[downest]

My roommate is doing a project for his folklore class, and he really likes the Y-49 curse legend. We were talking about it today, and he wants to do the project on the curse. He needs at least 5 different firsthand stories about the Y-49 curse, with the age and general location of the tellers. Can you yellow rex owners post some stuff up?

 

[baker_jeff]

Buddyclub Cams and Valvetrain = $2500
8 hours labor and supplies = $500
2 hours driving = $20 in gas
Y-49 = Free
Shattered Piston and valves = Priceless. :evil:

 

[crxgator]

i flipped mine...

and it ate alternators...

 

[downest]

Caan you give me some complete stories, he needs to write a full report on it, minimum five pages. Thanks guys, keep them coming.

 

[crxgator]

crxgator.tripod.com

 

[shorte]

I don't have any stories yet as I haven't even really driven either of mine yet, but have you been here? http://www.geocities.com/teamwhy49/

 

[ryan_long_01]

I had a Y49 for probably about 4 years, it was my first ever CRX. It was a total SUV magnet, for one thing. In that time, it was TWICE backed into WHILE PARKED in a parking lot by SUVs, crunching fenders and quarter panels...but never the rusted ones that needed replacing anyway, always the good side. It blew a stock engine at 133k miles, which is absurd for a Honda.

I eventually got rid of it when, about 2 months after spending tons of time and money installing a body kit, CF hood, new fenders and sunroof panel, and repainting the whole car (with insurance money from the above incidents), a Suburban with no insurance got totally sideways in front of me on a snow-covered interstate. I had snow tires and was fine, and he was an idiot with his first SUV who thought he was fine. To avoid hitting him and hurting his family, I put the car into the median.

Thanks to the Y49 curse, it was the ONLY mile or two long stretch of median in the surrounding 100 miles or so of interstate to have TREES. As is usually the case with the Y49 curse (from bad to worse), this was about 2 days before Christmas. New fender was trashed, CF hood was all messed up, bumper was messed up, door was a little messed up...and I couldn't stomach the idea of sending it back to the shop AGAIN only to have the curse bite me back harder.

After that fiasco, I sold the car to my roommate, who later sold it to some Indian guys from Chicago. They never registered the car in either one of their names, which we found out when my roommate got a call saying that they found "his" car abandoned in a parking lot in Wisconsin. Apparently those guys wised up too, eventually.

EDIT: I'm a 26 year old male from Indiana, and I was 20-24 at the times of the above incidents.

 

[grouch]

After 8 years of going to CRX meets, I've only seen one CRX suddenly fail during a meet.

Now, plenty of CRXs have run poorly at meets, mostly becuase of neglect or unqualified backyard mechanics, but generally, if it was running when it got to the meet, it managed to stay running through the meet.

But this one very clean, adult owned, properly maintained y-49 just up and died after stopping for lunch. With 25+ CRX enthusiasts (and a Honda tech or two) standing around, you'd think they'd be able to figure it out. Nope. I wasn't going to touch it and transfer y49 cooties to my own car.
We ended leaving the poor guy behind while he waited for a AAA dispatched tow truck.

That's all you're getting out of me. Tell your lazy-ass roommate to write his own paper.

 

[Kwicko]

I don't really believe in the Y-49 curse, but I might be crazy. And I might be starting to come around. I took Yellow Dog, my '90 Barbados Yellow CRX Si, out for a drive today, and had a few run-ins with "the curse". Thankfully, they were categorized as near-misses, but it's still a bit unsettling. No less than THREE cars decided to turn across my path today - all of them turning left, all of them oncoming, and every single one of them was an SUV. To make things worse, each and every one of them did the little "hesitation turn": they committed to their turn, then halfway through it spotted a small bump, had a sudden aneurism, or something that made them decide to slow almost to a stop, directly in front of me! The last and final one was a Suburban; it was on a tight 2-lane road, there was traffic behind him and tree-lined ditches on either side of the road, and it ended up with me having the front brakes locked and the tires screeching, and missing him by what felf like all of an inch and a half.

The pisser of it all is that this was in broad daylight, I was travelling UNDER the posted speed limit (not my usual mode, but I was paranoid about anything happening to the car!), and I had my freaking headlights on. How can you NOT see a blinding-yellow car with its headlights on in full daylight, fer puke's sake?!

While I generally expect there to be idiots on the road, I also generally expect them to not be actively AIMING at me with their lumbering land-yachts. Guess I give 'em too much credit...

Oddly, this sort of thing doesn't happen often at all when I drive Ruby, my '91 Torino Red (Burgundy) CRX DX. The only other CRX I've ever driven that seemed to magnetically attract large metallic cars with small-minded drivers was my silver '88 CRX Si.

What I want to know is, What the hell? Why are the silver and yellow cars seemingly invisible to other drivers, despite their obviously brighter colors? My wife thinks it's a size thing, but I pointed out that all three of the cars in questions are second-generation CRXs. Same shape, same size. I'm stymied.

And people wonder why I don't drive the yellow CRX very often. It's nice, it's clean, it's all stock, and it's even a little bit pretty (the paint needs some attention, though)... but still, it scares me. Not the car, just what it seems to do to other drivers. It seems to short out their brains. "Oooohhh - yellow car. Dang! Forgot how to drive!"

That insipid Suburban driver can count himself lucky; I damn near went full-on road-rage and followed his ass with the intent to haul his stupid self out of his vehicle and beat him into unconsciousness with his own severed arm. I don't think "Y-49 Curse" is an accepted legal defense for assault and battery, though. Maybe it should be. Hell, if a jury of twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty can accept "Twinkies" as a legal defense, why not "Y49 Rage"?

Like I said, I don't really believe in The Curse, but I'm starting to view it the same way I look at Voodoo or black magic (or, occasionally, electricity): I might not believe in it, but I don't want to tempt fate by screwing around with it, either. While I might stand up proudly and state that there's no god, I don't think I'd say it while sitting in a yellow CRX; that's just asking for it.

Mike

 

[xxpaulcpxx]

Actually, according to insurance statistics, silver cars get in less accidents.

Try scraping under the doorjamb... maybe you have another Y49 in diguise!

 

[grouch]

Try scraping under the doorjamb... maybe you have another Y49 in diguise!

He would, if he could, but he can't, so he won't...because somebody bought the car and before the ink was dry on the title, took it to california where they promptly sent it to a salvage yard on the back of a tow truck.

Kwicko stumbled on a great thought with voodoo....it is called Barbados yellow, after all.

 

[shadowcrx]

don't have any yet but i am putting an si motor from an 88 barbados in my 91 hf so you might have a story from me soon :x

 

[Kwicko]

Shadow: According to the folklore, you're doomed if you put that engine in your car. The Curse even seems to follow PARTS from yellow CRXs around!

And although I'm generally NOT superstitious, I've noticed that I never work on both CRXs at the same time. Maybe it's a subconscious fear of spreading The Curse from YellowDog to Ruby by inadvertently switching a few parts or bolts, or maybe even transmitting The Curse through the use of "contaminated" tools.

At any rate, I'm starting to think The Curse may be real after all. This morning, I took YellowDog to the carwash to clean her up a bit (long overdue, really). When I was done, I noticed that my lower legs were pretty much COVERED in thick, black grease. Seems some jackhole had gotten grease all over the carwash wand's hose, and it had transferred to me.

The irony of it all is that I'd washed Ruby there not 15 minutes earlier, in the same bay with the same wand, and didn't get a spot of grease on me that time. I always check before I get back in the car, to be sure I don't track mud or dirt into them.

Again I ask: What the HELL is it with the damn yellow CRXs?! It's starting to give me the heebie-jeebies!

Paul: That's what I'd heard, too - silver cars are "safer". Of course, I've also been told by a Defensive Driving instructor that a yellow car can get you a break on your insurance, which is pure BS. Her assertion was that yellow cars are far less likely to get into accidents because of their high visibility to other drivers. She's obviously never heard of the Y49 Curse!

Mike

 

[ryan_long_01]

The last and final one was a Suburban...

I'm starting to think that the Suburban is the Y-49's arch enemy...it was a Suburban that caused the "last straw" incident with my Y-49, and while it was a Tahoe that was responsible for "hitting my car while it was PARKED incident #1", I seem to remember it being a Suburban that pulled the same stunt a year or so later.

When I had that yellow Si, I CONSTANTLY had people changing lanes into me, pulling out in front of me, etc. -- just like Kwicko said. It was my first rex, and I always thought, "God, if they act like this around a BRIGHT FRIGGEN YELLOW car, I'd hate to drive a white or silver or black one". Now that I've been driving my black car for a few months, I think Kwicko is right. Granted, it still happens on a nearly-constant basis (the change-lanes-into-me thing happens sooooo often, I'm considering upgrading my horn to a real ass-kickin' freeway blaster so they think they are about to get run over by a dump truck)...but I think it happened MORE in the very visible yellow car. Just part of the curse, I guess.

And Mike, you're almost there -- it's time to admit that there definitely IS a curse, and you are powerless over it.