Most dumb thing / worst thing youve done to a car

[jetshin]

After wiring in an apexi rsm into the ECU I wondered why the engine check light was coming on, apon further investigation I found i forgot to plug one of the cluster of wires back into the ECU

[kim0663]

um at 9pm, wanting to take my newly built mr2 for a test drive, the angle grided exhaust had to be patched up. because this was so noisy @ 9pm, i cellotaped it up real good. Then thought, "hey this is going to melt in like 5 minutes !" then i got smart and went and found some masking tape. Got LOTS and LOTS of A4 paper thinking "well paper won't melt no doubt..."

Wrapped the a4 paper around the previously cellotaped exhaust pipes. masking taped up the whole thing until piping was twice the diameter of original.

Drove it for a while, 5 minutes? car got warm and no sign of problems from rear.

Hey this is actually working! (car is quiet)

Took the car into auckland City CBD to pick up gf.

In the middle of queen street, i smell things burning and pieces of flaming paper flying around everywhere.

I realized that paper does NOT melt... but burns

[Mr Revhead]

oh to be watching that

[try_hard]

i have another one. not me but a friend just brought a 94 trueno. she come to show me and was asking how come it wasnt loud. after explaning its got a muffler at the end and thats the way the apexi exsaust was designed for performance not sound. a couple of days later we were driving and i noticed i was louder and i asked what she had done.
well she explained how her friend told her to put a hole in the muffler and take off the pod filter. so that what she done and has been driving it around like that for afew months

how long untill sensors pack up?

[Mr. Mainstream]

straight up and down forgot to drain gearbox fluid in bf swap

[pjay]

Started an oil change. Well jacked the car up, drained the sump and took the old filter off..

Then realized i didn't even have a new filter..

....duh, had to skate up to repco. Lucky i lived close(ish)

[EVL20V]

Wired up a vtec light once, didn't seem to work, got a massive electric shock trying to start the car. Scrapped that idea

Had a full no muffler exhaust system, needed earmuffs to drive it

[The_Sorrow]

Was doing a service on a customers car on work experience.
Starting it up after filling it up with new oil, I wondered why it wasn't getting oil pressure after bout 5 secs. Switched it off and had a look in the engine bay. Noticed a big pool oil spreading under the car.

Then realised I'd kinda forgot to put the new oil filter on

[fxgt race]

after parking on a the parents steep driveway facing foward it was time to put a new fuel filter in the puslar gtir, after undoing the bolt on the bottom gravity took over and the tank was rather quickly emptying itself, unable to move the car i just had to get it back in with a petrol slick, I thought not to bad but as i reversed out the bumper caught on the drive and pulled the drivers side clean off, now it was getting dark and the bumper was at 45 degrees to the car, got out the trouble lamp and set to work at putting it back on, had to drill a hole to fix the inner gaurd on and i drilled thought the washer bottle hose which leaked water on to the trouble lamp and the bulb exploded everywere. Very dark now.

[ke25sr]

Not I but a mate decided his FC RX7 needed more boost. he installed a electronic boost controller. you know flick a switch and weeeeee.

Any way he then offered to take me fo a ride to compare it to my other mates FC RX7. High cliffe Rd (dunedinights will know this road).
He flicked the switch mid corner with foot hard up it just into 3rd doing over 140k's



flipped end over end hit a tree upside down about 1.5 meters up and walked away. I felt stupid.

[gttNICK]

Overtightened the sump bung following oil change and broke the thread. Had to remove the whole sump the following oil change...

[Adoom]

i once purchased an oil pressure gauge with a plastic hose... i won't be doing that agin...

Ditto. And the copper one is just as bad

[abnrml]

Bought a second hand engine dampner that fitted between the driverside of the strut brace to the intake manifold, where the bracket for the throttle cable was....when fastening the intake end, I did note to myself that the bolts may not be long enough to hold down both the throttle cable bracket and dampner...but as i didn't have any longer ones on me, I convinced myself it would be sweet and it was, for a couple of weeks. Then oneday was driving along, bolts vibrated loose and weight of the throttle brackets cranked the throttle open! Quickly shut the engine off, but had to embarassingly roll along until I had a clear spot to pull over

[Adoom]

Used two sissor jacks to hold the back of THE STARVIA up and didnt chock the front wheels. I was sitting next to the axle removing one of the rear trailing arms. THE STARVIA fell in slow motion and placed the rear drum gently onto my foot. I tried to stop it falling before getting out of the way.(Bad idea)It was fkn heavy. I was wearing steel caps but because I was sitting my foot was on its side. I limped for like a week.
I threw those jacks away and bought a big as 3ton trolley jack

[Adoom]

Dropped the turbo on its compressor wheel while rotating the housings.

[d1 mule]

just remembered, i cut up a de reg MZ11 soarer into 5 pieces to take it to the scrappies on a th back of a B1600 ute, shit it looked funny lol

[quick6]

I have done a few things. Most costly being spending $800 on a gearbox rebuild (plus $1000 for the donor vehicle) prior to a manual conversion (do it once do it right.....lol), spent 2 days completing said conversion then fired up and drove the car with no gearbox oil.
On a different job I was sitting in the pit admiring the little pictures on the back of my new clutch plate, you know the ones showing how to handle the item correctly? While I was chuckling at the pics the clutch plate dropped out the bottom of the box and onto the concrete floor, cracking the friction surface.
Then there was the time I put a scissor jack under the x-member of one of my cars and took both front wheels off. I will say no more on that one.
Assuring myself that the temperature gauge was wrong in my old Supra turned out to be another fairly costly mistake. Hot does in fact mean hot, and when it starts to drop after such an event it's because there is no water left......BHG due to split radiator hose.
Firing up a 24 valve quad over head cam v6 after 6 months of inactivity with no priming of the oil system was another very bad (read costly) call, what a noise......
I could go on all night, but that list is embarrassing enough for now.

[johndoe1025]

Dash lights stopped working after cleaning my interior, so checked all fuses, took dash cluster out, checked bulbs, checked connections etc etc....Put it back together and still didnt work!

Went and had a bite to eat.....came back and turned up the Dash light dimmer switch.


DUH!

Not as bad as when I was freaking out wonderin why my windows wont go up... spent a few hours ringin people and sh*t.
Turned out the window lock was on!! hahahaah

We had a blonde chick bring her car in for repair for that EXACT same problem ahhahahahhahaha. so your not alone, at least you didnt take it to a "specialist repairer" to solve the prob

[Eddy1612]

i used to move one of mr2s around my property with duct tape over the BOV hole and it never caused a problem.
Then one day i really needed to go into town (i live in the country) i thought, it's only a ten minute drive ill be sweet with the tape over the hole...
hmm drove about 7 mins until the duct tape stickyness heated up and disintegrated and my engine cut out.

Yea that may not seem that bad but 7 mins at 100kmhr turned out to be a 2hr walk home and it was mid summer so it sucked big time.

[kim0663]

another epic stupidness from me..

Doing an oil change on my car. Forgets to plug back sump plug.

Poured and poured Mobil1 5w50 ($$$$$$$$$$$). CHeck the dipstick, not a drop on it. so i poured some more in and soon i realised that the groud seems slippery and stopped and went to repco for another can of oil....

That particular oil change costed me like.... $180