what kind of screw ups have you or a mechanic done on your vehicles.

the other day i had my 95 stang in the shop to get a broken intake bolt out of the head because i was tired of fooling with it. they finally got it done and called me to say it cranked an ran fine but after 5 minutes my oil pressure went to 0. i drained the oil and there was what looked like pieces of a bathroom towel falling out of the pan and there was only 2 1/2 quarts of oil in it. i put a new oil pump and filled it andn still no pressure. so i took both of the intakes off and i found a towel wrapped around the balancing shaft and soaked with oil. lint was packed behind the pushrods on both sides and it was just nasty. i took it back to the shop and showed them so now they are flushing the system and cleaning the pan and pickup tube. it should be done tomorrow so i will post if it runs good later and if the bearings hold up.

 

I burned up a high $$ VW engine.

I put in 40W racing oil, worked great in the summer, I didnt drive it that much so when winter rolled around I fired it up, and it promptly spun the rod bearings!...expensive lesson since I had about $4000 into that engine!

 

(I work at a shop)
I have completely crossthreaded a wheel stud/nut
Broke an antenna off a buick
Nothing major, lol here are some from the shop down the road my buddy works at:
56 Ford Vicky, sweet unrestored all original perfect sheetmetal. Guy takes it for a test drive, hits the brakes at the end of service road, door wasnt latched right, flew open and wrapped around the front fender, wrecked the door, smashed up the fender


Guy took a car down service road (they use it like a racetrack) after a brake job.... the brake job wasnt sooo good.... went into the house at the end of the road, wrecked the car, frontyard, and front of house.....

cold out and the guys dont see you at the door? nooo dont honk the horn to get their attention, rev the **** outta the engine (stone cold)

hey that car looks fast.... bet ya cant spin the tires in it....

Thats the difference between a GM dealer (us) and the General service shop (no offence to anyone else who works at one, I know most shops arent like this....)

 

worst thing that I have done?

replaced my U-joints, and trapped a bearing in the bottom of the cap. noticed it within 30 seconds, and was able to fix it easily.

 

Worst one I ever had was when the C600 went into the shop to have all the fluids serviced.

Well, they drained all the gear lube out of the tranny, and never refilled it. It made it about 40 miles before the shaft bured right up, chewed the bearings, and came to a screeching (literlly) halt.

Survey says?

$1,800 for a new Clark 287V,
$450 to put it in.
----------------------
$2,250 they spent out...

$75.00 I paid them for the service....

You do the math.

I guess I made out pretty good after all. The tranny DID have 180,000 miles on it, after all HAHAHAHAHA

 

Worst thing that *I* ever did was a head gasket in the Honda on a New Years Eve... you figure out how that went.


LMAO

 

I used to go to a friend of the family mechanic (he owned his own shop) to get my oil changes. I got to hang around the shop and shoot the (content) when he was working on my car at the time. During one of the oil changes, he accidentally grabbed a bottle of ATF to refill. He had the cap off and was about 2 degrees of bottle tilt away from filling the engine with it before I caught on and stopped him by asking if there's a reason why he was using ATF instead of 10-W40.

 

THAT would have bitten the big one...

 

damaged the oil filter and blew the 350 engine (mine that is)

took me 6 months to get over that.

A $1400 oil change in effect.

 

One of the best mechanics i ever knew forgot to put the nut back on a steering wheel he took off. The owner only got about 100 feet away from the shop when the steering wheel popped off. Luckily she wasnt hurt and the car wasnt damaged.

The second best mechanic i knew was driving a customers car into the shop, except nobody opened the garage door for him. He got out of the car, leaving it in nuetral and sitting on a large hill, to go inside and open the door. He came out to see the car at the bottom of the hill, inbedded into two of the dealership's new traiblazers.

 

Tranny shop guy somehow managed to put the pump in backwards (C4 in a 1966 Mustang). Started the engine, backed it out, leaving a huge red stain on the driveway. Then, it wouldn't go into drive, so I had to push it up the drive...Grrrrr...

At least he didn't charge me to fix it...Even pulled the tranny out of the car (originally, I brought it to him, in a plastic bag). Of course, he wouldn't pay for the tow, but I guess that was my problem.

 

when i was rebuilding my 302 i asked a family friend that is a deisel mechanic and also does all kinds of mechanicing on atv's cars truck dodge ford chevy whatever. anyway i sked him if there was a special way to put the main bearings in and he said the big one that looks different( the pilot bearing) went on the end of the crank so i did it like that and i could not turn that motor over very easily when i was installing my new pistons. each piston i put in it got harder. so i called my machinist and he said that on the fords the pilot bearing goes in the middle of the crank. so i went and took the crank out and sure enough it was ate up and all my new bearings, rods and crank, had to be replaced. i had the crank turned and i got new bearings and put them in right with no problems. he told me where to put the bearing on a chevy motor instead of a 302

 

Got some bad gas in my 1974 impala.

It kept dying in the middle of intersections.

The engine died in the middle of a busy intersection, cars honking
fingers flipping etc...

Frustrated, I shifted into neutral started the engine again, floored the accelerator and shifted into drive.

I think my hearing is still damaged by the horrible commotion.
The driveshaft coupling tore loose from the rear end and nearly flipped the car over.

Luckily it only cost $180 to fix.

 

Oh no.... a Chevy.......

 

The funniest mechanic story I ever heard was when a friend decides to change the thermostat in his wife’s car because it’s midwinter and the heater is not working very well. Keep in mind that he does not have a garage and it is 20-degrees below zero. It’s so cold the he has to wear gloves to keep the metal parts from sticking to his hands.

Well disassembly goes pretty good and in a few minutes he has the car back together. He fills the radiator back up with antifreeze – starts the car and notices a bad leak from the thermostat gasket. Well, it’s cold, it’s quickly getting dark, and all he really wants at this point is to get back into the house where it’s warm but he takes it back apart, carefully cleans and dries the parts, slaps a little silicon on it and puts it back together. He fills the radiator back up with antifreeze – starts it up and no more leak. He quickly picks up his tools to head for the WARM house and notices the thermostat laying there on the radiator support. Cussing himself he takes quickly takes the housing back off the engine. In his haste, he gets careless and breaks the gasket. Frustration takes over and he decides heck with the gasket, and uses a liberal bead of silicon. Well he puts it back together, fills up the radiator, starts the car and once again has a leak. At this point my friend says he just stood there in a growing puddle of antifreeze, nearly frozen, in wet gloves, silicon smeared up to his elbows, and icicles hanging from his mustache giving serious thought to lighting the car on fire. After a few minutes of soul searching he came to his senses and heads off to the parts store, picks up a new gasket, and manages to assemble the thermostat without a leak.

I’ve lost contact with the guy over the years, but I bet you could not pay him to touch another thermostat.