What happened when the car outsmarted you?

[none]

I can’t remember who said it, but the quote goes like this: “You must learn from the mistakes of others. You’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself.” I want to hear about your dumb mistakes you made while you were diagnosing that one car that one time that really embarassed you, but you learned a good lesson and you can laugh about it now. Or that wierd circumstance that turned a simple diag into an all day headache. (Mistakes in Mitchell wiring diagrams already comes to mind.) Or even those moments you know you did it right but it went wrong and the car won. Better yet, you diagnosed a symptom to find out it was a normal condition for the car. That just happened to me a couple days ago.

An 02 Subaru Impreza came in with a dead battery that was replaced by another tech. He noticed that the running lights wouldn’t turn off so he suggested some diag time figuring the running lights caused the dead battery. I stepped in and came to the conclusion that the combo switch was shorted internally. The wiring diagram showed me a double pole, double throw switch inside the combo switch, so I assumed one half of the configuration was for control by a module and the other side is for you to command. I plugged the new switch in and the running lights were still stuck on. So I paid more attention to this button:

I gave that button no thought beforehand because I didn’t even see it until I pulled the column cover. Then, I paid no attention to it because I thought it was the hazard switch. But now I’m out of ideas and I still have this problem. Then I notice the icon on the button and I decide to push. The lights go out and I’m loading the shop with fresh F-bombs.

This made no sense considering the combo switch still has its own throw for the running lights. So there are two switches for the running lights and they’re essentially around the corner from each other on the column. What I learned is that the difference between the two is the dash lights. The button on top won’t turn on the dash lights where the switch on the side will. AND, you don’t get a dimmer switch for your dash lights. That was the whole point of putting a parking light switch so close to another parking light switch. To kill your battery without leaving the dash lights on.

There is more to this story and I’ll edit the post after some sleep. In the meantime, enjoy this and ponder on & share your own moments of derp.

Another quick example before I do crash; I took all the lug nuts off a wheel once while still having the full weight of the car on the wheel. I was on a drive on hoist at the time & I was just about to yank the wheel off when I realized what I did. Its fun not hurting or killing yourself with your own stupidity. 😀

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[Mike]

I was recounting this story at work just today. I love telling stories of my botch jobs. If this thread keeps going I might share a real doozy I had putting a short block in a 07 Outlander a couple years ago.

The first time I had built a engine was on my VW, with a ported head, hot cam, etc. It didn’t start and I was nervous and had no mentor, no guidance, YouTube and internet help didn’t exist yet, I just had to try and figure it out. While cranking it would randomly seem like the engine was harder to turn and went cranked slower for a second, sometimes making a popping noise. I spent at least a day troubleshooting and was having no luck.

I finally got impatient and got some starting fluid to try since I was “sure everything was good”. So I pull off the brake booster hose and start going to town while cranking and it starts shooting blue fire out of the huge nipple I’m spraying into, the cranking speed gets super erratic, and even seems like it might run. So I keep going with it until I hear this noise like hitting a cast iron toilet bowl with 18 pound sledge hammer, and my friend and I look at each other like “holy shit”.

So I decide it’s time to step back and start the whole diag process over assessing fuel/spark/timing/compression all from scratch and hope I didn’t kill anything. Turns out the plug wires were on 1-4-3-2 instead of 1-3-4-2. I had completely ignored them the first time around because I REMEMBERD that I had looked in the book at firing order as I was putting them on so I was SURE that wasn’t the problem. Put them on right and it started right up and has been purring ever since, except for a blown headgasket 7 years later in ’09 that was fixed real quick and easy.

I actually found this picture of the built head from that job back in ’02 when this happened. You can see my first “shop” (my friend’s parents’ garage) in the background. That’s my mom’s dremel tool I had borrowed to unshroud the valve seats.

[Nik]

When I was in my internship my mentor had a civic towed in for a no start. We went through all the diag, we had spark, fuel, air, compression. why wouldn’t it run? we spent hours go through every bit of wiring diagrams and flow charts. Finally one of the parts guys joked that maybe the cat was clogged. Pulled out the o2 sensor and it fired right up.

[Bluesnut]

The stupidest thing I’ve ever done involved going out of state to pick up a car and tow it back home. The car was facing up in a very steep parking lot and had an automatic transmission. I hooked up the towbar, set the park brake, made sure the trans was in PARK, popped the halfshafts out, and took a quick break as it was over a 100 degrees with 80% humidity and I was soaked in sweat.

After cooling off a bit and in a hurry to get on the road I went back out, leaned in the window, and released the park brake. It’s worth mentioning that the halfshafts were in the trunk where I had placed them……….

The car sailed backwards quickly (running over my foot in the process) with me unable to hold it and careened down across the street (going behind a passing car) where it hit a bump, started turning, and took out a brick encased mailbox.

The owner of the home with the flattened mailbox wasn’t upset. He said that box had been hit 3 or 4 times in the past when cars popped out of park or the park brakes gave up and came zinging back at a pretty fast pace.

Still, bonehead move by me and embarassing as all hxxx to me because I flat know better.
The dangers of getting in a hurry and luckily no one was hurt. The pride took a hit….

[James O’Hara]

First week on the job they had me with a know it all hammer mechanic as my mentor. I was fresh out of manufacturer training so of course what do they do throw me in the deep end with a lead anchor. So we are putting injectors in this 13L engine, running the head (adjusting valves and Jake brakes), replacing a high pressure fuel pump and replacing a high pressure and low pressure turbos.

So we are going along I am moving pretty quick for being just out of school and I am asking questions and getting answers that don’t make a lot of sense coming back to me but, I was told school and the real world are two different animals.

We are removing the valve cover and one of the bolts falls down and into the fan shroud. So I get my magnet and i am literally 4 inches away from pick it up with the magnet when he stops me and tells me its fine you can’t break these things leave it there. So I do after some back and forth over it. Then we are pulling the injectors and some brilliant engineer decided to put curved washers for hold downs for the injectors well one falls. Me and 4 other people spent 30 mins each and could not find it and figured it went down one of the large oil returns to the pan which is a straight shot. I checked every injector hole with a magnet twice and so did another mechanic. He said well lets just put it back together and we don’t need that washer it will be fine. So back together the entire thing goes. Now mind you fuel rail pressure in these things is approx 30,000psi.

For the next week the truck would not start. Literally everyone in the shop but, 3 people worked on it. One was a lube tech and the other two were old school brought up mechanics. So during that time 3 hp fuel pumps had been put on it. One of which was off and on twice. It was not priming right. and when you did get it primed it would kick over and would not start. So one of the old school techs comes over removes all the injectors and sticks them back in with grease and pulls them back out again. And there on the number 3 injector is this perfectly sized little washer that was held in by the small amount of oil down the injector hole and was just the right size to be perfectly centered and have the tip fit just so in it.

Then they fire it up and remember that bolt yeah well it high fived the radiator, slapped the fan, and cut a coolant hose on its way out to the roof and landing next to a parts washer. So new radiator, fan, fan shroud, fan hub, and coolant line.

I talked to my boss got put with another mentor mechanic and then 6 months later he got fired. That little washer sits in my toolbox 2 years later to remind me to always find what I drop.

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