Who was the stupidest car owner you ever saw?
 

I saw two of them.

Years ago when I was working weekends at Napa Auto Parts, a guy came in and asked if we had a radiator hose in stock for a Saab. Sure enough we did. The guy said "thank god, I've driven all over town looking for one." Didn't think much of the comment until he came back in and said his car wouldn't start. Out in the parking lot was a nice new Saab with a seized engine complete with cracked block.

Number two was a young college girl changing a flat tire on her BMW. The bumper jack was hooked under the fender next to the front tire. She couldn't get the tire off the car with the jack in the way. I don't know what her problem was, she bent the fender enough there should have been plenty of room to work.

What is the worst you have seen?

Any Corvette owner.......and some Porsche owners.......

I knew a fellow once who oiled his fan belt to stop the squeaking.

Tom W

we had of all things a college professor come in my dads shop one october day and ask us to activate his anti-freeze for winter!

A former coworker owned a VW Golf that had a manual transmission. He took the car to a quick oil change place and upon leaving his clutch began to smoke and deteriorate very rapidly. He limped the car back to the oil change place to find that the 'tech' who 'serviced' the car saw a plastic cap near the transmission. He removed the cap and for whatever reason thought that some sort of fluid must need to go into the opening. The cap was an inspection hole for the clutch........the idiot dumped a bunch of brake fluid in the hole.:knife: It got a bit ugly with the manager, but the guy got a new clutch in the car at the expense of the oil change business. That is enough to keep me out of those places.

Who was the stupidest car owner I ever seen?

Sometimes when I look in the mirror; after breaking something while "repairing" my car.:stupid::dunce:

Me.



When I passed on my Dad's offer of a '68 Galaxy (in '73), in favor of the $250 '68 Toyota with 110K miles, which I sold for $25 6 months (and much aggravation) later. My first car.


More dumbness to follow (too numerous to count), but that's the easiest.

Well, I'm a mechanic so...

This week alone has had:

Cust (1996 C220) "My car is lacking power and not accelerating, it won't kickdown."

Us (after having spent over an hour driving the car on two seperate occasions and observing no problems at all) "Are you pushing the pedal all the way to the floor and engaging the kickdown switch?"

Cust "No"

As well as:

Cust (BMW E36) "My taillights keep going out, the bulbs burn out, or don't work or something. I keep putting bulbs in, but they don't work."

Us (after examining the rear lamps and assemblies) "These are the wrong bulbs"

Cust "Yeah... But they don't when I put them in..."

I'm sure I can come up with better, but that's just this week. And it's been a holiday week. And a slow one at that.

MV

I know a kid who's car wouldn't start due to a bad battery one night, and he told his dad he thought it was out of starting fluid.

Is this a trick question? Can we name more than "just one?"

Helped a guy jump start his BMW one wintry morning. Upon inspection of his battery terminals, I had noticed that about an inch from the negative terminal, the ground strap slowly morphed into duct tape, and then a 24-gauge lamp cord emerged from the other end of the duct tape!!! That end was loosely wrapped around a chassis bolt in the engine compartment.

I noted to the owner that the telltale cooked insulation on the homemade ground lead was an indication that an impending engine fire would result if not dealt with immediately. He actually balked at the $6 quote I gave him for a new ground strap!!!

What a Tard. I get customers like that who will shop around for the best price on wall plates wich cost a whopping .24 cents.

I knew a girl who waxed her new Mustang with <gulp> rubbing compound.

The PO of my VW is a girl, not to be sexest but girls seem to trash cars...;)

Anyway lets see, she ran the drivers side into a building because she sucks at driving, body shop fixed it, ran the passanger side into something, body shop fixed, ran the drivers side into something again, father said I'm done paying for repairs just drive it.:rolleyes:

All 4 wheels are bent/have chunks missing, every time she parked the thing she must have rammed it into a curb.

Maintenance whats that? She just turned the key until that didn't work anymore.

driving not fixing, but just as dumb
 

I was visiting the corporate motherland in Maynard, MA heading to Logan airport during the mid 80's. This was on the Mass Pike when the speed limit was still 55. I'm in the left lane doing 70 trying to catch a flight on Friday afternoon. I see a state trooper coming up behind me - fast. I merge into the center lane, trying not to be noticed. The trooper flies by, probably 85-90 mph.

Right on his bumper is a '70 Buick Electra 225, all 30' of it, tailgating a Trooper at speed limit +30 or better. They were both on the side of the road talking about it 2 miles up the road.

Chuck

You knew this about the car..........and bought it?:vanish:
Hope ya got it at a good price!:)

Chuck,

I have a true story as good.......

A few months ago, one of these cop-wanna-be types, driving a retired unmarked law enforcement vehicle, (you probably see that type of car every day too) observing law enforcement in hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect vehicle on a local Interstate highway, citizen cop-wanna-be decided to join-in the chase WITH law enforcement vehicles.

Was this enough?! NO! He overtook the lead law enforcement vehicle, and took lead position in the car chase! What a friggin' moron!

Fortunately, there was no catostrophy, and the suspect vehicle was stopped by LE. The Barney Fife was taken into custody, and his apartment was searched. --He had tons of security guard garb in his residence, but other than that, he was just trying to help out....... I LMAO when I heard the reports on this incident.

I got a good one.... A few years back I had one of my employees who's actually a fairly good mechanic change the coolant in the company truck. So he's in my shop using my stuff and I tell him to use a jug of antifreeze that's on the floor. Instead of grabbing the antifreeze he grabs a gallon jug of motor oil that looks like an antifreeze bottle. Well... He ended up dumping the whole damn thing in before he realized it wasn't antifreeze! :mad::mad::mad: It took five flushes with degreaser to get all that oil out. :rolleyes:

In a San Francisco parking garage near Chinatown
 

I actually SAW this with my own eyes one evening.


Teen aged female with a brand new Toyota Corolla, so new it still had the temporary license plate in it, sticker in the window.

Car was parked nose forward in a parking slot, next to a large concrete pillar, next to the passenger door.

1. She starts it, puts it into reverse, backs up, turns the wheel to the left, and BAM! crashes the front fender into the pillar ! Puts it in drive, noses forward into the parking slot.

2. Repeats the exact same process again! BAM!!!

3. Repeats the exact same process a THIRD TIME! BAM!!!

4. Gets out of the car, (small crowd has gathered, slack jawed!) sticks out her hand, with keys in them, to the parking attendant who had come over , and says:


" I no can do. Pease, YOU do."


This unfortunate individual presumably had a California driver's license. Presumably it allowed her to drive a car.

In this case it was a teenage Asian female if it mattered, sorry for the stereotype.:eek:


And there are people like this driving cars on the streets of San Francisco.
No wonder so many people are afraid to drive there. I was there yesterday, and as always, was very very careful.

Escort
 

Rusty rolling wreck.
Owner (rough carpenter).
IQ = 60 http://wilderdom.com/intelligence/IQWhatScoresMean.html

He would not repair or replace the driver seat, back was broken.

:eek: I was watching when he fixed it...

He cut some wood to make a T brace to support off the back seat.
He sat in the back seat, put the wood in his lap, nailed it together with three six inch nails.
"Pause" count to five.
Suddenly he started screaming.
It took three of us to pull the wood up off him.
He had nailed it to his leg bone.

A friend of my brother got a expensive repaint for his souped up Pontiac Firebird. While backing out of the paint shop he nailed the gas to show off... Right into a pole taking out the rear corner of the car.

Lets just say that this woman I am very familiar with had an 87 Maxima. She bought it when it had 60k on it and I believe the timing belt had just been changed. Fast forward to 4 years ago and the engine just stopped. I know this because I got a phone call from this woman who was stranded on the side of the road. I found out that the belt had never been changed during the subsequent 200k. The oil was changed every now and then. The shocks were never changed (talk about motion sickness). I guess the fact that it ran for 260k is a testament to the quality of the old Nissan. Needless to say I am now in charge of vehicle car in my house.

I hope she does not read this forum :whip:

You have just IDed my daughter to a fairthewell.
Only substitute a 96 Honda Civic for the Nissan and I just missed the phone call, by taking it in myself and being told it had less than a quart in the crankcase!:eek:;)
Daughters, you gotta love 'em.:)

Remember when motor oil used to come in cans that were nearly identical to beer cans? :o:o:o

Whilst changing the oil in those days one had to be very mindful of where one set one's beer and make sure that it was not near the oil. :sick3::sick3::sick3:

Mental picture of person doing the above scenario with a nail gun!

$0. But still wasn't cheap enough.:rolleyes:

The lady that called onstar saying she was trapped in car. The onstar person suggested trying another door lock switch. She said I only have one. She was using the one on the key fob. Topgun

Isn't this the Amy Fisher story?

Did she end up shooting the body shop owner's wife?

No she didn't shoot anyone, and her name isn't Amy Fisher. She is my dads friends daughter and she really isn't good at driving. He has had her newer Accord for a month now and has a nice pole dent in the passangers side.:D

This one isn't bad. http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/tech-help/207326-im-not-kidding-%2454-000-repair-bill.html

More recently I had a client come in complaining of a severe smoking condition (W124/M104). Sure enough, after a few minutes of running, smoke was pouring out of the tail pipe. To make a long story short, he said he had just re-filled the windshield washer fluid the day before, because the warning light came on. The thing is though, that the warning light never went out. It turns out that he dumped an entire gallon of the blue stuff into the engine oil fill!!!:eek: Several oil changes in rapid succession fixed it.

I should mention that the guy was a busboy at the Last Supper, if you know what I mean.;)

Even FREE ain't good enough.......
 

This is exactly why I would not take ownership of most cars made, even if they were given to me for FREE!

If the deal is: you have to keep the car and not sell it, repair the car, and pay to operate the car........you got a MISERABLE DEAL, any way you slice it.

Some cars, you could not pay me to own, even if they were FREE! :)

One of my helicopter flight instructor decided to change his own oil in his Mazda pick up. He successfully removed and replaced the oil filter drained the transmission and put 5 qt of fresh oil in the engine. He drove it for about 2 days before he sized the transmission.

Now he tells me this as I'm sitting in a helicopter with the rotor turning about to take off.

Sort of makes you think about what your doing with this guy.

John Roncallo

Does he maintain the helicopter you fly?

I learned my lesson, luckly it only cost me $150 to learn.

Dumbest owner?

Me!

I bought the '63 Corvair and had to push it home! The fan belt broke about 1 miles from the place I bought it and about six miles from home. Here I am with my new convertible, all proud and ***** and now I am pushing it home...

Oh and she had terminal cancer too, but did I care? No I was in LOVE with it!

Hey, hey, hey now, I resemble that remark! :eek: Um, the type of car you own doesn't automatically qualify you for stupidity. Shoot, even a Yugo, properly maintained will get you from point A to B at least once or twice...

On topic, anyone that participates in an activity that deliberately causes damage to a vehicle has suspect intelligence...

Also, a dumb driver story, my buddy a few years ago bought a brand new Ford Probe (early '90's I guess). He brought it to work the next and started taking the guys out for rides. He got cocky and took the turn into the side street too fast, the understeer forcing him wide, up the curb and into a protective concrete filled steel post protecting some nat-gas equipment. The car's rubber front end nearly turned inside out before popping off and leaving the car with a nice V shaped crush in the front end...:rolleyes:

Doh
 

Vehicle owner George.

George took his 1960 JAGUAR XK150 to the local quick lube/tune.
They put power steering fluid in the brake system, and coolant in the washer bottle.

George drove three days before the issue was detected, and two weeks to fix. :eek:

George the day after previous damage was found?

George took his Fiat Spider to the same quick lube/tune. :eek:
Lube, oil, tune, and new wipers.
It did not have enough power to leave the service bay.
Wrong spark plugs punched through pistons = three weeks for engine rebuild. :eek:

George three days after previous damage was found?

George took his 1970 Ferrari to the same quick lube/tune.
Engine tune up!!!
Wrong spark plugs punched through pistons = many thousands + eight months for engine rebuild. :eek:


"Pause"...

George the day after previous damage was found?

The quick lube/tune franchise owner greeted George when he arrived in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II wanting service.
The franchise owner explained that they would never work on another vehicle owned by George.

Being a few years older than my sister I would have the joy of driving her back and forth to and from EVERYWHERE. I am going back into the early 80's here. I had a toyota celica (late 70's)..like the ones the NY Yankees used for the bullpen back in the old days.
Anyway I had a habit of cruising into our steep driveway and with the car in 1rst, but with the clutch in, shutting the car down and cruising to a stop, releasing the clutch and getting out of the car. Car left in gear.
Behind our driveway was a steep drop off..maybe 30 feet but where the car rested it was at the flat part at the bottom of the driveway. Cut two years later, me sick of driving sister around. Hey let Jane take the car....OK...the end of the Celica is upon us.
Here she comes home, shuts car off in the driveway but leaves it in neutral and ON the hill...guess where we found the car ten minutes later.... yup...
When questioned about what happened..Her response..I dunno I did exactly what Jim does all the time...YIKES

Again, you know the car. You know the caliber of the people there. If you let them do things unsupervised, you only have yourself to blame. Bottom line is this guy simply handed them the keys and said "have at it.". I watch you and make sure you are doing what you say you are doing. In the winter, I use them all the time for my Excursion that doesn't fit in the garage. I watch them like a hawk. You should not have to do that, I agree. However, the reality is that you are going to have to do that if you don't want problems

Funniest was when somebody reported that they were on a long trip and had to piss in a bottle. forgot about it for a while. Got thirsty and took a swig.

That is not stupid; you just broke the 11th commandment for Corvair owners:

CARRY FAN BELTS!!

my friend who drives an 80 volvo 240dl (POS, but i guess it just keeps running and its reliable) told me he thinks he has a bad alternator because his battery keeps dying. We open up the hood and he says "so wheres the alternator, is this it?" and he points to the brake booster. I just said forget it, lets just go order one.

Wasn't there that guy that decided not to ever change oil?

I've seen how the fan belt travels on that engine...never knew you could do that! No WONDER they fail often!!!

I always wondered how you pull that off. The only way to "watch them like a hawk" is to be right next to the vehicle in the service bay. This is almost never allowed...........the customer is relegated to the waiting room...........you cannot exactly peer through the glass to accomplish the requisite supervision.

Go ask Gilly about me. He was my tech at Zimbrick European. Go ask 210OLEMOTOR. He was my tech there too. Ask them how far I am from them when they work on my car. One time I left it there and they assigned it to an old timer. This was with a 103 motor that had a leaking head gasket. The thing was fixed but I wanted to make sure so I wanted all traces of oil removed. They assured me that the flush would be a complete job not just drain the radiator. Sure you #%))@. I asked the service writer 4000 miles later if MB coolant was only good for that long. He just looked at his shoes and mumbled something I couldn't understand. Come to find out, that tech charges for a brake flush and will only change the fluid in the reservoir. They call it the "JR brake flush". Yeah, leave it there and not watch it. Why don't I also drop my pants so you can see how far the broomstick goes up. I find facilities that let me watch. They don't let me watch, I don't ever go back. I fix it myself or ask Gilly to help.

Well, at least this person was trying to fix his car....as told to me by employee of parts shop. "hello, I need a (part not important) for a Goolie. A what? A Goolie, you know a Pontiac Goolie. After walking outside to inspect said vehicle, he knew exactly what to get the man for his Pontiac 6000LE.

Hopefully he didn't say "I need that thing that is in the engine area of the Goolie"

I don't need to ask anyone about you. I fully understand your distrust of everybody, including auto mechanics. And, I really don't blame you for it.

My curiosity was simply due to the impossbility of fulfilling your desire at most repair facilities. It's definitely impossible at any of the quick lube places.

Naturally, if you've got your own tech in your pocket, you can pretty much dictate how you'll conduct business with him. But, not everybody is in such a good position in this regard.

At quick lube places, in the worst case scenario where I need them, I will stand outside their door and watch them. I have a cheapie pair of binoculars if needed, and believe you me, it is. They were about to drain out my ATF when I wanted an oil change.

I'm probably not the most easy person to get along with. If I can make friends with the techs and the other service people, pretty much anybody can. Whenever I go there, I make it a point to stop and talk to them. A few beers and pizza and, does go a long way. Trick is that you can't butter them up today and ask for something 5 mins later. Take the Chevy dealership. They helped me remove the fan clutch on a Ford car. Considering it is a commercial truck ONLY shop, I would think it is pretty good. I make friends with them, occasionally buy them pizza then once in a while "Hey Joe, I got this problem here. Is there any way you can help me?". Wife hated the boar meat I got. Went down there and asked "Hey! Any of you guys like a taste of this stuff?". All good PR building material. OTOH, sometimes, they will ask me for a favor or two which I will be more than willing to help. I have loaned my Powerstroke out a couple times to techs who need some heavy hauling. I used my Best Buy discount to get a parts manager stuff at employee cost saving him $300 on a fridge. Now I get parts at his cost. Things like that.