I'm sure that most (if not all) of the people here have owned at least one used vehicle. I'm looking for stories about the more used of the used. I'm talking about things that you find and make you go what the @#$% was this guy thinking. Or maybe how in the heck was this still working stories..

The guy that owned my 83 F100 before me used it as an ectrical project. He failed... There where wires that were run back to the same wire about 12" farther down. He ran his own wires for the reverse lights to a switch in the dash. I plugged in the original plug to the trans and the reverse lights worked fine.... I yanked all his "wiring projects" and I had about 50 feet of wire, none of it fused and most hooked up straight to the battery... And 90% served no purpous what so ever...

The power lead to the radio was about 6 pieces of mis-matched wire that was twisted together with NO TAPE... That was the first thing I yanked. He used about 6 pairs of speaker wire (radio shack stuff, not the monster wire) run in paralle to power the starter....

So what things have you seen done to vehicles that makes you cringe? And don't say stainless steel $800 exhaust with a 6" tip and $4,000 24" rims on a $500, 90 hp POS, FWD car. That just makes me laugh...

 

I think that it might have been me that owned your truck before you.... I have alot of little things on my truck that make you wonder. Nothing unsafe, but alot of it is redneck rigged.

 

(Other Bower here)
A car I drove once was a nightmare. Whoever had worked on it had a lot of "leftover" vacuum lines so they plugged them all with golf tees. The heater vent and firewall insulation were missing so hot engine air blew directly on my right leg, causing a minor burn the first time I drove it. (After that I drove with a blanket wrapped around my leg.) The automatic tranny wouldn't shift unless I dropped it into low gear and worked back up to drive. The AC came on and off at random as did the radio, wipers, and signal lights, which never worked when I tried to use them. A large bundle of wires was zipstripped together on the passenger floorboard. There were four different tires, two sizes, on the car.

I should mention that my boss purchased it at the city auction where it had recently been in service as a gov't vehicle. (!!!)

 

My truck has some unexplained wiring here and there on it. I have unidentified HOT wires under the dash floating around. There's also the remains of a dual battery setup, minus cables and other stuff. The whole ignition passed through it somehow, and at the time I got it.. it operated through barely twisted wires that only held together by the way the wire was shaped! That was quickly remedied. I still want to take the 2nd battery circuit out (or wire it correctly with a second battery).. but I have bigger projects at the moment. Oh yeah, the distributor was also twisted together with bare wire.

My 64 Cadillac that I recently sold was a wiring basket case when it came to lighting.. I was glad to see that go. They played all sorts of games with the tail lights, reverse lights, headlights and horn. I let it go as is.. didn't feel like working that hard on it.. I would much rather work on my truck.

 

The "used of the used" for me was a '73 F-100. It had a chevy power steering pump on it, no thermostat, more splices in the wiring than actual straight wiring, most of them untaped. The rear of the bed rails were being held in place by that shelving right-angle 1/8" metal bolted together and slid down the bed rail holes. This same brace also held the tailgate in place by way of a bungie wrapped around the handle and the hooks attached to the holes in the brace. The radiator was out of a Honda. And Way Too Small. Had four different tire sizes on it. The wipers would only work if the heater blower motor was set on the second setting. And no, of course the blower didn't work. The turn signal indicators on the dash would work opposite to what was blinking on the outside. It goes on and on, but you get the idea

 

My wife had a Geo Prizm before we got married. She would take it to her brother-in-law for service since he worked at a GM dealership. Her radio kept cutting out since the car was new. Her BIL replaced the radio twice under warranty but still didn't fix the problem. After we got married, I took the radio out of the dash and found a zillion butt splices. I replaced the entire harness and the radio worked fine after that. Scary to think that a GM dealer was the only place that had ever touched this car.

 

When I worked at a Ford dealer, now out of business, a couple of my favorites are:

1) My brother-in-law worked at the same dealer and his Fairmont was creamed in an accident. I told him to bring/drive it somewhere else to get it fixed. He did not listen. After weeks of having them mess it up, it was finally repaired, and it looked like a fine used auction car ... Except now it did not run correctly. I suggested he cut his losses, heed my advice, and take it someplace else.

He had them repair it. It was given to someone that spoke broken English. He saw a plug hanging down near the carb. not plugged in. To fix the problem he put screws in the two holes to "plug" them and neatly tucked it up into the linkage. While driving it down the road when he got out of work, the wire harness bounced loose, set fire to the car, and gave it a good toasting

2) We had a new Escort come back from a recent delivery and the person was complaining about a coolant smell. It was given to another broken-English-mechanic to fix. He "thought" he saw holes in the radiator and proceeded to "plug" them with sheet metal screws. Filled the radiator and it was given back to the customer. We found out about this repair when the customer drove back with a red hot (as in the color) engine complaining about it overheating and making noise. I always felt that this person deserved a another new car instead of just a new radiator and LOF. I was surprised the engine itself did not seize being that color and a aluminum head. Those 1.6 engines are tough I guess.

3) Another customer wanted a roof rack installed on their brand new Escort wagon. It was given to another broken-English-I-need-a-drink-mechanic. I gave him the parts. A few hours later, I walk by and still see him working. I decide to see what is up since he is driving deck screws into the car's roof and I can see big punch marks and the headliner hanging down. Seems he did not position the roof rack correctly the first time, so he repositioned it. Since the OEM pieces were stripped out on removal (funny thing those 1/2 inch electric drills), he decided to use the most handy screws around for more "bite" to hold the rack since regular length ones seemed wobbly. To top it off, he did this three or four times. Now there were 30-40 holes big holes (we could see..) and the headliner looked like someone had shot gunned the roof several times from above. He asked me why I was laughing so hard at him. So, I got him down from the roof ... he was kneeling on... and pointed at the head liner, his next words were "I need a drink" and my reply was "You mean you haven't had enough yet"

Worse, since Escort wagon roofs are not a stock item ... the salesman gets the idea of cutting a roof off a wagon in stock, they weld it unto this car, have someone else (for some reason) install this new rack and then paint the car and deliver it back the same day. Salesman told the customer not to touch the paint on the car because the special wax they used had takes a day to dry (of course it was the paint that was wet).

There are a lot more, but, most of them are not as funny or reflect the utter contempt some people have for other people or customers.

When they found out previously I use to sell cars and was a service manager at a Chevy dealer they wanted me to sell cars or work in service. I politely told them I no longer aspired to such honorable positions and I was fine just working in parts and filling the warranty claims and doing computer work. They could not understand why I keep turning the jobs down since it meant a lot more money.

 

The GMC that I still own has cost me about 10Grand in the past 3-4 years. You name it, it has been done. Carb, tranny, rear end, motor. I just finished replacing the whole ignition system chaseing down a no spark problem. The oldest part on the drivetrain can't have more than 30,000 miles on it, and the truck is an 82.

What can I say, I am a sucker for a good looking truck. I will say, the body is in excellent shape.

 

One day my friend and I decided our other roommates car needed a oil change (89 Prelude). He was gone and before he got home we wanted to help him out. Since I had a CD player that worked we decided to throw it in. It took us two days to chase wires and install the new CD player the right way. Our friend had installed his CD player by twisting the wires together then putting house twist things on them or nothing at all. We found a bundle of hot wires that lead no where. He had also wired up blue lights by striping wires that controlled his air conditioning twisted the wires together and shoved it back up in the light hole. He all ways wondered why his air conditioning never worked?? Needles to say we have banned him from working on his own car!!

 

boy...i dunno where to start...

A rust hole in the floor of an 84 pickup that was sealed with a golfball and some jb weld. This truck had a caddy 425 engine transplanted into it. The carb looked like a junkyard carb, it was missing just about ALL of it's required vacuum lines. As a result it ran very rich, got about maybe 3 or 4 mpg. I hooked it up properly and noticed a huge difference.

80 el camino. Had a pontiac 400 transplanted into it, had an old holley carb on it, the engine ran pretty rich. The owner sold it too me stated he had no idea what was wrong with it. When i got it home i saw it had one of those cheap "pep boys performance isle" fuel filters on it. It was the kind in a clear case, i noticed there was no dirt in the filter at all. Looking closer i noticed i could actually see the pores in the filter...how the heck is that thing suppose to filter anything. So sure enough i opened the carb up and saw PILES of rust laying in the fuel bowels.

On an 85 blazer, i saw that the fusebox had a homade fuse made out of tinfoil and cardboard jammed into it. Gee...i bet that owner was thinking "This freaking fuse keeps blowing, i'll show it!". Then later i can see him calling his buddy "man now i keep blowing up wiper motors, i dont get it! I'm selling this pos".

 

hey i got 2 of these stories
first, my (now ex-) step-brother got an 84 mustang gt for his first car. we new it needed some work and TLC, but when we got down to business, we discovered that the previous owner had used a cut up extension cord to rig together some of the electrical stuff. that was just great having to re-do so much crap on one car.
second, i got an 84 mustang (later stolen by step-dad) for my first car. i bought it knowing it had tranny problems, but when i took it in to get the problem fixed, the mechanic told me that there was huge chunks of clutch wire and other crap in my tranny pan, he also said that the previous owner had probably been running on the same fluid for years. oops!
Tyler

 

My 1987 Dakota 2.2/5-speed:

To start it, you had to connect a plug under the hood & throw a toggle switch.
To shut it off, you had to put it in 5th gear & stall it.
The radio turned on & off by itself.
The wipers didn't work...but the washers did!
By themselves when you used the turn signal.
The radiator fan didn't work, because the bell wire the clown had wired it with had melted.

I rewired it just in time you get it clobbered by a Hyundai.