1. When borrowing someone’s car you must never ask any questions about weird flashing lights on the dashboard. This step is essential to pushing the car too hard. You cannot ask about any problems that it has on a regular basis because that will only prepare you to keep the car in working condition. It is much easier to put the car in a seriously damaging situation when you know nothing about its quirks and normal problems.

2. Another key principle is to run the car for about an hour at freeway speeds. This gives the car enough time to surface anything that may be wrong. The only way that could be potentially easier to do so, is to go from stoplight to stoplight for a long period of time.

3. One of the most important steps to making a friend’s car non-drivable is to ignore all signs of a problem. For example, when you get out and the car is putting out a white, putrid-smelling smoke, you must completely ignore it and think that it is one of those weird regular quirks that you never asked about. If this step is avoided it is possible that you can actually save the car.

4. The final step to the demise of a borrowed automobile is to put the smoking, funny-sounding vehicle back to freeway speeds. Something that also helps this is to load it full of people and luggage before going back on the highway. Step number three must also be carried into this step, by ignoring the sights and smells of the car breaking down. Continue to hold your foot on the gas, until the car comes to a complete stop and won’t go anymore.

Mission accomplished!

PB – In case you are wondering, I can say from experience that these steps do get the desired effect.