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I wish I could remember my worst mistake! If it was not for the mistakes, I probably would not have learned anything yet.
My worst repair mistake ever was crossthreading a spark plug on a Volvo Station wagon 20 years ago. I used that trick of a 6″ length of fuel line to hold the plug while threading it in by hand, but with the poor access and a slight curve in the hose, I didn’t appreciate the fact the plug was slightly tipped. After one helicoil, and lots of embarrassment, I was back on the road.
Not a big screw up but still one.. I went down to Autozone to get a quart of oil and top off my old truck.I got about half way home and started smelling smoke and thought, that can’t be right I was very careful and didn’t spill any oil. I also was hearing a fluttering / chuffing sound from under the hood.
I pulled over and opened the hood and there was no oil cap to be seen and everything had a fine coating of oil on it. I turned around and went back to Autozone and looked around and couldn’t find it. On a whim I dug through the trash and found it. I had absentmindedly chucked it in the trash when I tossed the oil bottle.
I’d bet the customers thought I was crazy digging through the trash.
Worst repair screw up? I NEVER screw anything up!
OK, just kidding of course. I do have a problem over torquing bolts, even while using a torque wrench. Please tell me I am not the only one that does this.
Case in point – replacing the water pump on my 96 Honda. Over torqued the bolt and broke it. This was not a high torque bolt of course, but I was using the torque wrench just so that would not happen.
Case in point – was replacing a transmission pan on a Jeep Cherokee and I overtorqued one of the 21 bolts holding it in. Found out that with 20 bolts, the tranny fluid still does not leak. Got leaky there.
On occasion, I do leave a wrench or some other tool in the engine bay after finishing a repair.
Yes, I screw things up a lot. Guess that is how we learn though, right?
yea ive left my streamlight under the hood one time …customer never brought it back =(… recently ive left a snap on screwdriver under the hood luckily customer was nice enough to bring it back. Either i need to get a smaller roll cart, something i can just set my tools on or i really need to slow it down and stop rushing.
on another note as a lube tech i had never double gasket a car during L.O.F… 2 months into my technician position a ford mustang pulls up for an oil change, trying to rush and flag some hours i didnt notice that the old oil filter gasket was still on!! Sure enough threw the new filter on put the oil in started her up. There was oil everywhere!! I’ll never do that again hahaha
Hey I can actually contribute to this thread:
1989 Forf Tempo
Had to change my inner tie rod so when everything was set on jacks, I went to go remove the rod and it didn’t budge. Went to a friends house to borrow a bigger wrench, lifted the car higher for more elbow room, and heaved. Tie rod came out grinding. When I looked I realized there was a safety pin or something that went through the diameter of the tie rod which I snapped and caused the pieces that were ripped off to strip the thread as it was coming out. To put on the new rod was a pain and at the end my friend sprayed the tie rod with paint so it would never come out again. Total time was 9 hours. Glad I junked it.
When I was a kid I tried to fix the door on my girlfriends Monte Carlo which was not aligned properly inside the frame… it was drooping.. Anyway, went to the auto parts store and bought new hinges etc. Never considered how heavy that door might be etc. I messed up the outer door skin etc. It was a real mess. That door did get re-hung… but not by me! I don’t think even today I would try that repair.
Well, I will admit my worst mistake.
Shortly after I got my first dealership job, at a ford dealer. I had my first experience with a ford explorer wheel bearing with rear independent suspension.
Replaced the bearing which was a learning process to begin with, was going back over my work to make sure everything was tight. Seemed to be, but had a weird feeling about it, but nothing stood out… Pulled the car around, did an alignment, went for my test drive. I made it about 100ft up the road when suddenly… BOOM, the rear of the truck shifted. I was already to far up the road to turn around so I had to make the 1 mile round trip back, the whole time with a horrific grinding noise. Finally… It hit me what I had done! Or… didn’t do. I had only started the axle nut by hand and had never torqued it down. I somehow made it back to the shop… but it wasn’t pretty. Luckily it only destroyed the new bearing. Never did that again!!!!
I put a Fram oil filter on my car and it ended up exploding right after I started it up. I’ll never buy Fram again.
Also, I screwed up a carb rebuild on a 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang and it shot a big flame right into my face as I was looking down at it and my brother turned on the ignition. That wasn’t fun.
Quoted From ceri_us:
yea ive left my streamlight under the hood one time …customer never brought it back =(… recently ive left a snap on screwdriver under the hood luckily customer was nice enough to bring it back. Either i need to get a smaller roll cart, something i can just set my tools on or i really need to slow it down and stop rushing.
A friend of mine took his Nissan Sentra to a shop for an O2 sensor just before a long trip. The car was rattling the whole trip whenever they hit a bump or accelerated hard. He went back to the shop after the trip, but they told him there was no way they could have done anything to cause the problem. So he was visiting me and told me about it so I had him pull up onto my ramps and I went under to take a look. There was a nice 3D Maglight jammed between the suspension and the engine. It was too beat up to bother returning it– you don’t work in Connecticut do you?
Probably doing 4L60 transmission repairs and forgetting to hook the 2/4 band back onto the anchor pin after fighting to get the input and reverse input housings into the case and all the clutches indexed! Go to take it out on the road and it doesn’t have 2nd or 4th gear. Embarrassed to say but have done it more than once!
trying to install an aftermarket cd player on my first break and lunch break at work, i forgot to unplug the battery and fried the room fuse. i knew i blew a fuse when the stereo didnt have power after installation. i didnt figure out it was the room fuse untill after work was finished, so after working all day, the car wouldnt come out of park no dome light or flash light, it was dark,i finally found the fuse and put a new one in. a little frustrating having to fix your car before you can leave work. i try not to work on cars on lunch breaks now
replaced battery and hooked up the terminals the other way round because some engineer at Opel decided to switch colors. loud bang under the engine.
400 euros alternator + 120 euros battery.
I think one of the worst flubs ive done was when I was younger our van had a transmission leak. It was a Ford Aerostar. I wanted to help my folks out so I added tranny fluid but my mistake was instead of adding it to the transmissions fill dipstick I put it into the the oil dipstick line….
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