I got my new car yesterday, which happens to be a Mercedes - The same company I was a General Manager with in the UK for 7 years, there is not much I dont know about these.

I am driving along, turn right and the car slows down to 35kph not the best thing in Doha traffic. I limp into work and immediately call the recovery.

I just got the phone call from the Workshop asking if I had possibly used the speed limiter instead of the Indicator as it was set at 35.....................

The penny well and truly dropped (it is where an indicator should be, The indicator is set much lower than normal). so I insisted I had been on a straight road and not turning right and it must be an intermittent fault.............

What a dick.............

Someone else must have done something worse to make me feel better??

Yeah I was just flying my new Lear jet this morning and realise I had stocked the bar with dom perignon instead of moet.

As you can imagine there was much embarrassment when I realised this faux pas.

Difficult one to surpass that, especially as you're an expert of Mercs. I suppose what would be even stupidier is telling everyone about it...

It was in the feint hope someone had surpassed it, and would admit it.

about 10 years back i picked up a mid 1980s Mazda 323 for 200 quid from one of these dodgy used car salesmen who had temporarily set up where the Vauxhall dealership used to be.

'Sold as seen' so bit of a risk.

Drove about half a mile along the A23 and it broke down. Thinking how I'd explain this one but


It had just run out of petrol. Luckily the Shell garage was only 100m away so I got a jerry can and the car was great for the next year. Sold it for 225 so it actually appreciated in 12 months. Did service it though. Cheap motoring.

Only pulling your leg...I'm sure they'll be many takers.

Ear splitting alarm been sounding from the region of the car. Very loud under the carport and reverberating around. I assume it's the car anti theft alarm but can't do anything to shut it off. It's Friday so dealer not open and I'm thinking that the neighbours will be forming a lynch mob but nothing I can do. Did a couple of night shifts, got back 0500 and the noise goes off at 0600, then 0710. Great. Spoke to dealer who offered various suggestions, including disconnecting the battery. No success, this noise still going off roughly every hour for 30 secs.
Took the car into the dealer, put it on the diagnostic and nothing. Leave it with us they said and we'll check once it goes off. Taxi home, trying to snuggle down for desperately needed nap when POW! Off goes the alarm again, WTF? Turns out that the drainage pump box on the wall in the carport has a siren in it, co ax wire had worked loose which must have been setting it off. Back in a taxi to ask the dealer could I please have my perfectly serviceable car back. DOH! But it never crossed my mind that a box on the wall would contain such a LOUD siren.

My VW has a "miles remaining" indicator as well as the normal petrol gauge. I believed that every car still has some gas left in the tank when you hit zero (I once drove for over 70 miles in a Toyota after the needle had dropped off the bottom of the gauge). Had just passed a petrol station (in Abu Dhabi) as the "miles remaining" went from 5 to zero, thinking I'll drive to the next one coz its quieter. Nope. Zero means zero, in typical German literalness. So had to walk back to the petrol station I'd just passed and embarrassingly admit that I'd run out of petrol in Abu Dhabi...

Back in about '96 and first automatic car with the shift stick on the steering column - a Honda Odyssey I think.

I'd been at the boat club in Lagos all day and come time to go home, the friggin' car wouldn't start, not even turn over....

Some 15 minutes of cursing later, this Danish guy comes over with a big smile across his chops and says in this sing-songy voice "You must put the stick in the park position first"

Did exactly the same thing on my own Merc a few years ago....... of course, I immediately went home and informed Deanetta about the 'speed limiter' jobby, wanting to avoid causing her any embarrassment the next time SHE used the car.........

Either that, or I forgot........... I can't remember which...........

recent trip to blighty picked up my hire car, nippy little thing, few days later the petrol gage is on red so stop at a garage for petrol. Opened the little door where the petrol thing is and then couldnt open the fuel cap- I had to ask 6 people before anyone could work it out- ( so glad i wasnt the only one) but did feel like a proper blond!

also recently in a friends car couldnt work out how to open the boot-( again another hire car) had to ask some men smoking nearby who pulled the switch that was quite obvious by the steering wheel area- we were just looking around the boot- felt quite dumb then too!

and when on a working trip to dublin I was returning to my car, an hour later I am panic stricken as I search the car park looking for my car- checked several floors, had the car park guy help me search for it, was very close to calling the garda and bursting into tears, started to proper freak out and then noticed another car park that looked quite similar to the one I was searching for my car in... as it dawns on me Im in the wrong car park

Errrr..why was it a faux pas?? Dom Perignon is a better champagne than ordinary Moet et Chandon but they are produced by the same company

The other week, whilst in the UK, popped out to the shops, ran back to the hire car in the pouring rain, unlocked the car, jumped in, closed the door and thought...sh*t, wrong side.

If you were visiting Swords Pavilion shopping centre near Dublin Airport, I can understand your predicament. A series of carparks surrounding a place the size of the Mall of Emirates... Our silly moment on holiday in Ireland was not car related. Having collected two of our three pieces of luggage off the carousel at Terminal 3 (Dubai), we stood for 20 minutes without realising that a chocolate brown looking suitcase resting upside down on its own and having been around over a dozen times was actually ours, the cream coloured front we recognised having been hidden from view. Luckily our 8yo daughter was alert as otherwise we could have been there alot longer.

That's a hard one to recover from. You'd be best to crash it and kill everyone on board that let word of that escape.

That's even worse than wearing white socks and brown sandals...only just though.

N.