Mr. Peabody

None, I drive the car every day. Keeps her healthy

VtVette

Fuel pump once (tow)

Rod bearing once (tow)

Ignition Control Module (let it cool, managed to get home after a while)

bad chassis ground (walk home/gather tools and supplies/fix car drive home)

Leaking fuel line (tow)

this was several C4s over the course of a decade. I know I'm forgetting a few times...

86PACER

Still running the same Autozone pump? Good thing it did not happen on the narrow two lane canyon roads with blinds turns, rock on one side, and cliff on the other.

CentralCoaster

Yeah, losing power steering in those situations isn't fun.

Still on that pump. I think I pulled it afterwards to solder the connections though.

I also carry a spare pump and serp belt now, and a T-15 torx. I need to add a few more things to the emergency kit. Maybe I can find what I need if I click on one of these google advertisements.

mikeb

Just this morning.

TP.

Out. Gone. Nada. Darn kids.


Stranded on the toilet bowl.


Good thing I got a laptop and wireless Internet.

Muffin

I had my MEM-CAL go south. Was about a mile from home. Towed. That was a strange one. The chip, that I burned myself, would read perfect but wouldn't work in the ECM. I burned a new chip from the read from the bad chip that worked just fine. I then erased the bad chip,reloaded the data and it worked fine. Never did figure out why.

Matatk

No, I think he meant AA....because if my vette kept breaking down like some guys I'd be drinking pretty heavily.

Matthew

The Beep

flyinlow90

skybolt31

Vats

87 Ragtop

1st time when I thought the engine went. Car just died. Tried to turn it over. Cranked but nothing, Cranked but nothing, then Click Click. With full battery. Thought the engine was done. Dealership said the engine seized.. wanted $3800 for 70K used motor. I decided for that $$$ I was getting a new motor with much more power... Well got it to the shop I was going to have put the new motor in, the found that the starter casing went up into the Flywheel.. so it was about a $500 fix. I think I was somewhat disappointed it wasn't the engine since I had already mentally prepared myself for a new motor...

2nd time... Found out I had a bad fuel sending unit... the hard way. I thought the engine went on me in Florida. Tank showed 1/4, only 350 miles on trip meter. I had been getting 26+ MPG on long trips so I Just KNEW I had enough gas... well got towed.. dropped the car off at some dealer in Daytona. As we were taking it off the flatbed, I decided to try it one more time. Started right up, but sputtering. Gas station near by. Filled up. Worked... Lesson Learned.. Don't trust the gas guage.... Although I did recently find a new sending unit for $300 and it seems to be working great now!!

3rd time.. Radiator puked all over a parking lot. Towed home Replaced radiator, all good...

CentralCoaster

Had to repost this with a few thanks...

150 miles from home, fuel pump died on freeway. Coasted to offramp, had another vetter with me, picked up replacement part asap, got car flatbedded to nearest dealership, waiting till they were gone, and fixed it under the lights.

Big thanks to 86Pacer for his time, turned a potential cluster**** into a minor deal.


400 miles away from home, clutch throwout bearing snapped off, no clutch = no go. Got it flatbedded 50 miles to friends house, bought trans jack and jackstands, pulled trans, spent 4 days waiting around and chasing parts (and threatening to kill Napa clerk) in middle of worst ever heat wave, replaced clutch, drove home with metal slivers in my eyeball.

Will never be able to repay Timspeed for this one, battling the transmission and misboxed parts with me in the wee hours of the morning at 90-110F for several days. Any normal person would have told me to **** off after day 2.


100 miles away from home on work trip, clutch master leaking, I stopped at a brake shop to refill and bleed the system enough to buy me some time. Short story, these guys were clueless. I drove it in but had to tow it out. Towed it to a friends place and he did 90% of the work while I kept my white collar butt clean.

Big thanks to Bogus on this one for helping out and getting greasy on a moment's notice.



Forum members have saved my bacon several times, and that's why I always make time to return the favor.

bj1k

Ask me what did work right on my 87 and I will have a lot less to talk about. Would never own anything built after the C3's. ( 84 on ) Sorry but I've been there.

92LRC

VATS.

Hasn't left me completely stranded but has made me wait a while before I could get going.

ogres84

A/C compressor seized and ate the serpentine belt 90 miles from home

ZRWON

We've owned ten C4s since 1984. Our only costs have been for normal replacement of parts and routine maintenance. Miles driven ranged from a low of ~24K to over 100K on a couple of them. Guess we averaged about 80K per C4. NEVER has any of these VETTES EVER left us STRANDED. Now, if you want to include two of the Cadillacs we've owned, one English ROVER, a '68 Ford TBird, and maybe a couple other cars I have forgotten, I can vent my spleen on those experiences with total distaste. We've also owned Subarus, a Toyota, a couple Nissans,
MG-TF, a Mercury Montego, and IMHO they were NO BETTER than the VETTES!

Hotred94

In my 87, the VATS would regularly leave me stranded for up to half an hour at a time. I finally wired in a resister and never had another problem after that.

90Z51Vette

Been stuck three times:

Fuel pump

Ignition module

Ignition switch

ChiliPepperGarage

Had just replaced plugs, wires, distributor, water pump, radiator, belts, hoses, etc. Took a trip to Lake Tahoe cutting across from NV to CA 395 takes you through the middle of nowhere. Temp gauge starts to climb so I stop and check under the hood. I see steam coming out from water pump area so I'm thinking defective pump (AC Delco) or I screwed up gasket or something. No cell reception and no one around for miles. After sitting a while I get lucky and a truck comes by and picks me up. 30 miles to the nearest town, call AAA and get picked up. Local service station guy looks at it and we find heater hose in hole leak. I forgot to change out the heater hoses when I did the other stuff! 3 feet of hose and a gallon of coolant later and I'm on the road. He only wanted to charge me about $40 so I stuffed a hundred in his shirt pocket. This is where I was:

tobijohn

I've had 3 C4s (88, 96 LT1, 96 LT4) and between them, I've put on about 75k miles and over those miles have had probably about $4k in repairs and routine maintenance. The only time I was left stranded wasn't even the car's fault - someone ran a red light and t-boned the 96 LT1. Of course, I just wore out my luck by responding to this thread...