What happened???

You should have stopped when the engine management warning light came on?

/john

No shit.....

To be honest, it is designed to get you home/or a safe place. I was trying to do this by getting off the motorway..

Could the middle box house the cat? heard this sort of thing before where the cat breaks down and blocks the exhaust.. the only way for the gasses is out of the box (being weaker than the pipe).

the fluff is sound deading material. It blocked the airway. pressure and the unburnt fuel caused it to blow.

NO it's designed to tell you to stop. Along with all the other clues, that's what the hard shoulders for.

Safe place = Hard Shoulder

Safe place traffic lane with exhaust packing material and other assorted bits of crap flying into whoever was unfortunate enough to be behind you at the time it failed.

(Where's Conor when you need him?)

/john

Well had a look in the manual, the warning light was in fact the Exhaust Emission light.

And, it says when solid lit, consult a garage but ok to drive. When flashing it could cause damage to the Cat, and to slow down until the flashing stops..

"If flashing, slow down until the flashing stops and the control indicator is steady you can continue to drive without causing damage."

The first thought that springs to mind is that when a warning light starts to flash at you the correct course of action is not to try to screw f*ck out of the car.

This, of course, only applies to those of us born with Clue. It doesn't apply to the Clueless.

/john

Wanted to get home...

The manual indicates it is ok to drive with the light on.

Destroying the car doesn't usually go too far to acheive that aim.

Does the manual indicate that its ok to drive after you see smoke coming from the rear of the car?

To be honest, it is a company car, so "Don't give a shit" comes to mind. But I did get off the motorway, and home. It was going to go anyway, the fact that I carried on was for my safety. I do understand the point re safety to the people behind.

I know hard shoulders are very dangerous so I would never stay on one unless I had no drive. I have in the past drove nearly 2 miles on one with a flat tyre at slow speeds to get to a safer place to change a tyre. I bet you are the type to stop on the hard shoulder if you fart and want to open all the doors..

Anyways, be safe..

You park on the hard shoulder & get out. That's almost infinitely less dangerous than trying to make it from another lane to anywhere safe.

I know all about the dangers of hard shoulders thank you, as I spend much of my working day on them, and if there's one thing that annoys me it is when I have to work on the hard shoulder because some prat has stopped there when it would have been perfectly safe to proceed to the next junction or service area, such as with a flat tyre like you say. There is a world of difference however between trying to nurse a poorly car to the next place of safety, and screwing the f*ck out of a car which is obviously about to fail in a big way.

PhilÅ ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Ah...

Good job it didn't lob oil everywhere when it DID let go, eh?

A damn sight less safe than stopping on the hard shoulder.

Not with you about.

You are so wrong about this and others in the group will agree I am sure.

Trundling along at about 5 MPH on the hard shoulder to get off at the next junction to a safe place is safer then stopping on the hard shoulder if it a simple thing like a flat tyre. Many people die each year from stopping on the hard shoulder it is probably the most dangerous place you could be on any road.

They die by staying in their cars, trundling along at 5 miles an hour is less safe than being on the side of the road.

What does the tyre automatically re-inflate??? What are you talking about??? Many a AA or RAC man has died changing a wheel because some dumm arse motorists think they have to immediately stop when they may have a problem..

So why this post?

If you knew the correct course of action then I'm sure you would have

*slowed down* and followed the handbook's advice. Instead you caned it along thus causing a lot more harm than good.

If you were in a fleet I manage I'd have your butt in front of a disciplinary board for misconduct.