Jay Leno explained one of his boo-boos on a Tonight Show appearance, early 90’s. He had retrofitted a Ford Cobra (sort of a race car) with a whole-car fire extinguisher system. The idea is the driver presses the button, and the whole car gets sprayed from the inside, quickly putting out the car fire. He accidentally activated this system while driving the Cobra in stop and go commuter traffic on an LA freeway … car filled up to his neck with extinguisher foam, then stalled … lol …
I have nothing like that to report, but I did accidentally drop & lose one of the CV joint ball bearings during a half-shaft re-lube job, and it took me several hours of crawling around on the floor to find it.
Thought of another, my coworker had a + ground older British car that he had equipped with a modern negative-ground stereo. When he went over a bump the stereo case would short out to the car’s chassis and the engine would stall … lol .
So not a vehicle, but a new to me used motor and boat. 2 cycle motors before, first 4 stroke. Most small engines I have dealt with, fill it up with oil until you can see it in the fill hole. So I had to add 4 quarts of oil to get the level up to the fill opening as the motor was blowing white smoke, and first thought low oil.
So went to the boat guy to get some more oil as a backup. Damn he says, the engine has a dipstick, and if you put that much oil in and run it you are toast.
So I check the dipstick, frikking overfilled! I drained the excess out, just sayng even guys who have been working on engines since the 70’s can make stupid mistakes. Motor turned out fine.
Back when I had my own place, I was probably the only shop around that still had the old free air and water station. One day a Bonneville with the 3800 engine (looks like this):
drives up, steaming from the hood like it’s overheating.
The driver opens the hood, removes the cap that says ENGINE OIL, grabs the water hose, and fills it until water is running out of the valve cover. The guy then tries to start his car. Apparently it made a loud clunk sound. I think he immediately realized what happened.
I forget what the bill was to clear that “flooded” engine but it was an expensive mistake.
When I got my first car, I decided to wax it, but I somehow didn’t catch that you should do that in sections in the shade, so I covered the whole car with wax in the sun in a hot parking lot. As you can imagine, trying to buff off all of that hardened wax by hand was a very painful learning experience!
Not exactly a car story… but many moons ago I worked in a boat/ATV/motorcycle shop. One day a young man came in, pretty young girlfriend with him, and paid cash for a brand new Kawasaki 250 Ninja motorcycle. The salesman took the motorcycle around to the shop for prep, and afterwards the young man fired up the bike. As he pulled way from the shop, almost immediately he dropped the bike on its side, badly scraping and damaging the brand new motorcycle while everyone was watching. As it turns out…the young man had never ridden a motorcycle in his life.
He had the gall to ask the owner if he could have his money back. “No” was all the owner said.
lol … the Patagonia fellow (2nd vdo above) was definitely diligent trying to figure out where the gasoline goes, but even his scientific approach to the problem was a no-go. I’m thinking these folks have a daily job for an auto-rental or car dealership, which involves providing an occasional a fill-up, and just didn’t realize the particular car didn’t require any. These vdos make it pretty clear that diesel and gasoline could get confused too. There’s no way apparently for auto manufacturers and service stations to make refueling fool-proof.
When I was in my 20"s me and my friend use to go fishing on the beach on Long Island 4-5 times a week with our 4x4’s. One weekend while on the beach a truck pulls up and parks away from the water then the driver hops in another truck and leaves. Well, what he did not know is that where he parked turned into a cove at high tide with about 2 1/2 feet of water. about 4 hours later he comes back to see his new truck in the water. After about 10 minutes of watching him freak out we decided to be nice and pull him out with our trucks.
My dumb mistake,
When I was 17, I just got done doing an oil change in the driveway on my 72 RS/SS Camaro. I started it up to make sure nothing was dripping. everything looked fine. I left it running to put something in the garage. walking back everything still looked ok, until it didn’t. All of a sudden fresh oil starts coming out the bottom of my car. I never ran so fast to shut it off. It seems I forgot to check if the old oil filter gasket came off with the old filter. I never made that mistake again.
That would be an easy thing not to notice. There’s so many ways a seemingly simple oil & filter change can go wrong, it’s pretty amazing there are any working older cars still on the road … lol …
When our pastor retired several years ago his wife went up on stage and released a few of the skeletons in his closet. One day she came home to “glad you’re home, i need your truck” when asked why he said he needed to get his 2wd S10 out of the woods. Why was his truck in the woods? He was attempting to pull the tractor out. As far as we know they got the tractor and the truck out without further incident but it was all part of her “marry a pastor they said, it will be fun they said”
Oh I’m sure there have been some but gonna have to think about it. I had over hauled the alternator maybe a week before. It was about 20 below out and the battery was dead at the grocery store. So I went and just bought a new battery. Fingers numb putting it in at the store lot. Then I discovered it hadn’t plugged the alternator in. All set for winter anyway.
In high school I was on a date and had our 61 merc. Yeah it was winter and freezing cold. Driving around, Tom started to follow me and my girl friend, so I tried to lose him which was hard. I finally drove behind a building with a u shaped drive but an incline on both ends. The ice made it impossible to get up the hill. Finally we had to leave the car and walk the mile or two downtown to the teen hangout to get help from Tom. His 58 Pontiac with positraction got us pulled up the hill with no problem. It was a cold walk and a little embarrassing.
None of these are very good but I was home from school for the weekend and put new points in my 59 vw. It wouldn’t start. Finally dad called his friend that worked on cars and he came by. I showed him what I did and took about two minutes to discover I got the insulating washer in the wrong place on the distributor so it was grounding out. Started right up.
Changed plugs on my 59 Pontiac in the street outside the room I rented at school. Got them all out but could only get 7 back in due to the generator support. No way. It was very loud driving a couple blocks to the gas station to get chip to put the last one in. That’s when I devised the hose with a stiff wire inside to guide the plug in.
Yeah and when I took my bucket seats out to do a thorough job shampooing the carpet. Wouldn’t start. Had to tow it to the shop and they found a missing fuse. Don’t know how. I told them I felt kinda dumb about it and he said don’t, it took their best guy two hours to find it.
Or when I spliced in a new injector wire . . . Oh never mind.
I dunno, but under the heading of be kind to your teenager, my son had the use of one of my rivieras. I found out years later that he had somehow put it in the ditch. Got a farmer to pull them out. I guess I did notice a little grass underneath but didn’t think much of it. Glad no one got hurt anyway and he didn’t remember if he paid the farmer or not.
I thought of another one. Happened many years ago. My high school friend had been partying a little too much, on way home he decided he had too many drinks, so he better stop driving. Not knowing what to do with his car, worried it would be towed if he just left it, he decided the best course was to park it in an illegal parking zone, walk home, then call the police, claiming the car had been stolen. His theory was since car was stolen, he wouldn’t be charged for parking illegally, towing, etc. Or his insurance company would pay the fees. The police figured it out, charged him w/insurance fraud… lol … .
I can’t guarantee that this tale is genuine, as it was told to me, and was not something that I witnessed or that I did:
Back in the days before “permanent” antifreeze, a guy who was short on cash decided that he would defer the purchase of antifreeze for a day or so, and instead on the first freezing night, he drained the water from his radiator–but of course a quantity of water remained in the engine.
The next morning when he wanted to drive, he poured boiling water into the radiator and then started the engine. I think you can guess what (allegedly) happened.
My dad told a similar story. Teenager, his Ford Model T’s radiator had to be drained every night. Proper antifreeze was available, but was too expensive to purchase, budget-wise, b/c of the effects of the economic depression. Getting tired of this drain and refill routine, he decided to try filling the T’s cooling system w/salt water … … oops … lol …
This one I’ve posted about previously but it bears repeating… I’ll highlight it here and include the link to whole story…
A young sergeant (not me…) in the Air Force was moving to another base and performing a Do-It-Yourself (DITY) Move where the Air force will pay you to move your own household goods. He did not have much to ship so he decided to pump up the weight to increase the pay out by putting his car into the back of the moving truck. It did not go well and the car only got part way in and the tail end was stuck sticking out the back of the truck… It did not go well for him…
L . . .
