History Main / MyCarHatesMe

* The UrExample is in the WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu short Fighting Tools. Witch has Snafu get out smarted and out gunned by a German Nazi all because he was carless with his weapons and he ends up having trouble starting his jeep before getting blown up.
** German Nazi: What a dum cock, what a clown, just the type of boob to let his battery run down.

* In ''Film/CannibalGirls'', Cliff and Gloria become stuck in Farnhamville when their car breaks down.

* ''Machinima/TheGModIdiotBox'': Parodied in the beginning of [[https://youtu.be/tMjTzc_QMwc Episode 7]], where [[TakeThatAudience a viewer of DasBoSchitt's videos]] is pursued by [[StrawFan #1]] for [[FelonyMisdemeanor not reading the video description]]. He makes a mad dash towards his car and tries to escape in it, but the engine naturally won't start. The trope is then taken to ridiculous levels when the frightened man tries to unlock the front door to his house and operate the home telephone within by attempting to ''crank them up'' as with any other car, only to fail each time complete with ''engine sounds''.

* In ''Film/{{Reincarnation}}'' this happens to the truck driver's own truck right before he meets his fate.

* ''Film/OneNightInOctober'': At night, Marcos, Kate, Britnee, and Charlie are trying to fix their car. After tinkering in the engine, Marcos has the girls start the car. All it does is struggle.
-->'''Britnee:''' Well, Marcos, your car has managed to fuck all of us.
* In ''Film/WildTales'', Diego's Audi gets a flat tyre at the worst possible time and place. And while the wheel falling off is entirely Diego's fault, it sill happens at the worst possible moment. And when the airbag deploys, it fails to deflate, leaving him pinned inside the car.
* ''Film/TrickOrTreats'': When [[TheProtagonist Linda]] gets into a jeep to try and escape from Malcolm, she tries to start it up to drive away. No matter how many times she turns the key, the car will not start. Malcolm manages to break into the jeep, thus forcing her out.
* In ''Film/{{Duel}}'', David Mann's Plymouth Valiant has the radiator hose decide to break on him going up a hill, allowing his pursuer to catch up to him after boastfully bragging that the trucker "Can't beat me on the grade!"
* ''Film/TheWidow2020'': While the rescuers are trying to get the van started at one point, it utterly refuses to for a good while.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'': Happens to the health inspector when the rats come after him. By the time the car does start, the rats have swarmed all over it.

* At the end of ''Film/TheStoningOfSorayaM'', when the journalist tries to flee the village, his car breaks down in the middle of the road. He manages to restart it JustInTime before the mob arrives.
* Jack's van in ''Film/JackBrooksMonsterSlayer'' stalls out every time, including when the creatures are coming after him.
* Ace Ventura's alleged car in ''Film/AceVenturaPetDetective'' in the beginning fail to start which lets the angry dirtbag man he took the missing dog from catch up to smash in his windshield and batter his car.
* ''Film/DarkNightOfTheScarecrow'': When Philby is being stalked around the silos by the killer, he jumps in his car to try to get away, only for the car to refuse to start.

* ''Film/LemonTreePassage'': When Jordan stops his car to search for Oscar, he then finds it will not start again. The next morning, [[DontGoIntoTheWoods after their terrifying night in the bush]], it starts fine.
* ''Film/TheWildGeese''. After being abandoned by their employer in enemy territory, the mercenaries help themselves to some local army trucks to drive to safety. Unfortunately one of them breaks down in the middle of a bridge just as a ground-attack aircraft armed with napalm spots them. Things quickly go FromBadToWorse.
* ''Film/{{Sleepwalkers}}'': Tanya can't get the car to start when trying to escape from the monsters. It's implied she's so focused on the car she doesn't even see TheCavalry save the day.
* One of the few generally funny moments in ''Film/HighSchoolMusical 2'' is a HilariousOuttake where Sharpay's golf cart breaks down as she and Troy are about to drive off for the next hole. Troy gets out and has to push, setting off the cart's alarm. The clip ends with Troy telling Sharpay to "put it (in) forward", which she complies.
* In ''Film/TheCarRoadToRevenge'', one of the gang is driving away from the car when his own car stalls on a bridge: leaving him easy prey for the Lazarus.
* ''Film/RipperLetterFromHell'': The jeep carrying Jason, Eddie and Chantel breaks down halfway up the mountain to fix the satellite; at night, during a storm, with a JackTheRipoff on the loose. Possibly the result of VehicularSabotage.
* In ''Film/{{Husk}}'', Chris steals the only working vehicle on the farm and attempts to escape. However, when he crashes into one of the scarecrow poles, the truck stalls and refuses to start again.
* In ''Film/ISawWhatYouDid'', Libby jumps in her mother's car and tries to escape Steve, but the car refuses to start.
* In ''Film/{{Blackenstein}}'', the [[NoNameGiven girl in the dune buggy]] spends several minutes trying to start said dune buggy, which stubbornly refuses to start: unaware that the monster is approaching her from behind.
* In ''Film/{{Killdozer}}'', Dutch's jeep stalls directly in the path of the oncoming bulldozer.
* ''Film/VarsityBlood'': When Robin attempts to start Bubba's truck, it won't start. She abandons the truck as the killer approaches, only for them to climb in and start it immediately.
* ''Film/{{Quicksand}}'': Dan's jalopy, which has already been established as unreliable, throws a main bearing just as he and Helen are starting their RunForTheBorder.
* ''Film/TalesOfHalloween'': In "Grim Grinning Ghost", Lynn's car (which has already been described as 'a piece of crap') stalls out when she has stop suddenly on her drive home, and refuses to start again, forcing her to walk the rest of the way home. On her walk, Lynn becomes convinced that something is following her.
* ''Film/NobodySleepsInTheWoodsTonight'': After [[spoiler:the policeman is killed by the surviving twin, Zosia]] climbs into the driver's seat of the police car and tries starting it up. It takes several tries before it finally starts.

* Subverted in ''Film/SinCity''. When [[spoiler: the Yellow Bastard kidnaps Nancy for the final time, her finicky car, [[OnlyICanMakeItGo which only Nancy can keep running]], dies on him along the way, which gives Hartigan enough time to find and save her. Naturally, Nancy had pretended to not know why the car had died]].
* The entire plot of the film ''Film/{{Premonition}}'' was that a woman was living a week of time in mixed-up order and that at some point during the week her husband dies. [[spoiler:His death eventually ends up being caused by a mix of her actions (distracting him) and by him being too stupid to get out of the car with an out-of-control semi barreling down the road toward his stalled car.]]

* ''Film/LaCiteDeLaPeur'': Spoofed hilariously in the beginning of the French comedy. The hero of the painfully bad movie-within-the-movie is chased by Red the Communist serial-killer and runs to his car, produces a gigantic keyring and goes on to try all of them (including big old-school door keys). The camera zooms out as the killer approaches and the viewer discovers... ''[[RuleOfFunny it's a convertible]]''. Once in, he proceeds to plug in the radio, the A/C, the phone and the fax machine before trying the ignition, and the car waits the appropriate amount of time before starting off at the last possible second. Red ends up being run over and sent in a pool of gasoline ''twice''.
* ''Film/{{Bumer}}'': The titular car in the Russian movie ("bumer" being a slang term for BMW) does absolutely nothing but fall victim to one PlotDrivenBreakdown after another.
* ''Film/TheMummyReturns'': Rick's car hates Jonathan. He tries to start it when he hears fighting so that when Rick, Evie and Ardeth emerge from the British Museum they can all get away, but instead the key snaps off in the ignition and Jonathan has to steal a double decker bus.

* In ''Film/Tremors3BackToPerfection'', Desert Jack has a switch in his jeep that he uses to deliberately invoke this trope to make his Graboid safaris more exciting.
* ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'' and Cameron's piece of shit car (pre-Ferrari).
* ''Film/TheLoveBug'': All of the movies at some point have Herbie refusing to start after the main character insults the car, and of course is right when they are about to race.

* ''Film/KidnappingCaucasianStyle'': Edik's ambulance in the Soviet comedy is, in the (translated) words of the driver, an "asthmatic vacuum cleaner." Hopefully, it doesn't have these kinds of problems when there's a medical emergency...

* ''Film/TheGodsMustBeCrazy'' Has a landrover affectionately called "The Antichrist". Needless to say, a lot of bad things happen with it including having no handbrake, no brakes at all, [[spoiler: and even being stuck up in a tree.]]
* In ''Film/PoltergeistIITheOtherSide'' when the father is cursing his car, Taylor tells him that his car is literally angry at him and refuses to work properly because of that. This of course leads to a dramatic situation when the family is trying to escape.
* Inverted as part of the symbolism in ''Film/TuckerAndDaleVsEvil''--when college kid Chad finally goes from crazy but functional to just plain crazy, the hillbillies [[HillbillyHorrors he insists are crazed murderers]] frantically try to start their car while he comes towards them with an axe.
* In ''Film/{{P2}}'', Angela's BMW doesn't start when she tries to make it home on Christmas Eve evening. Justified, in that it's implied that her stalker sabotaged it so Angela would be stuck in the parking garage to serve as his CaptiveDate.
* In ''Film/BehindTheMaskTheRiseOfLeslieVernon'', the GenreSavvy killer [[InvokedTrope sabotages]] his victims' cars before starting his attack, including the car of [[spoiler: the journalists]] who [[TooDumbToLive really should have seen it coming]].
* Parodied in ''Film/EverythingYouAlwaysWantedToKnowAboutSexButWereAfraidToAsk''. In a segment parodying horror movies, Woody Allen discovers at an inopportune time, "The battery's dead and we're out of gas, oil, and water."
* In ''Film/{{Reincarnation}}'' this happens to the truck driver's own truck right before he meets his fate.
* Happens to two cops who try to escape the title creature in ''Film/{{Tarantula}}''. This is especially strange given it was a (then) brand new 1955 car.
* The ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'' film has a straighter example than the book (see below). When Harry and Ron are trying to escape the spiders, the Ford Anglia's flying gear happens to be jammed until Ron manages to unjam it at the last moment.

* ''Film/ClownMotel'': At one point, the protagonists try to escape from the clowns in the boys' [=RV=]. It won't start no matter what, even when surrounded by clowns.

* The French-Canadian movie ''Film/ElvisGratton'' [[PlayingWithATrope spoofs this trope]] with a literal version of it. It involves a [[CoolCar talking limousine]] which actually ''insults'' the titular character.
* ''Film/IntoTheNight'': Inverted. Insomniac Creator/JeffGoldblum, who drove to the airport after finding his wife in ''flagrante delicto,'' has decided to go back home, but he can't get his car started. Enter Michelle Pfeiffer, being chased by Iranian diamond smugglers. She jumps into his car and tells him to go -- and the car starts right up!
* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' -- the moment it becomes critical for the time-traveling [=DeLorean=] to start up, it doesn't. There's an elaborate fan theory as to why this is, involving the supposition that the [=DeLorean=]'s time circuit is being used [[MeanwhileInTheFuture at another point in time]] (preventing the one in the "now" from working), but it could also just be {{Plot Driven|Breakdown}} PhlebotinumBreakdown. Of course, despite the fact that he was working on a very strict timetable, and failed to get moving as soon as his alarm went off, he still managed to hit the wire [[MillionToOneChance at the exact moment lightning struck]]. To be fair, the movie does establish that there is something wrong with the starter,[[note]]Not precisely accurate, as we hear the starter trying to turn the engine over.[[/note]] so it isn't as if the car ran perfectly until the very moment the plot needed it to break down. The [=DeLorean=]'s problems with breaking down were [[TheAllegedCar very much]] TruthInTelevision. It was also theorized that it was simply the laws of time travel at work to keep time together. Marty wanted to go back to mall earlier to prevent the events of the movie thus far from happening. Since that would further complicate the situation (and have two Delorean's and Marties in the same area at once) the car failed to start until it was too late for him to do so.

* In ''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater'', the protagonists jump into a handy van by the side of the road to outrun an advancing cloud of gas, horde of [[TheVirus infected]], and friendly troops with misguided orders. Of course, it doesn't start. This prompts one of the characters to [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice himself]] by jumping out and pushing the van to get it rolling, only to choke on the zombie-killing gas and then get incinerated by the flamethrower-wielding troops.

* ''Film/DoubleIndemnity''. They've pulled off the perfect crime, the plan's unfolded like clockwork, they hop in the getaway car and exchange a grin of triumph... cue trope. Supposedly inspired by director Billy Wilder trying to drive off the lot during a break in filming the scene.

* Spoofed in ''Film/{{Clue}}.'' "Why is the car stopped?" "It's frightened."
* Subverted in the monster movie parody ''Film/Monster1999'' when GenreSavvy hero Lloyd piles into the car with his frantic girlfriend Jill to escape the monster, which is literally right on top of them. Lloyd turns the key in the ignition twice to no avail; finally, he holds up a finger for pause and announces "Wait for it." The monster punches a claw through the hood of the car. Lloyd tries the ignition again -- it works! "Got it," Lloyd declares brightly, and stomps on the gas.
* In ''Film/TheEvilDead1981'', the car actually starts when the side-passenger says that she ''knows'' it won't start.

* ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'' had a beat up Volkswagen that wouldn't start at an inopportune time. Since he wasn't parked long enough for any Gremlins to screw with his car, you have to [[FridgeLogic wonder]] why Billy didn't just leave the engine running.

* ''Film/ChildrenOfMen'': This happens when the heroes try to escape the farm. A tense [[ChaseScene chase]] then ensues, with the heroes pushing their non-starting car, followed by angry pursuers -- on foot.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' -- the moment it becomes critical for the time-traveling [=DeLorean=] to start up, it doesn't. There's an elaborate fan theory as to why this is, involving the supposition that the [=DeLorean=]'s time circuit is being used [[MeanwhileInTheFuture at another point in time]] (preventing the one in the "now" from working), but it could also just be {{Plot Driven|Breakdown}} PhlebotinumBreakdown. Of course, despite the fact that he was working on a very strict timetable, and failed to get moving as soon as his alarm went off, he still managed to hit the wire [[MillionToOneChance at the exact moment lightning struck]]. To be fair, the movie does establish that there is something wrong with the starter,[[note]]Not precisely accurate, as we hear the starter trying to turn the engine over.[[/note]] so it isn't as if the car ran perfectly until the very moment the plot needed it to break down. The [=DeLorean=]'s problems with breaking down were [[TheAllegedCar very much]] TruthInTelevision. It was also theorized that it was simply the the laws of time travel at work to keep time together. Marty wanted to go back to mall earlier to prevent the events of the movie thus far from happening. Since that would further complicate the situation (and have two Delorean's and Marties in the same area at once) the car failed to start until it was too late for him to do so.

* ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'' had a RunningGag in the "Sound Effects" game[[note]]The version where Ryan Styles provides sound effects for Colin Mochrie[[/note]]: Every time Colin tried to start his car, Ryan would make sounds of the engine failing; as soon as Colin got out to look, Ryan would mime [[MurphysLaw the car driving off without him]]. Which prompted Colin to chase it down on foot.

* The French-Canadian movie ''Elvis Gratton'' [[PlayingWithATrope spoofs this trope]] with a literal version of it. It involves a [[CoolCar talking limousine]] which actually ''insults'' the titular character.

* Subverted in the monster movie parody ''Monster!'' when GenreSavvy hero Lloyd piles into the car with his frantic girlfriend Jill to escape the monster, which is literally right on top of them. Lloyd turns the key in the ignition twice to no avail; finally, he holds up a finger for pause and announces "Wait for it." The monster punches a claw through the hood of the car. Lloyd tries the ignition again -- it works! "Got it," Lloyd declares brightly, and stomps on the gas.

* ''Bumer'': The titular car in the Russian movie ("bumer" being a slang term for BMW) does absolutely nothing but fall victim to one PlotDrivenBreakdown after another.

* ''Rainbow Valley'': This John Wayne western manages to pull this off with just one automobile in a movie full of horses. As a posse heads off under the mistaken impression that John Wayne is working for the bad guys his car-owning friend receives a telegram with the news that he's actually undercover. The car won't start so he ends up hitching it to a team of horses.
* ''Kidnapping, Caucasian Style'': Edik's ambulance in the Soviet comedy is, in the (translated) words of the driver, an "asthmatic vacuum cleaner." Hopefully, it doesn't have these kinds of problems when there's a medical emergency...

* Parodied in ''Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask).'' In a segment parodying horror movies, Woody Allen discovers at an inopportune time, "The battery's dead and we're out of gas, oil, and water."

* In ''Film/Duel'', David Mann's Plymouth Valiant has the radiator hose decide to break on him going up a hill, allowing his pursuer to catch up to him after boastfully bragging that the trucker "Can't beat me on the grade!"

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[[quoteright:259:[[Series/FawltyTowers https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/carthrash.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:259: Quite often, the feeling's mutual.]]

* In the Carboniferous swamps episode of ''Fanfic/PrehistoricParkReimagined]], swamp water ends up somehow getting inside the engines of the rescue team's jeep, causing it to stall right when they need to get it running to go through the time portal and to the safety of the titular park in the future when a lightning strike induced swamp fire is blazing viciously all around them. Fortunately, they manage to get around this by using one of the park's previously rescued sauropods as an improvised tow truck.