oh god, I could probably write a book about car-related failures. one of the shorter ones -
bought a rally car and a trailer in a city about 600 miles away from my home. drove up with a towcar Saturday morning, collected car Sunday morning, all looked good, hooked up, started driving home Sunday midday.
about 150 miles out out i notice smoke pouring out of one of the trailer wheels, pull over, wheel bearing has entirely failed. ring around, find out because it's late on a weekend the earliest I can get it repaired is the next morning. find a hotel, limp the trailer there, stay the night, rock up at the mechanics, unload the rally car, pull the trailer in.
they confirmed it was the wheel bearing and could repair, but no parts, and had to ship parts from their parts supplier in city I just came from, so I'd need to wait another day. so I located a new hub bearing kit myself at another town 80 miles away, drove there, collected it, gave it to them, had trailer repaired. rally car back on trailer, start heading back towards home. it's now around 7PM Monday.
I got about 200 miles away from home - maybe 3AM Tuesday morning - when I looked in my side mirror for some reason and saw a tyre bouncing along the road next to the trailer. "that's funny", I thought. pulled over. MY TRAILER IS MISSING A WHEEL (opposite side to what was repaired):
i walk back along the highway and can't find the wheel; I see a ramp up off the highway. "it'd be sort of funny if it rolled up there". I walk up the offramp, and yes, it's right at the top:
the axle was only about 1 inch above the ground with the car's load on it. tired, over it all, the best option was to slowly drive the trailer to the nearest gas station, with the occasional scraping sound, and locate another car trailer. made a deal with the attendant to rent one and leave mine there locked up. unload rally car, load on rally car to new trailer, drive it home. got home around 8AM Tuesday.
unloaded rally car at home, took rental car trailer back, swapped with my broken trailer, drive home very slowly (400 mile round trip).
i don't think i ever want to see another trailer in my life ever again after that.
