Oh the experiences of wrenching for a shop...

I just worked on the worst P-car I've seen to date roll into and out of a shop - It was obviously the victim of a fire (no one EVER cleaned the soot out of the engine compartment - looks like a black and white photograph of an engine in there), and when working on the fuel pump to get his thing to deliver fuel, we noticed that the car HAS NO CROSSMEMBER. Say what?! The transaxle is just hanging off of the torque tube, resting on the torsion bar carrier!

Anyone else ever seen something so bizarre?

 

The worst two I've seen lately weren't that bad... at my buddy's shop, they've had:

A) a Land Rover (the big one) where someone hit first instead of fifth (or fourth?) at about 50 mph... literally sheared the center out of the clutch plate! Skidded the back tires so hard it tore chunks out of the tread...

B) A late 80's BMW 7-something; Daddy let his teenage son wire in some cheesy fog lights... three times! The first two times, he tapped on for power under the dash, and just fried his own wiring. The last time he toasted the headlight switch, which was $500 + and unavailable as a used part...
Then there was the college student's Tercel a few years back..80K+ miles with _never_ an oil or filter change... "I just add a quart whenever the oil light comes on. Now it won't go off..." Pulled the engine, dropped the pan... the pickup screen was _totally_ blocked by the pile of metal shavings & general crud in the bottom of the pan.

Jim, wondering how someone this dam' dumb manages repetitive breathing without assistance...

 

Most bizzare thing I ran into was back in 83 or so. guy brought in a mid 60ish buick for a total repaint. Not sure of the model but he had 2 master locks on the hood where the hood lock pins should have been. The reason for the master locks though was because the pins kept comming out. the reason for that was that the engine mounts had looooong since gave up the ghost the engine would actually bounce up and hit the hood with the slightest acceleration.. IT was a huge engine though 400 something rocket? can not remember.
the other one was a lady with a dodge dart. never had opened up the hood actually had to remove things and basicaly had to pry the hood off the latch.. once open we could not see the engine at all totally coverd with gunk that matched the hood imprint perfectly...

 

Back in early '70:
Customer popped in in the shop with backfiring engine and also complained about a bad start of his (magnificently looking) 1962 VW Ghia 1200.
Car realy looked as if direct from the factory.
Wanted to have a look at the ignition so opened the engine compartiment.
Was digging for about 10 minutes just to get to the distributor...

About same time a customer brought his beetle in for servicing.
Since I was somewhat shorter than the owner,(I was much younger than) i tried to move the chair forward while seated in the car, using the steering wheel as "grab handle".
Seat did not move, I was just responding fast enough to grab the wheel before I got hurt where it hurts most...

Sometimes a car is an lethal weapon in the hands of the ignorant
TakeCare

 

Best one I heard from a friend at a shop, was a customer car came in for service and they found it had 120lbs of air in one tire!

 

I had a girlfriend thaT I convinced that her car needed to have dry winter air put in the tires because the humid summer air would freeze. The worst part? Her dad owned the Ford dealership she took the car to. I guess I said it with too straight of a face.

 

i bet her dad at the ford dealership still made her pay for dry winter air.

 

I had an ex-girlfriend once who constantly beeped her horn. It drove me so crazy that I sat her down and told her that it was EXTREMELY expensive to replace the horn (several hundred dollars).. I then told her that if she kept using it all of the time, it would run out of beeps and need to be replaced. She looked at me with wide-eyes and said that she did not have that kind of money.

Needless to say, even when we were in danger of being hit, etc, she NEVER used her horn again!

And, Yes, she did have blond hair!

<img src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" border="0" alt="[hiha]" />

 

Friend of my dad's had a shop in which a very wealthy lady brought in a fairly new (at that time) 450 SL Mercedes. She complained that the brakes weren't working very well. Upon inspection he discovered a rock had lodged between the pad and the rotor and scored it's way completely through the rotor surface, the cooling fins and the back rotor surface. The result was that the rotor was cut off and hanging loose on the hub resembling a donut. She drove it like this for a couple of months before she finally brought it in.

 

That's some hillarious stuff, haha.

I can't say that I've seen anything comparable to anything like that though.

 

a friend of mine had a toyata corolla (sp?) and it started making a sound from under the hood he took it to a mechanic and they dignosed it as the timing chain. after that after leaving it sit for 2 week he checked the oil and It had none! nothing at all! he said he got it changed only 8000 miles ago! doh! maybe he should learn a bit more about cars.

 

I was following a co-worker once down the highway, and he suddenly pulled over to the shoulder.

I pulled over to assist, and asked him what the problem was. He said that the car just made some noises, and then just died.

He tried to restart it, but nothing happened. Dead silence.

I asked him when was the last time that he checked or changed the oil. He said that he didn’t remember!!

We checked the dipstick, and it was bone dry!! I then informed him that he most likely just seized his engine.

Sure enough, that's what happened.

He had a used engine installed, and then sold/traded the car.

 

 

Hahahahahahahaha Tariq, I have to agree with you.

 

[quote]Originally posted by my944:
<strong>I had an ex-girlfriend once who constantly beeped her horn. It drove me so crazy that I sat her down and told her that it was EXTREMELY expensive to replace the horn (several hundred dollars).. I then told her that if she kept using it all of the time, it would run out of beeps and need to be replaced. She looked at me with wide-eyes and said that she did not have that kind of money.

Needless to say, even when we were in danger of being hit, etc, she NEVER used her horn again!

And, Yes, she did have blond hair!

<img src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" border="0" alt="[hiha]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>


That is hilarious. Did she ask to see the "beep" conatiner?
Although if you ever priced a "beep-beep" Mopar Roadrunner horn, the several hunderd dollar figure is about right.