Dumbest mistake you've made to your vehicle?

Haha it's nick. If you ever meet him you would understand.

 

pregnant or not...its always a fight!!!

 

He beat me to it
VV

see below

No offense Nick you do post some pretty dumb stuff in the AZ thread though

 

1. changed the oil on my (then) girlfriends car. the gasket on the filter stuck to the filter mount thus doubling up filter gaskets. sprayed oil all over my dads driveway.

2. jacked up my old Honda CR-V, the jack didn't touch on the jack point (not paying attention) and put a nice hole in the floorboard.

 

At 16, I had a 2007 Black Sand Pearl Access Cab MT. I miss it now.

There was an older girl I really liked and we would go eat before/after tennis practice and when she was in the truck, I did everything but stall and die. I even sat at a blinking red light full of cars waiting for it to turn green, but for this thread, I turned the truck off at Sonic (sloped driveways) and somehow tried to leave without turning the truck on. Rolled into the lane and had to yank the E-brake, jerking her and her food, so we wouldn't hit anything. In hindsight, she was very patient

 

Trying to rush and install my AAL in my truck... No wheel blocks.. But I had it in gear and parking brake on. Had just the one side of the rear on a jack stand. Completely frustrated with my leaf pack and the cable that was in my way (parking brake), I pop the pin on the cable to get it out of my way like a complete moron... massive brain fart.

Even though the truck was in gear, there was enough slop and the truck rolled forward just enough to fall off the jack stand. The hub (since my wheel was off) came down 1/4" next to my leg. Bout shit my pants. No damage to the truck, but that sure would have hurt. Got lucky with that one.

 

Left my old Jeep in neutral, ran into the shop to get something, came back out and the Jeep had rolled across the driveway and slammed into the back of my Dad's 76 GMC pickup, no damage to either vehicle thankfully. Always use that e-brake if you leave a manual rig unattended while running!

 

Running out of gas in the yoto like six times because my fuel gauge doesn't work. I wonder if that's why my fuel pump went out...

 

Back in 1986, just purchased a 1978 Gold Special Edition Trans Am 400-4 speed. Was having fun power-shifting. Turned a corner, out on to the main road, 1-2 shift OK, 2-3 shift, BOOM! Damn, now the car won't come out of gear. A few dollars later, the clutch was found in a bunch of pieces mushed up against and partially ground into the flywheel. Tried to give it to the shop as a "core". Hysterical laughter...

Lesson learned.

 

9 quarts of motor oil and zero quarts of tranny fluid.


Nuff said.

 

Don't rely on the e-brake. Keep the vehicle in gear.

 

Kinda sounds like KrazieSJ

 

Only hand-tightened the 2 bolts that hold one of the front brake calipers on. Was out driving to lunch the next day when the 2nd one fell out, and I figured it out trying to stop at a major intersection and.... well, let's just stay I'm still here typing.

 

I did the exact same thing last month, I discovered it while one was still hanging on, heard the rattling. Lucky save

 

Just recently I got in too big of a hurry to change a front left flat on my wife's Camry beside the road. Forgot to verify parking brakes and it rolled off the jack. Could have been a lot worse but luckily it was softer ground. So a very nice local cop helped me dig a trench to get a second jack under it.

 

When I was 17 I was giving a buddy a jump. Forgot to latch the hood completely.The next morning I got on the road and when I reached about 60mph the hood came up and back into the windshield breaking the hood hinges and the window.

 

Good one. One of my kids dropped a dime into the horn mechanism playing vending machine. Thing suddenly started blowing, but only intermittantly, every few minutes going down the road until I got around to taking it apart, where I discovered the culprit.

 

Did you kick it down fast and furious style and keep driving like a bad dude?

 

1. In high school a friend of mine had a Mustang and wanted some of the street-racer glowing pedals. We wired them up at his dad's shop and in the course of doing the wiring I ran across a small gauge wire that wasn't connected to anything. I asked my friend and he said "oh those are from the neons. It's disconnected." The car had neons when he bought it but he had removed them. I stuffed the wire under he center console and went back to re-assembling the dash. He got in, started the car up and smoke instantly filled the bay. Turned out the wire was not disconnected and had grounded out, burning all of the insulation off the wire and a hole in his carpet. Fortunately no fire or further damage.

2. Bought a '95 Civic as a commuter car. When I went to look at it, there was a clunking sound coming from the left front tire. I figured it was something minor and told the guy if he knocked $150 off the price I would still take the car. He agrees and our summer intern follows me back to the job site in the Civic. I look up in my rear view mirror and he's not there. About 1 mile from the job site the tire came off. The clunking sound was because the guy hadn't tightened the lug nuts all the way down when he changed the brakes. Put a dent in the fender but the car was already primer black and ugly as sin so I didn't really care. It still got 37 mpg

edit: Pic of ugly Civic that still got 37-42 mpg. My wife hated this thing but it paid for itself it 6 months and I had it for 18 months.


3. Had a buddy come home on R&R from a deployment. He had recently gotten an Avalanche with 20's and low profile tires. He hit a curb and pinched a hole in the sidewall of the tire so we pulled over into a parking lot to change it. Jacked the truck up, crawl underneath it to get the spare while he takes the tire off, he helps me drag spare out and truck rolls back and lays the jack over. I look at my buddy and ask a question I already knew the answer to "did you set the parking brake?" "No." "Well shit." We would have been dead if it had taken us another 10 seconds to get that spare off.

Did that with the previously mentioned Civic.

I hate changing the oil in my wife's Subaru for that very reason. If you don't have everything lined up perfectly there is no making adjustments because it will drain 95% of the oil in the time it takes you to react.

Lol. I guarantee this would be my wife's exact reaction too.