Dumbest things we ever had to fix

[Blacknwhitepit]

Deafautotech, Kart and I were discussing on another thread the dumbest mistakes someone else made that we saw.

The top one that comes to mind for me:

My neighbors Dodge minivan wasn't running quite right, her son flushed the transmission fluid for her and used Dextron to replace the fluid.

If this was not enough, I could not explain why her brakes also $#it the bed. Ended up replacing a leaking rear cylinder; but still could not fix the problem. I couldn't fiigure it out, She had to take it to the dealership - The seals in the master cylinder were ruined (Such a stupid mistake I never expected anything like this to happen) - Answer: The Helpful son put transmission fluid to replace lost brake fluid after he DID the brakes.

-BWP

 

[kartracer55]

haha guess I oughta repost mine...

Kid Drained oil and changed the filter. He proceeded to add 5qts or so of oil into the trans dipstick and started it BONE DRY! NICEEE!!!!!! He gets the WTF award in my book... I mean seriously, he missed the "710" cap totally lol

A lady got towed in with a car that was litterally falling apart. She said she was having brake problems. I pulled off one wheel, brakes were pretty low but not THAT bad, even wear etc. I pulled off the other wheel and gosh golly... shes MISSING A BRAKE PAD! Hubby shouldnt be doing brakes...

 

[wilbilt]

I pulled off the other wheel and gosh golly... shes MISSING A BRAKE PAD! Hubby shouldnt be doing brakes...

Ha. Many years ago, my best friend was looking for a Chevelle. I had a '67 SS at the time, and he was looking for a '66 SS. He found one at a good price in the local trader rag, and we went to look at it.
it had been in a minor front-end wreck, and had been sitting for a few years. The owner stated he was tired of it taking up space. It had a crunched hood and core support, but the owner had replaced the radiator, which had been chewed by the fan.

My buddy bought it, and we bolted up the pulleys and belts, minus the fan, because the core support was still pretty tweaked and it was only about 5-6 miles home. We had made it nearly to his house when we had to stop to make a left turn on a busy road. I was in front of him, and had stopped to wait for traffic before turning left.

He pulled up behind me and ran into the back of my car (!) I made the turn and got to his house...he pulled up, and I was pretty ticked. He said he had no brakes. We pulled the wheels off in his garage, and the LF brake drum was missing.

We went back to the seller's house and asked about the drum....he was like "Oh, yeah...here it is..."

 

[MAD]

Back when I worked as a tech a car was towed into to the shop with the oil level almost to the top of the valve cover. The woman who owned the car kept adding oil bucause her oil light came on.

 

[kartracer55]

Ha. Many years ago, my best friend was looking for a Chevelle. I had a '67 SS at the time, and he was looking for a '66 SS. He found one at a good price in the local trader rag, and we went to look at it.
it had been in a minor front-end wreck, and had been sitting for a few years. The owner stated he was tired of it taking up space. It had a crunched hood and core support, but the owner had replaced the radiator, which had been chewed by the fan.

My buddy bought it, and we bolted up the pulleys and belts, minus the fan, because the core support was still pretty tweaked and it was only about 5-6 miles home. We had made it nearly to his house when we had to stop to make a left turn on a busy road. I was in front of him, and had stopped to wait for traffic before turning left.

He pulled up behind me and ran into the back of my car (!) I made the turn and got to his house...he pulled up, and I was pretty ticked. He said he had no brakes. We pulled the wheels off in his garage, and the LF brake drum was missing.

We went back to the seller's house and asked about the drum....he was like "Oh, yeah...here it is..."

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH That might take the cake for this thread!

That definetly made my night lol

 

[Vincent Vega]

When I was back in Tech school rule #1 for the brake class was Do Not Start A Car If The Brake Job Is Not Complete.. I was doing a brake job on my buddy's 1979 Chevette. We finished up for the day and pushed it out to the lot. The next day I saw the car had serious cosmetic damage to the front end. Turns out some knot head from an afternoon class did not want to wait for help pushing his car out. Yep, he started it up, put it in reverse and it didn't stop until it hit the Chevette. My friend got a free paint job out of the deal from the Body Shop students.

 

[rockwithjason]

I went on a service call once to fix some dead outlets in a lady's house. Turned out that the gfi in the bathroom was tripped. I pushed the reset and wrote her a ticket.

 

[1320stang]

I went with my buddy to his dad's house to work on his '67 Fairlane. His dad had a '67 Mustang Fastback with a 302 that he'd build, just had a few tiny things left to do on it. Now his dad is no stranger to cars, he's restored shoebox Chevy's for years, going to B/J and getting high 5 figures for them, this Mustang was the first car he'd ever painted himself though, but it looked nicer than a Maaco job. Anyways, his dad was asking me to come out and listen to the 302 as he was having problems as it had no power. He started it up and it just didn't sound right, tooth off? No... crossed wires? No, 15426378....... carb problems? No, he'd tried several different carbs that all worked on the vehicles they came off of. Ignition? no, used several different confirmed coils and ignition boxes. Wiring problem? No, triple checked all wiring, tested for load and continuity. We pulled plugs and looked at them, they didn't look too bad, a little lean at the corners but they weren't oily and had the correct gaps. I couldn't figure it out, so we went in to eat dinner. Came back out later and they're working on the 390 for the Fairlane and I keep passing by the open hood because something's not right, but I can't put my finger on it. The intake is an aluminum 4 hole intake from Ford that came on a '83 or '84 Mustang, then it hit me! What kind of cam are you running in here? Hydraulic roller with a spyder.... I pulled plug wires and changed the firing order to 13726548 and it purred like a kitten. He had the car tuned so well to the wrong firing order that it actually ran pretty decent that way, he could drive it fine, it didn't hiccup or buck, it just didn't have any power. But by gosh, it runs like a scalded dog now. He was so happy, I got a lot of 'car cred' out of that with him.

 

[ZRX61]

I was driving across town one day & came upon a new Dodge pickup with the trans end of the drive shaft spiked into the road at the end of a fluid trail. I went around it & turned right over a bridge. Just over the bridge & walking towards the Dodge dealer was a tech with a code reader under his arm....
I could almost hear him: "Hey boss, I found out what that noise was...." LMFAO!

 

[Jbullfrog]

I had to troublshoot a 560 gas International tractor that would run fine until the guy pulled up into the shed from one side. It didn't bother going out or pulling in from the other side. After a carberator kit and checking all the plugs, I pulled the gas cap and shined a flashlight in. I found a bird and nest in the tank, it seams the gas cap had been missing for a few weeks. Every time the bird rolled to the corner over the fuel sump, the tractor wasn't getting gas.

 

[drbill]

Saw a fellow tech take a front strut off a VW Rabbit and take the nut off the upper mount.
Funny thing was he forgot to put the spring compressor on it.
We picked up parts and impact gun in three different bays.

 

[wilbilt]

Saw a fellow tech take a front strut off a VW Rabbit and take the nut off the upper mount.
Funny thing was he forgot to put the spring compressor on it.
We picked up parts and impact gun in three different bays.

That's funny, because the old Rabbit struts could darn near be compressed by hand...

 

[Deafautotech]

one of my tech friend have jeep recall about Ball joints to replacement. he did take bolt and nut off from front strut to pull lower control arm. then he did replaced it but forget to put it back on strut. then he said why jeep liberty is not even. then he pull it out of shop. i told him why that bolt and nut on his tool cart. he said "oh ****" and he run out to the jeep liberty then bring it in to lift. he had me to put it on strut again. why i had to fix his forget problem because he have car that customer waiting for front end noise problems.

i have no problem to help him to get it fixed. but most of time my tech friends will said to my service manager to give me engine and transmission repairs because i know more than they do know but they dont have right tool that i have it. so well i get it fixed on first visit. also i do lot of check engine light vehicles because my tech friends did work on check engine light but they get it not fixed first so they just give me the work and i got it fixed...

i always to write down the codes and print the information about code. so i can test and show my boss why the code is show. so he know that i am work in right path of step by step. some of tech just replace the part to see if it is fixed......

 

[MarkH]

The version of the no oil. Our neighbor for some reason always poured the engine oil down the dipstick hole when they changed oil on the tractors. I think because on that brand they would have to walk around the machine to get to the big oil fill. Made no sense took about 20 minutes longer aiming gallons of oil down that little hole vs pouring it down a hole about 6 inches in diameter.

His daughter changed oil on one of their 4X4 tractors, and as always happens with an episode like this an almost new one. She did what dad showed her and put about 10 gallons of engine oil into the transmission by pouring it into the dipstick hole on the left side. Seems the manufacturer had used a different engine model that had used a combined dipstick and fill on the right side. The stick on the left side did say hydraulic oil only. Tractors use a special transmission oil so this would be like pouring your engine oil into an automatic transmission.

She started the engine, Dad had nicely bypassed the Murphy switches like he always did on all of his machines, so she got about a mile before she was driving a 40,000 lb rock. It was new engine at over 20 grand a few more thousand for a transmission and hydraulic rebuild. His comment, was hired men you could fire for a mistake like that, family you had to keep. My first though was who was the idiot who taught her how to do things wrong.

 

[eschoendorff]

My first though was who was the idiot who taught her how to do things wrong.

Bingo. I love how people spend an extra 20 minutes doing something the lazy way rather than doing it right the first time.

 

[SuperKid]

... Kid Drained oil and changed the filter. He proceeded to add 5qts or so of oil into the trans dipstick and started it BONE DRY! NICEEE!!!!!! He gets the WTF award in my book... I mean seriously, he missed the "710" cap totally lol ...

I've got a similar story. Back in high school, I was in an automotive class. We were working out in the shop one day, I had all of my work finished, I cleaned up my mess, and decided to go check out what some of the other guys were doing.

I saw a classmate with his Saturn on the lift and went over and began talking to him and watching what he was doing. He was doing an oil change. He drained the oil, and now he was removing the filter. He was perplexed that after he removed the filter, more oil was coming out. ALOT more oil. I immediatly recognized his mistake, but waited a minute to see if he would recognize the mistake before he felt like a total fool. He didn't.

So, I went over to the drain pan, stuck my finger in, pulled it out and showed it to him. I said, "Strange color for oil isn't it?" Now looking even more perplexed, he said, "Yeah, I've never seen RED oil before." I smiled, and said, "Me neither, but you know what I have seen that's red? TRANSMISSION FLUID!" That filter he removed wasn't the oil filter. It was the transmission filter. He had apparently never seen an external filter.

 

[Deafautotech]

I was talk with my father who was in auto mech class in his high school time like about 25 years ago. he said that he did show the girl in class to how to do the oil change and girl did drain the oil and oil filter. then the girl put new oil filter on then she forget to put in oil into engine and she drive out of shop..... bam the engine locked up.
my father told her that she supposed to put five quarts of motor oil before she can start it....

i asked my dad if he made mistake? he said no because that car is her and she only asked my dad to show her where is oil drain and oil filter then she do all herself....

i was remember that my classmate have former cop car (ford crown victorie) and he said he paid it for like less than 1,000.00 dollars. then one day he crashed his car's front bumper because driver side airbag deployed itself....

i remember that my first year of auto tech class in Tech high school and most of students just show up and sleep all morning while i did all works what my teacher want me to do and keep me busy. he said that he wish that he have more students like me that i am very motive about future of being master technician in automotive....

 

[eschoendorff]

i remember that my first year of auto tech class in Tech high school and most of students just show up and sleep all morning while i did all works what my teacher want me to do and keep me busy. he said that he wish that he have more students like me that i am very motive about future of being master technician in automotive....

Damn, Deaf... you got it. i am a teacher and I can tell you based on my observations that success is like 90% ambition and 10% talent. You got the right idea!!!!

 

[Deafautotech]

Damn, Deaf... you got it. i am a teacher and I can tell you based on my observations that success is like 90% ambition and 10% talent. You got the right idea!!!!

Thanks. are you teaching the automotive mechanic class in school?

my auto mech teacher did asked other students who sleeping in class if they want go detenion hall then two of students want go because they dont dont want be in shop while i use loud air tools in shop to pull local school cop's Blazer for swap transmission because 700R4 is burned out and person who own that have one good transmission to want me to put it on....

 

[wilbilt]

Thanks. are you teaching the automotive mechanic class in school?

...I think he teaches the brass torture class...

 

[rodnok1]

Guy with a 3 year son came in to get an oil change, his left rear rim had a huge chunk out of it(alum rim) I mean huge chunk right to the bead. He had just came off the expressway where he drove everyday to day care. I told him about it, he said yea been that way for couple weeks. I insisted we change it to the spare and he didn't want to, I wouldn't put oil in his car until he let us change the tire, what a figgin idiot. That day I realized exactly how stupid some people really are.

 

[Jbullfrog]

I had a foriegn student come into the station I worked at in college wanting air in his tire. He had scuffs from running on the rims of both rear tires. I of them did hold air, but obviously not very much. I asked him if he wanted the tires fixed and he said no, he was leaving for a 100 mile trip and didn't have time.

 

[eschoendorff]

Guy with a 3 year son came in to get an oil change, his left rear rim had a huge chunk out of it(alum rim) I mean huge chunk right to the bead. He had just came off the expressway where he drove everyday to day care. I told him about it, he said yea been that way for couple weeks. I insisted we change it to the spare and he didn't want to, I wouldn't put oil in his car until he let us change the tire, what a figgin idiot. That day I realized exactly how stupid some people really are.

Damn, you probably saved his life!

 

[christian]

I had a foriegn student come into the station I worked at in college wanting air in his tire. He had scuffs from running on the rims of both rear tires. I of them did hold air, but obviously not very much. I asked him if he wanted the tires fixed and he said no, he was leaving for a 100 mile trip and didn't have time.

lol
too short

 

[Canadian Charlie]

Once had i guy I work with come up to me and ask me if I could patch up his muffler which had a small hole in it. After I took off the muffler to cut the rust of the whole muffler fell apart all except the end plates and inlet/outlet pipes. I happened to find a piece of sheet metal big enough to wrap around it and weld it up. so after a few hours it was welded up, painted and back on his 35 year old Toyota. He asked me what I wanted for my services and said don't worry about it George. Next day he knocked on my door and gave my wife a rabbit to cook

 

[spencerian]

We had a Blazer towed in this week.
It was a no start. The customer replaced cap, button, and plugs (why not wires too?....I dunno).

We push the truck in. I do a visual check. Next is fuel pressure.
Good pressure, now spark.
Good spark, now I check his cap replacement. All the wires were put where they should go.
Hook up the scanner... no codes.

Now to injector pulse. Good too.

Now timing ...

BINGO! The distributor was replaced by the owner and was off 180 plus/minus a tooth.

Had the customer told us he replaced the dist we could have eliminated some diag fees.

 

[YotaJunky]

Once had i guy I work with come up to me and ask me if I could patch up his muffler which had a small hole in it. After I took off the muffler to cut the rust of the whole muffler fell apart all except the end plates and inlet/outlet pipes. I happened to find a piece of sheet metal big enough to wrap around it and weld it up. so after a few hours it was welded up, painted and back on his 35 year old Toyota. He asked me what I wanted for my services and said don't worry about it George. Next day he knocked on my door and gave my wife a rabbit to cook

lol !!!!!

 

[l_bilyk]

Deafautotech, Kart and I were discussing on another thread the dumbest mistakes someone else made that we saw.

The top one that comes to mind for me:

My neighbors Dodge minivan wasn't running quite right, her son flushed the transmission fluid for her and used Dextron to replace the fluid.

If this was not enough, I could not explain why her brakes also $#it the bed. Ended up replacing a leaking rear cylinder; but still could not fix the problem. I couldn't fiigure it out, She had to take it to the dealership - The seals in the master cylinder were ruined (Such a stupid mistake I never expected anything like this to happen) - Answer: The Helpful son put transmission fluid to replace lost brake fluid after he DID the brakes.

-BWP

One time a GM dealer did the exact same thing to a friend's STS. It was one expensive screw up!

 

[Moose-LandTran]

Had to swap a whole front subframe on a MK IV Golf at work becuase the monkey who worked there to cover my friend while he was off jacked up the car wrong and buckled the damn thing.

this is one i had to put in from a donor car:

Ok, so the car is a wreck i'm rebuilding, but still.

At my old shop, there was a guy who with some 15 or so years working as a mechanic completely screwed up a job. It was a 2002 BMW 745I that was overheating. He misdiagnosed it numerous time. First it was the thermostat. Then the waterpump. Then the timing cover. What was the actual problem? The bonded rubber seal on a coolant tube that lives in the cylinder valley had deteriorated. It's like a $30 part, if that. Not only did he screw up numerous times, but part of the head gaskets have oil seals for the timing cover, where it meets the cam sproken covers. He CUT these parts off the head gasket, as well as the front of the sump gasket where it meets the timing cover. He also managed to strip the threads on the crank pulley bolt (it's an M22 thread or something!) strip the threads on lots of other bolts all over the place, left bolts loose and missing, over-tightened some and cracked the block, the heads and the alternator/oil cooler housing. So that all needed to be TIG welded because it's al ally engine.

All in all, the car was in the shop for 6 weeks on an off. We couldn't get the head gaskets or stretch bolts here, so i had them shipped from the US. Totat cost for the parts, welding, helicoiling was $6,000. And the man hours of having another tech spend an entire week (including 3 10pm finishes) to get it done.

Nightmare..

 

[ephotrod]

Moose-LandTran is the mechanic still employed? That sounds to be a major loss at the hands of a single person.

Around here most mechanics have to start looking for a new job at a $200 loss.

Josh

 

[nissan_crawler]

Well, I didn't have to fix all of these, but...

I worked at Wal-Mart changing oil and tires for 1.5 years while going to college for my A&P license.

Guy drains honda, pumps in 4 quarts (pneumatic pumps for oil), one of his ho's calls, he wanders off to talk to her for 20 minutes, comes back, pumps another 4 quarts in. Hood goes down, he goes screaming out of the garage.......for about 20 feet. Big clunk, 10 ft puddle of oil under car. My buddy and I figured it out by looking at the counter on the oil gun.

Guy comes in with old chrysler for tire change. A guy (same as above) starts taking wheels off. Well, he says nothing to us, but breaks 5 studs on the front left and breaks 2 more on the left rear before we catch him. Yep, left hand stud, marked with that big "L" stamped right into the end of it. We put new studs in the car.

Lady comes in with a GORGEOUS fully restored scout. Guy does tire change, forgets to tighten right front. Lady heads out of parking lot, wheel comes off, runs it down the rh side of the body crumpling it all the way, driving over the loose tire with the right rear, and slamming the back of the body back down onto the loose tire. I wanted to cry when I saw it.

Guy there was always pulling the parking brake on manual trannys which irritated both me and the customers. I finally told him to put the damn thing in first and quit using the stupid brake. Well....

A lady comes in with a new manual Cherokee (don't see many of them). He changes the oil and goes and parks it out back. She pays, and goes to get her vehicle. The next thing you know, she's coming back inside asking where it's parked. I go out to look...it's not there, wtf. I ask him if he locked it (thinking it's stolen), but he says he did. We're all out looking around, and then I see something...black tire marks over the curb at the end of the parking lot, down the embankment, to the swamp at the edge of the property. Yep, the cherokee with dealer plates was sunk to the windows in the swamp. He then pulls the "you told me not to use the parking brake" thing on me. "Yeah, I also told you to put it in first gear." "I did." Well, a wrecker came and winched it out. When I opened the door, the ****** was in neutral.

 

[tontruck]

I replaced a fuse panel in a womans house with a new 200A panel, I noticed that all the fuses had been replaced with pieces of copper tubing. I asked her who and what the hell? She said her son did it because he was tired or changing fuses for her. I sent him the bill and gave him a serious a$$ chewing. Hell he could have killed his own mother, what a dip $hit!!!

 

[c130herc]

hey nissan, i got my oral & practical coming up in less then a month for my a/p license. Any tips, lol. Has to be the worst time to try to get a job at an airline.

 

[nissan_crawler]

hey nissan, i got my oral & practical coming up in less then a month for my a/p license. Any tips, lol. Has to be the worst time to try to get a job at an airline.

The best thing I can tell you is to study the FAA practice exams. The oral/written is really a joke, most of it concerns things so far in the past, 95% of mechanics will never use. Sadly, the FAA is stuck in the dark ages.

As for tips, don't work for an airline. Head for business jets.

 

[Moose-LandTran]

Moose-LandTran is the mechanic still employed? That sounds to be a major loss at the hands of a single person.

Around here most mechanics have to start looking for a new job at a $200 loss.

Josh

He lost his job, they also shorted him out of $1,600 of pay. He came in with two of his mates to take his stuff and try threaten the owners. My manager sent two HUGE guy round to his house, who explained to this guy's wife that it was their best interest to shut up an disappear.

The cost was also raised because he repeatedly misdiagnosed and screwed up, so there were gaskets and things that i had to order 3 times. Not cheap for some of those things, and they were all VOR'd.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Next door neighbor was going to be gone out of town for an extended period of time. His wife is a mail carrier in a town about 30 miles away. Her car, a Tempo uses some oil (but really a decent car) so he shows her how to check the oil. Problem is, he forgot to show her how to add oil. Later she was complaining to a neighbor how difficult it was to make a funnel rolled up out of a file folder and fit it to the dipstick to add oil.

He always said that his vote canceled hers out, he voted Republican/conservative and she voted Democrat/liberal.

Charles

 

[monkeyplasm]

He lost his job, they also shorted him out of $1,600 of pay. He came in with two of his mates to take his stuff and try threaten the owners. My manager sent two HUGE guy round to his house, who explained to this guy's wife that it was their best interest to shut up an disappear.

The cost was also raised because he repeatedly misdiagnosed and screwed up, so there were gaskets and things that i had to order 3 times. Not cheap for some of those things, and they were all VOR'd.

Repair shop would have installed completely new engine and accessories - none of this weld and heli-coil ****. Otherwise the managers next of kin would be the ones to send 'two HUGE guy round to' my house.

 

[Moose-LandTran]

We were quoted $16,000 + tax for a turn-key engine.

If it was my car, the shop would've paid for a flatbed truck and all the costs to have it taken to BMW and have it done right. Don't know how the owner kept his cool. I would've gone mad if someone did that to my car.

 

[speed bump]

Working in a refrigeration shop here are the dumbest fixes.

1.) Flip breaker back on, you would think people could figure this out for themselves but instead they prefer the $50-100 charge.

2.) Cleaning condensers: 75% of all jobs we do are cleaning condensers for people or replacing compressors after they let it go for way to long.

 

[ar2stp48]

Break-in air. This sounds too strange to be true but I assure any and all it is.

College engineering physics teacher had a Phd but zero common sense. He had a new car and was having problems and complaints about the ride quality. This was a mini class discussion one day; he discussed all the parts that had been checked, the balancing, realignments, etc. Michael, one of the more reserved students in the class, calmly suggested that the air needed to be changed in the tires. He carefully explained that the car came with "break-in air" in the tires and it need changing. Class was dismissed early and the teacher drove to the nearest service station. We followed at a safe distance. By the expression and reaction of the station attendant, it was obvious he asked to have the air changed in the tires.

Next day and for the remainder of the semester, no one mentioned his car or problems. No idea where he is now, but he is still teaching in some university.