My car broke down a while ago My car broke down some time ago

People will say “a ways” when they don’t know the actual distance but want to say it was a long distance. Another example: “quite a ways away” Is that confusing? 😄

“A ways back” is referring to distance. You could replace it with the actual distance the car had broken down. It implies the person had to leave their car behind. You could say “my car broke down several miles/kilometers back, on Sunset Blvd.”

You can also say: My car broke down a while ago. My car broke down some time ago. My car broke down earlier. “A ways back” is very casual. “A while ago” is the most common.