Quora: craziest discovery as a car mechanic

[kevm14]

https://www.quora.com/As-a-car-mechanic ... automobile

These are pretty good.

Here's one:

I loved reading everyone’s answers here, and there’s some great stuff! Some of it’s absolutely freaky. I mean, I’ve never found a dead body (human) or drugs or arms. I think the stuff that absolutely shocks me is what DIYers and mechanics do to vehicles. Here are a few gems:

•Headlights held in with bungee cords or no headlights at all. Two Coleman 12 V hand lanterns wired into the system and bungee corded to the bumper.

•Duct tape and zip ties, everywhere, LOL.

•A cat litter box under the seat of a Toyota Previa, which I had to remove to move the seat to do an oil change. That’s what I get for working at a Toyota dealer near Woodstock.

•Someone installed the compressor bolts in the wrong location, putting the longer bolts in the shorter holes. No problem, just ram them home with the air ratchet. The resulting oil leak required replacement of the oil pump housing (the entire timing chain cover). Lexus 3.5

•Hoarder cars, which I’ve refused to work on. “Please clean out your car before bringing it back, sir.”

•Ignorant drivers. Lady comes in the winter, “My wipers are scratching the windshield.” Brand new Avalon in the winter, so there’s tons of road grime and you can’t see a THING out the front window. I go out, *squirt* *wipe* nice clean windshield, no scratches. “How did you do that?!” she exclaims. RTFM.

•Lexus IS 300, the one with the i6 in it. Guy comes in with a burnt-out clutch and oil burning, just 22,000 miles on the clock. Never changed the oil and drives like he’s rally racing. New engine, new clutch, not covered by warranty. Great engine, but you have to change your oil regularly!

•Dodge RAM 1500 comes in with the wildest jet-engine sound when braking. Found that a front inner brake pad was installed backwards, metal side to the rotor, and it had completely stripped the inner rotor down to the vents. Totally unsafe, but a very cool braking sound!

•Toyota 3.0 had a timing correlation DTC, hard starting and rough running, horrible acceleration. Found timing belt had shifted, which isn’t uncommon, but the reason was hilarious. Seems that whoever did the water pump last didn’t bother removing or at least loosening the top inner timing cover to make space to remove the pump. Instead, they used a cutoff wheel to “trim” off the bottom of the cover. Nice space for a mouse to find his way into the timing belt area. I found a VERY flat mouse sitting on top of the idler pulley, where he was resting after jumping the cam timing.

I’m sure there are others that I’ve forgotten over a decade of working on cars, but I had to save the best for last, one of my own screw-ups.

My first Lexus job was at an independent specialty shop in 2002. I recall a white 1994 Lexus LS 400, and this is burned in my memory for all time, one of my first jobs at that shop. The car came in with air conditioning problems, and I found that the seals in the compressor had blown. I installed a reman unit, which seized up immediately and destroyed the drive belt. So, we replaced the reman unit and put on a new belt. The second reman unit was also defective, and it destroyed its own clutch. Figuring three times’ a charm, I installed a third reman unit and a new clutch. The new clutch came with a 6P pulley, but the vehicle only runs a 5P serpentine belt, so I put a red paint mark on the unused outer slot of the pulley. Everything was good, system running great and ice cold. I had to use a few zip-ties to get the fan shroud back together, because it was old and brittle - the customer didn’t want to replace it at the time.

Fast forward five years, and I’d been working at a Lexus dealer in the same area for a few years, and in comes a white 1994 Lexus LS 400 for an oil change and a squeaky belt. I open the hood and see zip-ties and a 6P aftermarket pulley on the compressor, and I’m thinking to myself “OMG this is going to turn into a total disaster. Who the hell did this?” After installing a new serpentine belt and tensioner and a new fan shroud, putting everything back in order, I noticed the red paint mark on the 6P pulley. It suddenly occurred to me “It was ME!” I exclaimed to my service manager. We both thought it was hilarious, because I was bad-mouthing MYSELF for an hour regarding the subject. I got to talk to the owner again, and we got a customer for life.

Moral of the Story: Don’t badmouth another tech or DIYer. You rarely know the whole story. Plus, we all make mistakes!

[kevm14]

Another:

The craziest thing I've ever found on a car in the shop has always been one thing. A loose nut behind the wheel. (You'll laugh once you get it)

I could fix just about anything on a vehicle, but as a prominent comedian once said, "you can't fix stupid."

I got an E63 AMG with no brakes, off a tow truck. Once I went to the car on the lot I found a destroyed spare on the right rear, fire damage to the suspension, and brake fluid leaking all over the ground. Once we pushed it in the shop I got a better picture of what and whom I was dealing with.

The original tire had gone flat and the client drove it until the tread separated and the rim came apart, so already off to a brilliant start. Then they put the spare on and continued driving. Here's the catch. They have a space saver spare, and to get it out they had to remove the bright blue air pump on the hold down, then mount the significantly smaller wheel on the car with bright yellow warning labels all over to inflate before driving. And no, they didn't inflate it.

Now it gets fun. The smaller circumference wheel , due to the uninflated tire, has to turn faster to go the same speed as the others. This is recognized by the traction control as if the wheel were spinning, so it applies the brakes to control that wheel and backs off the throttle, all the while flashing a bright yellow warning on the instrument cluster and warning text, and on sustained application, rolling up windows and moving the passenger seat to prepare for imminent impact. But.... if you continue to stand on the throttle of a 500hp beast mode engine and disregard every warning and angry noise the car is throwing at you, it will keep going with the brake engaged.

In the end, the brake caught fire so significantly that the rotor shattered and embedded pieces in the spare rim, all of the bushings to the knuckle for the multilink rear end were burnt out, the wheel bearing seals and grease were burnt off, the parking brake cable housing melted, the electronics for the rear strut melted as well as the harness to the brake wear sensor, the fender liner caught fire, and the brake line burnt off.

A simple flat tire turned into a $12k+ repair, and on top of that, the other three remaining tires were so worn they each had about 4 inch width of steel belt showing and the customer declined to replace them.

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Before and after... you're welcome!

Edit: Wow, thanks for all the up votes and shares!

It's great this little moment could bring smiles to the faces of so many, and facepalm moments to so many more!

So here's a bonus bit for all those late to the party.

I worked in a dealership shop for 12 years before seeing anything like this. But this wasn't the first time. This same thing was done to an E55, quite literally, the week before and I never thought I'd see anything like it again. It was absolute dumb luck to get this repair on my lift again ever. Two weeks in a row called for pictures to prove it!

And yes, it was a different owner.