One Day, Four Broken Vehicles - A Tale of Automotive Misfortune

The Motorcycle

On Sunday morning, I was determined to take one last ride on my 2023 Zero DSR/X press loaner before it was picked up by the company. However, the motorcycle was dead with no sign of life. It had been sitting for over a month as the only public charger in my town had gone down. I found another charger but sitting for so long had drained the high voltage battery and the 12V battery as well.

I thought I could charge it enough at home to make it to the public charger, but even after plugging in the home charger and getting the green light, the motorcycle didn't react. I tried brute forcing it by charging the 12V battery externally and hooking it up again. The bike finally had life, but when I plugged in the charger, nothing happened. The motorcycle showed no errors, but it didn't recognize that the charger was plugged in. I checked fuses and connectors, but nothing worked. It seems like Zero owners with similar symptoms often have a bad onboard charger, but I have no idea what happened to my bike.

The BMW

With the Zero out of commission, I thought I'd go for a luxurious ride in my BMW E61 wagon. I started the car as I always do after it has been sitting for a few months. It warmed up and seemed fine, but as soon as I set off, I saw a cloud of smoke behind me. The car lost all of its coolant and became engulfed in steam. I tried to find the source of the leak but couldn't. In the end, I discovered that the Y-pipe itself was brittle and had broken off where the hose clamp was.

Now, I need a whole new Y-pipe to fix the issue. BMW people, is this an easy fix? It looks like I just need to replace the Y-pipe and hook everything back up. But for now, the BMW is immobilized.

The Smart

As my last resort, I fired up my 2008 Smart Fortwo Passion Coupe. After sitting for about two years, it fired right up with a fresh battery. I've been doing some little things to clean it up, but then yesterday, something unexpected happened. The car went from being quiet to being ear-splittingly loud.

I knew immediately that the muffler flex pipe had failed, which is a common issue on Smarts. This morning, I found that the flex pipe mesh looked fine structurally, but it had failed where it met the flange. Thankfully, the car can still drive, but my fuel economy has plummeted and my hearing is at risk.

The Micro Engine

My mom gave me some money for my birthday, and I used some of it to buy a Toyan scale working engine that looked like a BMW R90S boxer engine. It's a beautiful engine made of brass and stainless steel with an impressive exhaust note. But I made a big mistake when following the instructions.

The guide said that cold starts sometimes require covering the intake with your finger. I did as instructed and ended up with fuel and oil all over the place. The engine is now oil fouled and flooded. But this morning, I fixed it by tightening things up as the builder in Hong Kong didn't do a great job. Now, I just need to get the carb tuning right.

Last night, I thought it was the end of the world with four failed vehicles. But from here, I need to figure out how to fix everything. First up is the BMW, then the Smart, and the Zero is going back to its home. I hope this is the last day of catastrophes, and I'll be back on the road in no time.