What's the worst thing you have seen/heard about/done to a car?

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Rubberdown

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What's the worst maintenance story you have?

So that troll guy made me think of all the stupid stuff I have seen people do to their cars. So what's the worst you have seen or heard of someone doing, or done yourself. I will go first.

Like 10 years ago, my buddy asked me to help him change his oil in his old diesel suburban. I drained it all, realized he was short of oil to refill it, and went to the store to buy some in my car. I come back, and dump the rest of the oil in the engine. He walks over while I'm doing this and says why are you putting oil in the radiator dummy. I said... I'm not. Long story short, he "checked the coolant" while I was gone and filled his motor with antifreeze and water. I pulled the drain plug and water was coming out for a good couple of minutes. After I drained it all and changed the oil again, everything worked perfect but that staggered my mind, and thank god he walked over to tell me how dumb I was.
 
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Aboot 10 years ago, changing the oil in my Accord... I am draining the oil, and checking oot everything else underneath when I notice my CV boot has given up the good fight. Put the drain plug back in, and with CV boot still on my mind, fire it up and back it off the ramps before I remember that I never actually put the new oil in. Maybe I should go work at Jiffy Lube!
 
For the record, I have never, EVER did anything stupid to a vehicle. Neither have my friends, family or anyone else I know, for the record. Now, OFF the record....
 
Drained my oil but forgot to buy oil in advance so I filled with water/beer mixture and drove to dealership for my b!tchslappin......

:hiding:
 
My Camry leaks oil, I added a quart and all was good..

A week later my car felt sluggish and as if it's about to die... My father in law decided to help me "look at it"... It was that I left the engine oil cap off! and It went bye bye.... :redface:
 
Dumb SH!@ in a Friends Car

So a buddy of mine had a lowered Civic and we decided to put fast food trays under the back wheels in the rain. It was like being on a fair ride for a few minutes. :crazy:
 
About five years ago I was changing the oil in my Tacoma during a lovely Iowa winter. My father in-law decided it was to cold and wanted to help. Well he got me side tracked. Was putting oil in and he said you have a leak. I look underneath and sure enough forgot to put the drain plug back in :doh: At least it was only a quart haha.
 
My hubby put oil on both sides of the main bearings when rebuilding his 502 BB. Was the first time I've ever seen a car sling a rod out the side of the block and into the sheetrock wall. Thankfully it was also the only time.
 
I guess my most brilliant moment I can think of is this one time I "replaced" a broken axle. I took apart the front end, removed the old axle, reassembled the entire front end, and when I went to go put the wheel back on...I noticed the shiny new axle sitting in the box next to the wheel. That's right, I forgot to put in the replacement axle :frusty:
 
I was about 16 and on a summer trip to Ocean City with my parents in our Chevy Astro van. About halfway there my Dad says- "Damn, the oil pressure guage is broken." His reasoning was since the temp was normal and it wasn't knocking, it had to have oil pressure. Keep in mind, my Dad was a very competent mechanic. So, he kept driving. Drove the entire weekend around O/C, and then back home to Baltimore.

Dad decided when we got back home to check the oil. NO oil. None. Added almost 5 qts. Turns out the drain plug was loose and it all leaked out...

Anyway, Dad looked at me and said: "G Damn. That Slick50 is some good shit, ya know?" HA!

That van ran for another 3 years too- but it always smoked a little on startup after that. Unbelievable, but true!
 
A friend of mine used expensive ARP stretch bolts to reattach the flywheel on his C5 vette. He had just loaded a hot cam and some other mods and was swapping out the clutch/flywheel to handle the increased power. Torque tube and everything else goes back in and he's having a blast for a few hundred miles.
The problem:
OEM bolts come with a threadlock/sealant stuff on the threads but anyone that has used ARP stretch flywheel bolts knows you have to coat them yourself in almost all cases otherwise the engine oil will slowly pass through the threads and then leak onto your clutch/flywheel interface. Fortunately for him, nothing major broke but he had to drop the torque tube again and replace the flywheel/clutch one more time.

The horror stories he told me of working on his C5 and later C6 vettes were part of the reason I decided to bail on my C6 Z06 before anything starting GM'ing.
 
Rubberdown said:
So that troll guy made me think of all the stupid stuff I have seen people do to their cars. So what's the worst you have seen or heard of someone doing, or done yourself. I will go first.

Like 10 years ago, my buddy asked me to help him change his oil in his old diesel suburban. I drained it all, realized he was short of oil to refill it, and went to the store to buy some in my car. I come back, and dump the rest of the oil in the engine. He walks over while I'm doing this and says why are you putting oil in the radiator dummy. I said... I'm not. Long story short, he "checked the coolant" while I was gone and filled his motor with antifreeze and water. I pulled the drain plug and water was coming out for a good couple of minutes. After I drained it all and changed the oil again, everything worked perfect but that staggered my mind, and thank god he walked over to tell me how dumb I was.
Click to expand...

I made my own blind spot monitoring system. Sorry guys. I could not resist...
 
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