche go brrrrrrr), I just have a thing for 90's Japanese cars, so most everything I've bought has been a 4 cylinder.

My first car was the family minivan: A 92 Mazda MPV. It wasn't my car, it was my parents, but it was the first they let me drive around as needed/desired. While not the coolest vehicle, I definitely had some fun with it with friends. Growing up in Kansas City, the closest White Castle at the time was in St. Louis. So we'd sometimes pile in on the weekends for a cross-state venture for White Castle! It was also great when I started dating because of *ahem*...seats that could fold down into a bed...For reasons.

EDIT: What happened to it? In the late 00s, it finally bit the dust. My parents were using it on a road trip. I can't remember if they were coming back home or on their way to their destination in like late winter, but they were somewhere in Eastern Colorado or Western Kansas when it broke down. IIRC, there was some kind of bolt that held the timing belt pulley that snapped. I think my dad said it was a known issue due to Mazda using a weak material for the bolt. Obviously with the timing belt snapping, that screwed up the pistons and valves and such. And for such a old car, there was no point in trying to get it towed home and repaired. So they sold it to a scrap shop wherever they were. I had to drive out and pick them up (3-4hrs away from Kansas City, I think). My parents and I were a little emotional when we left the car there because that was the family vehicle for so long. My younger brother and I literally grew up in the MPV over summer roadtrips, winter snowboarding trips, spring break trips, etc. Then ofc, it was my first vehicle. So yeah.

Now that said, the first car that I bought entirely on my own, not something my parents bought for me or let me drive, I still have. At 34yo, I finally bought my first car: A brand new 2021 Honda Civic. To replace my 2004 Honda Civic that my parents bought for me in 2011. Still in great shape. For a 4+ yrs old car, barely has any miles. Like maybe 22k? That's due to being full remote in the past, and then hybrid. Even now with full RTO, I only live like 10mi away from work. At some point I'd like to buy an electric car, but for now, I'll just keep this sucker. My plan was/is to keep it for at least 10yrs. Really don't want another car payment anytime soon, considering I just paid it off like 6mo ago.

It was not really my first car but the first one my parents let me drive. We lived on a pretty good hill in a suburban neighborhood. I was driving home and started smelling gasoline. Since I was only a half mile from home I thought I'd be able to make it, and my folks would be able to figure out the problem. No. A few blocks later flames started leaping out from under the hood. I turned the corner, put it in park, and jumped out. I forgot to turn off the engine in my panic and the poor car kept burning. It happened I parked in front of an old folks care home and I'm sure I raised blood pressures like they hadn't in years. They were the sweetest people, asking me if I had insurance and telling me it would be all right. The fire department came and put it out. My parents were very cool about it, fortunately.

20 year old minivan. I was on a road trip in another state and the axle snapped in half.

I had a Saturn SL1 like everyone else did that was in university with me at the same time.

I had moved back home from university, needed a car and had a bunch of money saved for me to get me to stop drinking pop. The car lasted through university and until I met my future wife whose sister was dating a car salesman.

I don't recall exactly what happened. I think something seized with the clutch. Not a car guy. I'm not sure. All I know is that I couldn't go faster than about 20 KPH and slowly limped to the closest car shop for them to confirm I would need an expensive fix so I just got a new car instead at that point.

i had an 84 Olds Omega. I was speeding up the highway and the engine was just bagged. I loved that car.

The first car I ever bought, a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee (fire-engine red), exploded into flames within the first three days of having it. I had lent it to my parents to use for the day, they parked it , went inside somewhere, came out and the entire frontend was engulfed.

Bought it used, "dealership" admitted they knew it was a dangerous car, I should have had a lawsuit against them, but I was a broke 19 year old, and no lawyer wanted to touch it since I lived in a lemon law state, and no one was hurt (thankfully).

Next car was a 1987 VW Carbiolet, loved it, clutch went out on the drive home, lovely old couple I bought it from took it back, got it fixed, gave it back to me.

Drove it for awhile, then the transmission got stuck in fourth gear - still sitting in my driveway after four years, keep meaning to work on it, will get to it soon (I promise!), I believe its the linkages.

A 2017 Volkswagen Passat. I sold about $10,000 in Tesla stock, so I would have a car to make it to my internship, which turned into a full time job offer that only paid $50,000 with a masters degree and a CPA license. Learned a good lesson about making money! Anyway, I strongly dislike driving and sold the car to my dad, so it's still around. Now I don't have a car and use the savings to buy index funds.

My step dad got me a used 2002 Pontiac Sunfire when I was 16. Teenage me would be appalled to know I drove it until I was almost 40. I donated it this year. The car has no cabin filter and unfortunately started making me sick, but otherwise, the car was fine. It was never in any accidents - almost all the dings and dents were from people hitting my parked car. My partner just got a new (used) car to replace his Toyota from college. It's quite the experience to go from a rattling tin can with manual windows/locks to a solid vehicle with auto-everything and a back up cam!

I suspect my first chariot has long since been recycled into coke cans or something by now. It was starting to fall apart and I traded it in against the next one back in like 2005.

The car I learned to drive in needed a new transmission around 200k miles, and my parent decided to junk it. (I was bummed out because it was manual and I would've loved that. They bought a 2008 Civic which, brand new, was more of a piece of junk than the car they got rid of — particularly issues with motor mounts.)

The first car I owned, I wrecked but repaired and around 175k miles I decided to sell it because I kept having issues and was ready for something more fun. I saw it around town for at least 5 years after that.

Kept a sport sedan for a few years and it was fun—except for repairs, which led me to sell it in favor of a very boring, reliable, inexpensive-to-maintain CR-V. That's going strong at 192k miles and I want to get it over 300k.

Technically it was my mom's car, but we were sharing it. A tiny old Honda Civic manual transmission hatchback, circa 1978, maybe? I named it Smedley. It was an awesome car, and we both loved it. I took it overnight to a Halloween party at a friend of a friends. I was dressed as a Gypsy and doing Tarot card readings-- this was just for fun and ambience. I had zero belief in them but my sister was big on it so I had picked up the gist of the cards and borrowed her deck. There were lots of people I did not know at all at the party, and everyone wanted readings, so that was fun and kept me busy. One guy got just a horrible set of cards--like major doom. I told him not to worry about it, it's just a party thing, and pretty much forgot about it myself.

The next morning I woke up to find my car 20 feet from where I parked it, and the hatchback basically in the front seat. Hit and run. Called the cops, called my mom. Shmedley had been murdered. There was nothing anyone could do, no witnesses.

Months later, I learned from the party host that that guy who had received that terrible tarot reading was the one who murdered my car and then took off like a coward. Since then, he had lost his job and his girlfriend and his dog died, and he decided I was actually a witch who was exacting retribution on him. (Instead of, dunno, an alcohol problem leading to those outcomes...) Ridiculous but I did find a little comfort that some kind of cosmic justice had been served.

Somewhat anti-climactic to be honest. It was a 2003 Camery at 250k miles. I gave it back to my dad, who lent it to me.

He sold it for $700, come and get it. The buyer apparently got a hold of my dad, pissed off, a week later saying the transmission shit the bed. My dad had recipts if it ever turned into anything.