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.

[none]

Just before the new year, I had an 01 Impala come in with soft swollen hoses and a healthy chunk of what used to be oil just under the radiator cap. I sold all the hoses, a cooling system flush, and the reliable 3.1/3.4 intake gaskets. I had that top end stripped down in an hour and 15 and just about ready to put back together…starting the next morning. The next day, I’m putting everything back together and I get here:

Aha! That’s where the tensioner goes! I go over to my organized pile of parts to get my tensioner and, well…where the fuck did I put that? I’m always careful, I always put my parts in an organized pile. No, I’m all day stupid and I might have taken it for a walk and I’m fully capable of leaving anything anywhere it shouldn’t be. I walked around the shop for a good 45 minutes trying to retrace my steps from the day before. I lifted the car to see if I dropped it somewhere obscure or silly in the engine bay whilst I’m appropriately heckled by the coworkers. I looked up from under the car one more time to notice that this is probably not the idler pulley I thought it was the last time I looked right at it:

That was down about eight inches and to the right from where that other provision is for a belt tensioner. If you ever feel like you want to hide something from me, just put it in plain sight.

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[turo]

When I 1st became a journeyman..like literally fresh out of Nissan school just got my raise all certified and shit.. And so I go and grab my 1st job out of the box for the techs. A brand new 2014 Nissan Nv 1500 . truck has 300 miles on it.came in for a check engine light and lack of power at freeway speeds.Check the codes find a crank sensor code p0335 . so I did the basic checks and say f-it and put a crank sensor in it ,roadtested ok and send it on its way…comes back a few days later with the same code along with a p0300 and a p0101 . also now the customer is complaining about a lack of power at all speeds but symptom is intermittent. Now I’m a bit worried and I go through all the checks.. I got fuel pressure gauge hooked up, consult(Nissan scan tool) going checking signals, I got the oscilloscope hooked up to the crank sensor at the ecm. And everything looked good for hours..then as I was getting ready to call the customer for more info the car started acting up..shaking violently.. I mean this thing was misfiring like crazy.. All in all it ended up collapsing the 2 front cats and plugging up the rears during the diag.replaced the cats. Further diag I noticed I would loose signal from my crank sensor when the truck would act up..the sensor would flatline for no reason..I thought maybe I got a bad sensor..I consulted with the other techs and they agreeded possibly a bad sensor… Replaced it again and roadtested overnight.. Truck was fine and shipped it… Came back 2 days later…now we are in buyback territory.. Same p0335 code..wasted no time I called Techline… I told them everything I did..the pin fits the voltage drops at the ecm the harness inspection the multiple cranksensors the cat incident the swapping of maf sensors.. At the end of it they came down to 2 things… They told me..replace the flexplate…and if that don’t fix it we will be doing a harness and ecm together…I put the flexplate in it…I drove that damn van home for 4 days because I was so paranoid haha..sure enough the code never came back…I still see the van come in for oil changes once in a while and it always reminds me how that van made me its bitch hahah I’ll never forget that one

[Andrew Button]

an aftermarket tach in an old beetle, the tach wire (coil -) was run under a passenger seat anchor. Car ran great till somebody sat in the passenger seat, then it would kill it dead. Had to give a fat passenger named Bruce a ride to get supplies and he had to sit in the BACK of this old Beetle because, and thought it really funny at first, but I even showed him, got out the car to prove it, he probably still remembers that. He thought it was rather HERBIE like.

[Author]

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