PastTense said:
So far I don't really think the posts here adequately answer the OP's question:
1. If your vehicle is broken down how do you get parts to repair it? Walk 20 miles to a parts place, then wait a couple days until they get the part in?
It depends on what breaks and how far away from civilization you are. If you're urban camping in a car the latter is a non-issue. You buy what AutoZone etc. has in stock, you don't wait on parts unless forced.
2. Even if you know what the problem is, how to fix it and get the parts do you have the equipment and facilities to do so? For example I might need a floor jack,
I carry a soft sided tool bag with all my essential tools in the spare wheel well of my car, along with jack stands. I don't carry a spare tire, I'm taking that risk. I use the car's jack, tipping 1 wheel at at time then putting it on a stand. My mailing list gurus for my model of car said this wouldn't be a big deal, YMMV for your own car model.
a vice, an electric drill, a grinder.... for a repair. I have some of this type stuff at home, but don't see me taking much along.
Why are you assuming the worst? I've never needed that for any repair I've done on my car in 6 years. It's an '84 Chevy Citation II V6 carbureted and a daily driver. One time I got stuck on a mountain in a National Forest, couldn't get the transmission to shift. Didn't know what was going on, but I had a factory service manual so I would have eventually figured it out. Someone with more knowledge than myself happened along. Turned out the stupid connector that holds the transmission shift cable is made of plastic and had broken. Why'd they design like that? No matter, duct tape got me off the mountain. In civilization I replaced it with a stack of washers and a bolt. It's clunky and changed the shifting ever so slightly, but it will never break.
And even if you have everything it is quite difficult for some of us doing this outside in the cold and the rain in the dark alongside the road...
Have you ever seen Das Boot? That guy worked freezing underwater to fix the submarine engine because he had to, to survive. Keep that in mind before complaining, although definitely keep safety and doability in mind.
The most heroic repair I've done was in the city of Winston-Salem when my starter motor was going bad. My Mom was out of town and I had just enough juice to start the car if I let it sit overnight. One trip per day and then she's done. I wanted to get the job done before she returned home next week, so I took the gamble of driving my car to a vacant lot next to a pull-a-part yard. I figured I'd acquire a new starter motor, install it on site, then drive home happy. Good plan except I forgot to bring warm enough clothing with me! The temperature dropped as the afternoon waned and I seriously began to suffer. I would work on the damn car until I couldn't stand it anymore, go sit in the car out of the wind and elements, and wait while my hands warmed up again. I did prevail and I got home that day.
Just remember if that German guy can do it freezing underwater to keep from dying, you can do it under lesser conditions. Caveat: part of why I prevailed in that situation, is I had already taken the starter motor out once to deal with it, so I knew what was going to be involved. I wasn't guessing, I was just struggling to do something I knew how to do as it got colder and colder.
The most dangerous thing I did was drive from Wilmington to Winston-Salem, a 4 hour drive, with a ruptured brake line. I had partial brakes in Wilmington so I didn't think it would be that big a deal, and I knew the interstate wasn't going to require my brakes, long as no accidents happened. By the time I got to W-S though my brakes were nearly gone, and the last few miles to my Mom's house was in a hilly neighborhood. I committed more moving violations in 20 minutes than I have in the rest of my life. I nearly ran a red light in front of a cop, because I hadn't figured out any clever way to slow down by changing gears with my automatic shift, but I played it off at the last minute as a slow rolling right turn on red. This sent me careening into a neighborhood I didn't know very well, looking for the exit back to where I was supposed to be going.
That exit turned out to be a small downward hill that I couldn't stop for. Two cars were oncoming and I got really scared. I threw my car into Park not knowing what else to do, thinking destroying my own car was the better option at this point than getting in a wreck. But it didn't happen, they deftly avoided me without even honking. I guess I was moving pretty slowly and maybe weirdly. I got home and later made my repairs. I don't recommend this sort of thing at all. Mom said I was white as a sheet when I came in the door. Definitely in the top 5 dangerous things I've done in my life.
I could have repaired that brake line in field. But it would have been a huge PITA, a big time consuming learning curve, and would certainly have risked unwanted attention from the cops. Getting towed / impounded seemed like a real possibility. Even in my Mom's driveway it took me a week to learn how to do a brake pad replacement and brake bleed, with help from my car mailing list gurus. On the other hand if it happens
again, not that it will now with my car, I know what to do, so not so scary.
A basic principle is if you have any mobility at all, get to a place where you can safely take a long time to make a repair. That was the other (first) half of my starter motor story. I knew I was having some ignition trouble, arrived in Raleigh, started to do my urban camping thing, and then my car just wouldn't start anymore. I camped 3 days with my car totally immobile, as I was close enough to the public library to seek information and had enough food. Eventually I theorized maybe it was battery trouble, the cold weather was making my battery weak. If I waited for a warm day, I might be able to start the car. If I did get started, I was going to drive non-stop to my Mom's, no breaks for any reason. I waited for the 1st warm afternoon. Sure enough, it started, and I got to my Mom's.
Then I was in denial when I drove it to Autozone to get the battery checked. The battery checked fine, that wasn't the problem, but then my car wouldn't start again. I walked home 2 miles. Walked back to Autozone the next morning, drove my car back to my Mom's.
