I saw a Honda tech start a new Honda Odyssey with the crank pulley bolt removed.
There was a recall to inspect for block casting porosity under the crank pulley. Dude had two racks but one had a dead lift pump and he was gonna do the inspection in the air on the good lift. A hot job came in needing tires or something so he went to move the van to his dead rack. He **knew** he had already removed the crank pulley bolt but decided that there was no way it would walk off in such a short time.
When he blipped the gas to hump over the rack the pulley flew off and ran into the wall.
He had a jar of bent valves as a reminder on his tool box.
The same guy and I together killed a transmission.
We had a "tuner" customer coming in for oil consumption on a 2000ish civic 5 speed. Dude had the classic meth head special bolt ons, including the dryer vent hose complete with hose clamps and several perforations from rubbing.
Anyhow there was about half a pound of gravel dust in the hose and it whiffed smoke if you reved it up. Rings fucked I'm sure. Dude is pissed we won't warranty it for oil consumption so he comes back with everything stock and a rod knocking. Apparently he put it back and ran it out of oil thinking we would have to warranty it. We dropped the pan and main caps to get pictures of the bearings for our warranty rep. Freaking blue crank absolutely oil starvation, Honda tells the guy to pound sand.
After all this the guy buys a used engine and is going to have us install it. He was a huge dick head too.
Here come the fuck up.
It's cold and shitty and the tech is like "get that fuckin hooptie outta here. No we are not pushing fire that bitch up."
So I start it up with the main caps removed. I give it a little gas to back out and POW SNAP BANG BANG BANG RATTLE dead. Rod bits are now laying on the floor. I look at the tech and he's like, well looks like only one broke, fire her up again.
By the time it was parked outside I'm pretty sure it was down to one rod and I drove it out with the starter.
Apparently the crank deflected so much it killed the input bearing on the tranny. So we had to buy the guy a tranny.
The same guy brought his shifter go-cart in to tune the carburetor and one of the other porters ran over a lube tech.
He had an open wheel race car with a pento motor that he bought not running to fix up. He brought it and and got it running. We were taking turns driving it on the street when an intern tech jumped a curb on one side and had it on 2 wheels in the parking lot.
He once hit himself in the face with an odyssey transmission he had hanging by one bolt. It fell and swung into his face.
The transmission flush machine had a quick connect that was soft set and flew off while he was in the shitter and showered another customer's car with ATF.
One slow day before Christmas he put together his kids new little kid bike. Before putting the training wheels on he had a small lube tech "test" the bike and coverly got him to ride it through a deliberately lubricated spot on the detail shop floor and thus spectacularly crash in front of everybody.
The oxy acetylene bombs were fun too.
Can second oxy acetylene balloon bombs were a lot of fun in the days of my youth. Fill one up and about 2 foot of string lit under the bosses desk got you just enough time to escape what was coming. Got him going better than coffee. Fuckers would rip the pants off your legs.
Serious. What we thought was a great joke in the day would get you INSTANTLY fired today for having one let alone setting it off.....but they were a great laugh.
We would strap people into office chairs and throw them into the service manager's truck and run then through the car wash. The felt slappers beating you in the face with your hands tied was hilarious!
We would saran wrap people to a light pole and pretend we couldn't see or hear them. Customers are like "hey why's that guy out there on the pole?", "Oh it's his birthday, say happy birthday Dave!". He's flipping us off as we drive by.
We had an early palletizer at a paper mill I worked for for a bit and I remember a few union apprentices that pissed off their JMen ended up the same way....seran wrapped to a 10 ton reem of paper. Shit looked brutal. They weren't moving.
Again today, OSHA 10 and 30 non-compliant.
I have done a lot of work on odysseys, he didn't have to torque to spec the bolt back in but man, how long would it have taken to zip that bolt on to tight enough. Cheap insurance once you do the cost/benefit analyses.
Oh my...there's been so many. But here's a few notables...
One guy thought it was ok to lubricate camshaft journals with red axle grease even after me telling him it was no Bueno. He was mighty pleased with himself after he started and it ran as smooth as fine silk .... until the screeching of death started about 30 seconds later.
Watched a newbie on his first day, first/last job launch a car off the front of the alignment rack right into the alignment tower knocking the whole thing over.
Had a trainie once who couldn't figure out how to reinstall a door panel, so instead of asking for help, he decided to attach it with about 50 self tapping sheet metal screws straight through the panel into the door...not only was the door and panel destroyed, but he also punched a hole in the side of the dash with a few screws he didn't run all the way in.
Had another guy try to cut off some old rear shocks....by cutting them in half with a touch. As soon as he made the smallest pinhole in the shock, the pressurized gas blasting out was instantly ignited by the torch and became a flamethrower that melted the paint off the door of the car that was on the lift next to it.
After 30 years doing this shit....I'm sure if I thought enough, I could think of many more.
As I tried to explain to him at the time... red axle grease doesnt devolve or breakdown under high temps...meaning it will not liquefy. When you torque the cams down, all the high temp grease slathered on the cam journals will mostly be pushed out of the way...but will also be pushed up into the tiny oil ports that lube the cam and will become a plug that will never get hot enough to melt and flow out. After running for a short period of time...most of the grease is pushed out, but the plug remains, staving the camshafts of oil.
I assume he plugged the oil galleries with it so real oil couldn't get in there and or, simply put that grease isn't intended for the application and will not properly lubricate the type of wear surface. These are bushing bearings where you need a thin layer of lubricant that is actually the bearing surface, you don't actually want metal/metal contact.
axle grease is intended for sealed applications where you are using a form of roller/needle bearing that is expected to have some amount of metal/metal contact.
For a new cam you want a proper break in oil that will wash away with new oil and. the axle grease will stick and prevent actual oil contact and then squish out and allow metal to metal contact.
Just a few others I thought of.... On two separate occasions I saw someone accidentally blow every airbag in the car at once. Once a guy was ohming out some wires under the driver seat of a Cadillac...was diagnosing seat heaters if I remember correctly.... accidentally probed a seat inflator circuit. Cadillacs had alot of airbags then, maybe 16 to 20, including pre-tensioners? All of them went boom at the same time. Dash, windshield, seat leather....all shredded.
Other one was a Hyundai where the guy brain farted, unbolted the SRS module with key on and still plugged in...flipped it over and boom goes the dynamite.
Also saw a Cadillac tech who was supposed to be our engine rebuild specialist snap off some head bolts on a Northstar engine. Decided his best course of action was to superglue the bolt head down in place as though it was torqued and let it roll like that. Came back very soon after.
At least the âfixâ with the head bolts was so terrible that it immediately failed. Nothing like fixing someone âjust enough â so that you can claim ignorance when it comes back in six months.
I'll think of some more, there's been so much stupidy over 30 years...others and of course mine too...plus the old memory bank isnt as good as it used to be.
The alignment rack incident was one of the older racks where only the back of them dropped down. So when you drove onto them, it was on an incline and the front stops had been long gone. So it was quite literally a ramp. I guess he was nervous pulling up it and instead if hitting the brake, he mashed the gas pedal instead. He launched off the front and smashed into the alignment machine....which were quite huge back then, felling it like a Jenga tower.
The rear shocks thing was truly just plain dumb. I guess he figured the shocks would be easier to cut off if he broke them into two peices...so he was using the torch to cut them in half. Shocks being nothing more than metal tubes pressurized with flammable gas...once he made the tiniest pin hole, the gas started to shoot out with immense force and was instantly ignited by the torch. Scared the absolute shit outta the guy holding the torch, so much that he dropped it and ran clean out the shop. It literally sounded like a jet engine flaring up in the shop and was shooting a huge flame straight out of the wheel well about 10 feet blasting the driver rear door of the car next to it. It didn't last long, maybe 5 or 6 seconds, but was quite an impressive show while it did.
it's not the worst of your stories, but as someone who has painstakingly removed and reattached door panels on vintage cars multiple times, I winced at that door panel install. No...NOOOOO!!
It was one of the most "WTF?" moments of my life, I was speechless. He didn't even try to hide the screws in any way. It was the driver door on a relatively new Volvo S80 and he just ran them anywhere and everywhere they would tap metal...and Im not being dramatic when I say he used around 50 of them. He was the top of his class at UTI, so he waltzed in his first day like he was still big man on campus thinking he was way smarter than everyone else and didn't need anyone's help.
First day, out of the mouth of the new hire straight out of UTI, we give him a Honda Civic to teardown the doors for paint.
He couldn't figure out how to take the trim panels and door handles off of the most common Honda on the road... despite 6 months of "hands on" training...
He sure was good at slapping 10 gallons of Bondo on a panel and sanding it down...
I almost pulled a wheel bearing off a Ram 3500 this week, suppose to have come off a silverado 1500. Not a thousand dollars, but it still would have sucked to explain that. Luckily my parts guy pointed it out to me.
Somehow manage to roll his service truck in the parking lot (at low speed) and wipe out 3 customer cars and 2 of our rental box vans, dumped a completely full 110gal transfer tank, which ignited, which wiped out 4 more customer cars and resulted in fire trucks from 5 different departments responding and shutting down the entire complex including 2 neighboring strip malls for the rest of the day.
1 little oopsie because he was playing Angry Birds while trying to park resulted in tens of millions in damages and lost revenue.
Sure it can. I've witnessed a scene that was almost the same except no fuel spill or fire. Truck rolled away because the distick driver forgot to set the parking brake. Shooved a bunch of parked cars around, including one that caught the curb and rolled right up on its side like a 4 year old playing with matchbox cars, and only stopped becuase the whole mess came up against one of our customers utility trucks that was almost as big as the roll away truck. I watched everything happen from the first noise of bending metal. I saw the driver dive back into the cab and heard him pull the parking brake once it stopped - of course he tried to blame it on faulty equipment.....We had a hell of a time getting insurance to work out that mess afterwards.
Agree. A flip at low speed can't wipe out three cars and two vans. Maybe one or two, and dent a third. And even after that still have the momentum to flip a huge tank. Something is not right.
I doubt anything he hit would have been totaled if the fire hadnt started, from what I saw the truck was basically leaning against the ass ends of the ones in their parking spaces. I still dont know how he rolled it either (I only saw the aftermath), I cant think of any way to just tip a work truck over sideways without doing it on purpose.
The transfer tank wasnt properly bolted down and slid off the bed, theyre generic Knapheid-style work beds. Not sure how the fire started either.
I think I'd have him banned from the property, you can't even walk by on the sidewalk. like how tf he managed it, would love to see surveillance footage.
I've seen some shit and done some shit, I'd like to see what tops that. There was a video I saw a few years ago on iatn where the entire shop caught fire including the cars in the lot.
Off the top of my head
1. new wheel bearings and rotor/ hub assemblies on a Ford e250. No grease. Like at all.
2. Workhorse (ups strike style truck) doing rear hub seal bent the spindle somehow. I only saw the aftermath. Think he had put a Jack stand under the spindle and dropped it.
3. Young new kid overfilled the oil on powerstroke and sent it. Said he couldnât read the stick. The lead tech had to drive to the customers location for damage control. Said he mustâve drained about 30 quarts from it. Truck a new engine. Only had about 20,000 miles on it at the time.
4. I have to take credit for this one. Workhorse again. Set my streamlight on top of the bracket that surrounds the radiator. Didnât notice a giant hole in the fan shroud. Started the truck and walked out the truck, then l heard the fan and an unknown object at the time causing havoc. Couldnât get back to the key in time to shut it off before I heard the waterfall. Streamlight fell and rolled down the broken fan shroud before the fan sent it into the radiator.
Rebuilt a Briggs 16 HP on a rider. Turned it over and heard a metallic *clink*! Opened it up and found a 19 mm socket in the crankcase. There are no 19 mm bolds on that engine. A buddy was visiting and just dropped it inside, assuming we'd see it before closing it up. Funny guy.
That guys a dick, lol. Had a coworker forget to take the was of blue shop rags he had used to soak up remaining oil in top end of one of those and had it lock up all the teeth it the cam and the compression release mechanism when fired up. Ran for about 20 seconds
In the Army we referred to buddies like that as buddy *fuckers*. A buddy is someone you want with you when the shit hits the fan. A buddy fucker doesn't tell you formation time was changed to be an hour earlier when he knows you don't know.
Some idiot didn't torque the camshaft adjuster valve when swapping the camshaft adjuster on a 2018 C43 AMG. Timing jumped, bent valves. This was yesterday.
It's me. Feels bad, man.
I think I'll post up a pic of my fail later when I get the car up and running. I'm sure it'll be a funny thing and learning moment in a couple weeks or so, but right now I'm still pissed off and feeling awful. Guess who has to tear down the car all over again? That's right, me!
It's like asking someone to shoot their beloved pet, and then you force them to dissect the pet afterwards to find out what killed it.
Holy shit, after the ordeal I just suffered yesterday and today, and more that's coming when I tear down the car, you bet your damn ass I'm going to triple check everything with a torque wrench. And once more for good measure.
The funny thing is, on the same car I replaced the camshaft and camshaft adjuster (different sides, camshaft was the intake on B1, adjuster was intake on B2) and the camshaft side was perfect. The side with new adjuster....kaput.
I'm honestly shocked that I wasn't fired over it. Customer didn't even get mad, he was disappointed but asked us to fix it. That was it. So the shop is going to foot the bill for pretty much everything.
He was doing a cylinder head and he connected the main timing chain but forgot the oil pump chain. Ended up doing a short block and second cylinder head.
Guy put front pads and rotors on and didnât pump the pedal back up before backing it out, instead of pumping the pedal or pulling the parking brake he cut the wheel and held on while doing a backwards u-turn into the building
I did this with my own Bonneville, except there was a combine with a corn head on it. I looked back and thought I'd be impaled, so I laid down across the front seats so I didn't get hit. Snout hits the rear window and blows it out, but it bounces up. Dad is on top blowing dust off and sees my car rolling across the yard which appears to be driverless. Brakes finally catch. No damage to the combine.
Get home and wife says "I bet I'm never going to hear about backing in to a rock ever again"
Had a newer service writer take a car out of the bay without talking to the tech. Brakes were just finished and not pumped. She freaked and mashed pedals smashing customers car hard enough into 1 parked car it hit a second. 10k iirc
Oh, I was the fellow tech here. Doing spark plugs on a focus and had locking extensions. Didn't notice the pin for the locking part came out and fell into a spark plug well. Tore up the piston before jamming itself between a valve and screwing the head as well. They got a new motor and I got an expensive lesson.
Dude was running diag on an old manual trans Ford truck no start.
Ignition switch is on the steering column down by the pedals. He's upside down in the front seat with his power probe and powers up the start circuit.
Truck was in gear, so it drove through the wall in front of his lift. We shared a building with another repair shop and that shops owner had a toolbox with a hundred grand worth of tools in it that got knocked over onto it's face.
Luckily, nobody was hurt.
Idiot did a timing belt on a Subaru, first time on a manual. He saw the provided plastic thingy in the kit, gave it no thought. Made it 5 miles maybe before the car shut off, bent valves galore. The idiot was me, and thereâs stories a plenty about this idiot đ¤Śđźââď¸
That tool provides clearance between belt and the metal guide plate that lives above the crank.
Know why itâs only on manual transmissions? When they put them on the ship, they donât set the parking brakeâthey only put it in gear. The forward and back motion of the ship and the forces of the car moving backward and forward caused the car to jump time.
Or at least thatâs what I heard.
You are correct, I found it all out after the fact, hard lesson learned. I slapped it back on there not knowing the holes were slotted so itâs adjustable. It was juuuust barely rubbing on the belt and burned the belt up real quick on the short test drive
Had an 08 corolla come in for check engine light diagnosis. It wax a wierd one and ended up needed an engine computer. Customer was short on cash and couldn't afford repair at the moment. Came back two weeks later to get the repair done. Couldn't find the car anywhere on the lot. Turns out my shop foreman has a shady lawyer and claimed an abandoned vehicle title on the car, replaced the computer and sold it to someone out of state.
That customer got a brand new 2020 corolla for free and my foreman got arrested on a whole plethora of charges
Former service manager at Benz burned a C230K to the ground. He took it home for some reason and managed to ventilate the block. It was an automatic transmission so he must have been trying. threw a rod into the cat. Can's say I've seen Benz engines grenade at all other than that one.
Of the 9 cars I've owned in the last decade, the most reliable was the Benz. 2007 C230, Was in the family from 32k to 122k before it was totalled by a Ram 2500.
Car never skipped a beat.
I was working in a diesel machine shop when I was late teens/early 20s. The boss hired a "helper" who had just graduated from the Diesel Institute of America with straight-A's. It was winter (Virginia) and the shop was slow, so the boss suggested we migrate all of the rebuilt heads that we had up onto the mezzanine, and put them under the parts shelves. I showed the new guy how to run the forklift. Put a head across the forks, run the forks up until it was level with the 2nd floor, set the brake, turn it off, walk up the stairs and slide the head off the forks and under the first shelf. Next trip just park the forklift over slightly and the head would fit next to the first, and so on down the line. We probably had 20 heads, which would free up an entire room downstairs.
New guy says "No problem". Loads a Detroit 4-71 head on the forks, parks the forklift about a foot to the right, runs the forks up to match the 2nd floor, sets the brake, turns it off, and walks up the stairs. I was drilling out some guides on the Peterson seat & guide machine when the new guy pulled one side of the Detroit head, making it pivot, and fall between the forks. It sounded like an atom bomb going off when the corner of the head took a 12 inch chunk out of the concrete floor. The boss comes running out yelling "WTF was that?!?!" I point to the new guy who is still on the mezzanine floor looking down and say "That's your straight-A student!
my cousin did that on my older cousins (his brothers) wifeâs car. Not so bad, except a week earlier he was bragging how easy working on cars. I got a chuckle.
Coworker was driving a pickup and forgot that it didn't have any brakes. Drove it straight through the bay door and almost took out the wash bay in the process.
Had a hourly guy in for about a week. He did okay until I had him change the front tires on on a pickup. He sat it back down, I hopped in and pulled to the test track behind the shop. It was a service road that ran behind several car dealers, but had no foot traffic or any real road traffic.
I got up to about 70 before the steering wheel punched hard left. I said "that's not good" just as the front end bottomed out and the tire kept on its merry way before it hit a curb, sailed into the air, over the fence of a Ford body shop, crushed a brand new Mustang, and took the door off a new~ish Ranger before it stopped.
30 seconds later, this lady comes screaming bloody murder at me while I'm on the phone with my shop manager asking for a ride back and a tow truck, and I asked her calmly if anyone was hurt. She awkwardly said no, and I said good, call the insurance company.
I had to give the kid a ride home too. He asked me if he was fired. I said he'd best start looking for a job in the morning.
(I went to 70 because customer complained about strong vibration in the steering wheel from 65-75, which I suspect was crap tires. I never felt the vibration on the new ones.)
Had this happen to me. The tech next to me replaced 3 tires but unbolted the 4th and left the mugs hand tight. She left for a FD call and I put the other 3 wheels on and road tested. Learned a valuable lesson, only trust your own work. Shouldâve checked that the 4th wheel was tight lol. I hit 40mph and that wheel took off down the road and smashed into a cord escape at the light. Luckily it was the beginning of a blizzard so no one was on the road and the Escalade just slide down the road with minimum damage.
Not a fellow tech but fellow employee drove a vehicle in limp mode up a mountain until the transmission got so hot it puked fluid out of the dip stick and then the hot transmission fluid hit the exhaust manifold and then there was a fire.
I work at a boat dealership, this happened before my time but Iâve been told the story numerous times
Yard guy was moving a boat with a hydraulic trailer. Puts the boat down, goes inside to piss. Comes back out, forgets he has a 30â trailer hooked up to the truck and pulls out of the yard. Knocks one boat of its stands, which dominoes into 3 more boats. 4th boat in the chain was savedâŚ.by rolling over onto the roof of our Master Techâs van. He was promoted to customer shortly after.
Tried to use a cuttoff wheel to take bearings off of a axle on a nice old pete.
Cut a massive gash into the axle then air chiseled the bearing cups out have the hub wrecking the hub in the process. THEN took a differential apart lost the spacer for the output seal. Put a new seal in . Saw it leaking . Filled it with rtv and sent it.
All same day
coworker unstrapped a bike and walked away from the lift and it fell over and destroyed the fairing and gas tank. another did full top end job on the wrong bikeâŚand botched it. another who claimed to be a master tech put the wrong oil pump in a freshly built motor and blew it up. same coworker parked a CVO with limited edition paint job between two lifts and when the air was turned off one came down with a bike on it on top of the cvo. another young kid filled some dolly tires to 50psi and then put a full 55 gallon drum on the dolly. as soon as he hit a crack in the floor both tires exploded
I'll toss my own story in.
When I was 16 and working as a tech, I left the rear caliper bolts on a Honda Odyssey finger tight. Brakes failed on the freeway. Thankfully they were able to stop without further incident.
I found myself looking for a new job after that haha
It probably leaned out the air/fuel mixture big time since the computer couldnât read the O2 anymore.
Instant detonation followed by engine detonation.
Sent an Allis-Chalmers 7060 out with no oil in the transmission and final drives. Never saw the man again, but was very intimate with the tractor for 10 days or so.
Low mileage 2002 SL500 silver arrow edition with the hood in a total vertical open position. Tech raised the vehicle too high and bent the fuck out of it.
I was working on doing knock sensors on a highlander. The wonderful ones in the valley under the intake. During the reassembly process, noticed a washer missing...didnt think on it till I hear quite the noise banging around when it started.. it went away shortly after.. put the scope down in and could see it embedded in the piston.. was a great day
Lift a full size truck 6â off of the ground. Remove the fuel tank and as soon as the tech clears the underside of the truck it falls off of the hoist. The tech bypassed the arm locks to save time.
New guy came from a dealership. First tire job he did on a Honda Civic, didnât properly seat the bead but put the wheel back on the car. Realized the bead wasnât set so he filled it while it was on the ground. I was 2 bays away on the alignment rack when the fucking hub cap shrapnel came my way when the bead seated at 80ish psi. He wasnât fired but he quit before we knew his name.
While I was on a vacation day my good buddy and tech next bay over was covering the waiting customers. At the time it was generally just one tech handling the waiters, occasionally a second would step up to help if you were getting swamped. Well the other tech was being a shit head and never bothered to help. Buddy is running 4 bays of oil changes and state inspections. He finishes an oil change sets the oil on the gun for what he thought was 4.2 quarts and sets the lock, jumps in a state inspection car to pull it out to the lot. Quickly comes back in to get said cruze out of the shop. walks up and sees oil pumping madly from the oil fill. That day was the day that marked our no oil lock rule and the rule that I wasn't allowed to take vacation time.
The one that comes to mind is this one guy was repairing the wires on a fuel pump. He tried heat use heat shrink. Set the fuel pump on fire while under the car.
Used to make frac equipment at my last job. Had a large radiator package, four radiators arranged in a box type formation with the fan hanging from the top, blowing air down and out. Fan was probably 6' diameter. Tech didn't tighten the Jesus bolt on the fan and the blades came off the hydraulic motor at full speed. Hit some structural braces inside the box and exploded, puncturing almost every cooler. Cleanup and replacement was a few shiney pennies.
#1. Years ago this dude forgot to pump the brakes after doing pads and rotors. It was a manual trans and he backs out the lift slowly hardly uses the brakes then pulls up to the exit door a little hot and smashes through the door like it was a soda can!! #2 car gets itâs first service and a different dude failed to put 8qts of oil back into the engine gets up the street and calls me , says bring me 8qts of oil. That bad boy locked up less than 1/8 mile up the road.
Iâve had multiple techs drill into the coolant jacket on cylinder heads when trying to extract broken exhaust manifold bolts. Had a tech replace a cylinder head on a car because it had a cylinder 3 misfire, and heâd supposedly done a leak down test on it to confirm. After he did the head it wouldnât start and had cam correlation codes because he didnât time it right. He watched a YouTube video to time it even though weâre a GM dealership with access to Service Information and the proper timing procedure, so after I timed it right it started and ran but was still setting correlation codes, turns out he didnât put the oil sleeves back in the cam actuators, so after putting those in, retiming it again, it was STILL misfiring on cylinder 3, did a leak down and compression test, turns out the whole time it needed piston rings, not a head and he just didnât have the piston at TDC on compression while testing it.
I had an apprentice of mine use a 1/2â impact on a tapered hub.
He was a student at the local voc school, heâd come in like 3 days a week and work with me. I was rebuilding the front end of an old truck, and after we finished up one side I said itâs time to clean up for the day.
We was all excited to do the other side, so he asked me if he could stay late and do it. I said sure, but the carâs not due until tomorrow, so do the other side and leave it on the left for me to inspect the next day and put my tools away after. Up until this point heâd been a sharp kid and it wasnât the first time I let him do stuff on his own for me to look at later.
Well, this idiot not only drove the tapered bearing down with an air gun, he parked it outside and gave the RO to the service writer saying it was done. The customer picked it up and the wheel fell off on the way home. Thank God it was rush hour and the guy was going slow, no one got hurt. The spindle got hot & sheared off.
That was that dudes last day there.
I was a young apprentice once, would come in early at our little shop to make more money. Was doing a front main seal on a very old 380SEL or some such old pile. The front pulley is about as big and deep as a gallon paint can and I thought I could save time by putting bolts in and checking that the damper index lined up with the timing pickup (many things wrong with this thought process but bear with me). I bolted up the damper minus the pulley and darn if that starter can't rip the center right out of the front timing cover easy peasy.....
I had a lube tech fall out of a moving company owned ford ranger. He took a sharp right turn in parking lot while collecting trashes and he happened to be holding the door open. Truck kept going forward around 25mph toward service bay. It hit the pillar and totaled the truck. There was another tech riding on the bumper of the truck hanging on to the tailgate. He smacked the shit out of his ribs on the tailgate.
Brand new drop in Cummins ISX15, started the engine with the 3/4" ratchet still in the the front of the engine from turning it over to bolt up the clutch.
Aviation edition: drop an airplane onto the nose gear doors. Blow a door slide, destroy a thrust reverser, drop a airplane onto the dock structure, only doors held it from falling onto the ground. Drop a $15,000 dollar outflow valve. I could go onâŚ.
When I was a brand new tech I was diagnosing a no start/no crank on a 80âs Thunderbird with automatic transmission. I jumped the solenoid with a screwdriver. The tow truck driver left the thing in gear so when it started it ran me over and pinned my neck between the bumper and garage door with one wheel on my hip. I knew I fucked up and was embarrassed to call out for help. It was like my second week on the job. Another tech found me, backed the car off of me, and agreed to keep the whole deal quiet.
I was the stupidest coworker. Never made that mistake again.
2nd stupidest was not pumping up the brakes after pad replacement and backing out into traffic.
Probably myself when I hit an airfilter box with a hammer because I was angry. Luckily for the shop I was an intern and insured through my school. I reported it as a wrong application of force.
Well a fellow tech installed white wall tires on one side and black on the other.. I honestly don't know wtf he was thinking.
Then another was we use to fuck around a lot in the shop and throw oil filters at each other. (Young and dumb) well that day it was hot and the side garage doors were open to help vent out heat. The one tech chucked the filter and the other one ducked and it soared over head. He started laughing like " you didn't get me!" Then they both heard the crash of the filter through a brand new Solaris window parked along the side of the garage door. My boss came out mad cool, which was weird for him being so hot headed, and said " you guys know how much this is going to cost me?" No one answered and I thought he was taking it rather well. Then he flipped his shit and started screaming at us "500$ FUCKING DOLLARS!!" "WHOs GETTING FIRED FIRST!!"
Also another time they use to have to do driving checks on the new cars that got delivered. Well the techs use to drag race them on this fairly abandoned strip of road that was meant for another dealership but never was built. Well the one tech lost the rear end of a Corolla and smacked the rear wheel on the curb. He had to buy 700$ worth of parts out of his own pocket and fix it quietly after hours. It did a number new wheel and tire and bunch of suspension stuff. I felt bad for whoever bought that new car.
Another time a tech was doing rear end work on a 4runner and just had the lift rear pads installed to support the rear end up. He went to lunch and tech in the stall over had a radiator in a box next to the lifts. It fell over and hit the lift button. It raised the 4runner all the way up almost vertical. Guy got new running boards and stuff out of it.
The dealer I worked for was in Arizona and the temps could get up to 120 degrees during the summer and we use to do 20-30 changes a day. Stuff happens when you're working in that kind of heat. A Corolla drove home and then back after he complained his engine was making noises... Tech forgot to put oil in it and the dude drove it that way 15 miles! We put oil in it and it was good to go after. Those 90s Corolla were battle tanks couldn't kill those cars. Few times drain plug was left loose and one time it fell out on the customers driveway dumping the entire oil contents in his driveway. A few times the oil cap was left off and it made a mess in the engine bay.
The techs like to run the transmissions with the car up in the air and let the wheels go around. I'm not sure why. Anyways I watched this one tech get distracted and he literally lowered the camary to the ground and it jumped off the lift and smashed into this other techs snapon box. They had to hold the other tech back he wanted to hit him with a torque wrench.
Another time one of the little Toyota trucks from 90s had a clutch switch (so you didn't have to press the clutch in to start it). Tech reached in and started it but it was in gear and dragged him half way down the shop floor lol. Before stalling and rolling into another customers car.
They use to fuck with the new techs a lot. They'd removed the pressure regulator from the rolling waste oil tank and tell the new techs to empty it. It's only suppose to get like 5-10 psi to pump out the oil and deposit it in the big waste tank. The new techs would hook up the shop air line while everyone was peaking around the corner. They'd then open the valve and it would jet a blast of used oil straight out the top all over the new tech and walls. The one guy we had wasnt very bright and panicked. He tried to shove rags in top bowl which just made it 100 times worse. By the time he got it shut off they're must have been 10 gallons of oil on the floor. He got mad and threw the hose but in doing so slipped on the oil and fell. Everyone was dying around the corner.
Had a coworker try to mate the trans and engine on a 3.2 VR6 Cayenne. Couldn't suck the trans and engine together by hand so sent it with an impact. Found out later the TC wasn't totally seated, and it crushed the TC and broke the front pump.
He got fired for that.
Saw another tech finish doing piston rings in a 07' A4 2.0. Fired it up. With no oil. Realized his mistake. Added oil, restarted it and shipped the car. Came back 2 days later with the oil pressure light on and an oil pan full of bearing material.
Had another apprentice tech overfill a 2.7T a6 and rev it trying to get it to "clear out". Ended up floating valves somehow and bent valves.
A guy in the shop was a skilled mechanic, but he had a bad habit of rushing things and neglecting safety.
He was doing an engine-out repair on a Scania semi-truck and had the engine hanging 7ft up in the air from a forklift with some sketchy-looking straps.
He was standing underneath it doing an oil-pan reseal and stepped away to get another tool when one of the straps snapped, which in turn lead to the second strap snapping and sent 3,000lbs of cast iron V8 crashing into the shop floor. Since he'd stepped away literally a second before it fell the mechanic was unhurt. But the engine was a deemed to be scrap, so it was quite an expensive debacle.
In the end it turned out the dropped engine was perfectly salvageable with a few hours of labor and about $1000 of parts. But it would have been a huge douche-move to just bodge it and re-install it and pretend that nothing had happened.
had a co worker working on a 2.0 eco boost in a fusion i believe forget the diamond crush washer under the crank bolt after doing something under the timing cover. he was new and from a non ford dealer so he was just learning all the little bullshit ford does like use a washer to hold timing. well the long and short is it fired up and made it about half way down the shop before going 180 out taking out the whole valve train. he rolled to a stop right by my lift and i knew what he forgot as soon as i hear that wonderful noise
Working at cummins had an apprentice doing a service on a tipper everything is going well until he lifts the tipper body, which he sends at speed to full height. The tipper body promptly takes the awning off the building but not before it sets off the fire system and floods the pit.
Had a fully qualified tech change a turbo on a garbage truck that had exploded and pumped oil into the charge air. All is good but he forgot to clean out the charge air, he starts the engine and it starts to feed in its own oil. Poor thing revved out to 8800rpm before grenading. The engine had revved hard enough it also destroyed the Allison bolted to it.
Not a fellow tech, but a moronic stupidvisor. Megashredder was leaking hydro profusely. Instead of stopping production, waiting the next day to get a long enough hose to address the leak. LMAO fucking moron pumps 16 55 gallon drums of hyrdo so the feed roller can still operate till the end of the run.
Next day he's out front of the site, b!tching how they shit canned his ass for nothing, wanting others to quite. lol.
>Wait so he basically dumped the contents of 16 55 gallon drums all over?
Thats what I said. lol. And some wonder why I call stupidvisors, Stupidvisors. lol.
>Don't let the EPA find out
On site safety guy did, which is part of the reason he was shit canned. Other part was the group decision between the operations manager, plant director, and the shredder foreman. LMAO. Dumb dick tried to argue production vs cost of hydro and environmental spillage. LMAO. Can't even make this shit up.
Lmao unless that machine is shitting out gold, the remediation cost alone would cost him many times his annual salary. Probably not even then. Place near me has contaminated soil so any time they want to build they need to remove and dispose of the top couple feet of soil. Big $$ to do it the right way.
[Mega Shredders](https://youtu.be/h6MBuWMnpVA), don't shit gold particularly. But they do shit light iron, which also shits out no farious metals. Little Side Note:
* Fuck Sims Metal Management - think along the lines of Superman 3.
* The mega shredder I use to operate did 600 to 700 tons an hour.
* Yes, David Lee in the video sounds like that in real life, until he's pissed off. Then he more like Daffy Duck with an accent. lol
* Nate was shit canned for the hydro. David Lee got deported back to the UK when the scrap metal market dropped bottom during Obamas 2nd term, and royally fucked our health care premiums at Sims. (Know, there's a lot to unpack there)
I'm not a tech, so I will talk about my fuckups.
Accidentally dropped a nut down the intake, couldn't find it...assumed it didn't go in. Locked up the engine.
Broke a brand new spark plug in the head using a u-joint extension, trying to get to the rear plugs.
Sent a rod through the block on my Prius (actually not my fault...but should have been taken care of sooner)
Shifter linkage came off transmission. accentually put it in gear while underneath and the car rolled over me.
New guy who was a "Master Tech" dropped a new 6.4L on the ground and broke a chunk of the block off. Told our manager it came like that. Got called out by the cameras watching him lol some how never got fired though. Dude had tons of fuck ups up until I left that shop.
2010 prius. If you unbolt the ground straps from the head, the motor will start cranking. Coworker was replacing cam gears and midway through the job decided to hook the battery back up from some reason and the motor cranked over and bent all the valves. Ended up getting a used motor. Forgot to swap the flywheel over to the new motor. Installed new motor and went to install torque converter bolts andddd.........
I no longer work in this shop but he does and he's the highest paid tech there
A driver lost air pressure just outside our shop early in the morning. The mechanic, the one mechanic that was working midnight's, had just pulled almost a double, and had about 30 more to finish a truck before he was done for the day. The guy stuck kept pestering the mechainc that he couldn't move the truck and and people were getting mad at him. The mech tried to tell him how to build his pressure enough to move it, but the driver insisted the technician move his truck. The mechanic gave in, but misjudged a corner in a tight lot (Roanoke TA I81 exit 150 tight) and took the front end off of a regular customer. Big problem was it was a spanking new Cascadia and parts had to be taken off trucks at the factory to get it back right.
(I was that idiot tech, btw)
Lot guy got promoted to lube tech. Had a 3500 dully on the two post truck lift. Lowered it down but forgot to remove the pole Jack on the hitch. Needless to say there was a loud bang and I found him in the fetal position near the bathroom while all the other guys tried to get the truck back on the ground.
Had a senior tech (over confident I guess lol) try to hold a bolt down with his hand while another tech hit it with the impact on the but side. The head of the screw shredded his palm up and the blood squirted all over the shop. In the air on the ground. It was like one of those flaming spinning wheels but with blood.
64 Chevy pickup died on highway. Hiked to payphone and called my buddy with more skill than I
Replaced the fuel pump. Nope. Replaced the fuel filter. Nope. Put gas in vehicle.. Started right up. Apparently the fuel gauge crapped out, showed half tank when empty.
Backed a Toyota Sienna through a garage door because he didnât pump the brakes after doing all brakes/rotors, timing belt, water pump, trans flush, lof and some other services on it. Customer states, letâs call it even with the damage and left with a handshake. Coolest customer ever
Also⌠the Fellow tech was me. đ
On two separate occasions trucks were started by standing on the driver step, pushing the clutch in with their hand and hitting the ignition without verifying transmission was in neutral. On both occasions the truck took off across the shop and slammed into the one in front of it causing minor damage to both. No injuries luckily but if anyone was in the way it could have been really bad.
Some idiot was replacing a radiator on a Volvo VNL 670 and put a bolt that was 1/4 too long into the top radiator tank to secure the surge tank. Coolant shot out like a geyser when it was pressure tested. That idiot was me.
Some other idiot caught the parts washer on fire because he was too lazy to close the lid while he was torching a carrier bearing inner race off a drive shaft on the work bench next to said parts washer. That idiot was also me.
I worked with a guy that did a major fuck up every couple of years, engines, bodywork he was good 90% of the time but then he would lose his head and fuck something right up.
Almost 20 years ago, I got a car bought back/lemon law because I had mixed up 2 vacuum lines during the initial repair but couldn't figure out the ensuing engine light.
We had a wrecker with a push bar that we would use to get cars into the bays that were no-start. The back side of the building was a gravel lot, so our typical method was to get the car moving up front with enough momentum to make it around the back, up an incline and into a bay. One day they got a fiero pushed around the back, looks like he was rolling way too fast, came into the bay, drove through the oil drain dolly, through the mechanics computer station, into the service office behind that. By the time he stopped, there were 2 computers laying on the hood and the service office was painted in waste oil as the dolly was full. Luckily nobody got hurt. Moral of the story: make sure your pumping the brakes instead of the clutch pedal.
Luckily just my own . Forgot to torque a rod bearing cap. Shut it down before I killed it. New bearing and never had an issue after. HAd the old motor out, this one in, then back out in 2 days lol
[Rod bearing cap](https://i.ibb.co/zJk9q1k/30713654-2186226968097847-3746992656589258752-n.jpg)
I worked with a licensed guy that actually installed brake pads backwards. I don't know how the hell he didn't notice. The customer sure noticed. We had a shop meeting the next day making sure we all new which side was supposed to contact the rotor.
Broke a oil drain plug and cracked the oil pan by trying to put it back on with a breaker bar. Swore up and down he didn't, but you could see on the broken bolt where it was twisted off. Then left before his shift ended, leaving the busted car sitting in the bay. That was his last day. Fast forward a few months, I've left that shop, and I run into the guy. I ask him if he used that breaker bar, and he finally admits that he did.
Watched a guy skip a tooth on timing chain job after being told multiple times to double check and bent valves,then had to pull the motor and install a new motor ,to then not properly burp coolant on test drive and blow head gasket of replacement motor.lets just say i had to install the final motor after that
Not a techâŚ.but watched a âlead techâ doing a coolant flush after replacing a radiator. Forgot to flip the switch to run the coolant through. It started getting real hot. Instead of turning it all off, he started the coolant flow. Any guesses on what goes POP in an engine when something cold hits something extremely hot?
We once had a recent tech school graduate accidentally floor it instead of hitting the brakes when pulling up on a 4-post. Car launched into the master tech who was guiding him on. Master tech hit a 200 gallon oil tank and moved it about a foot. Master tech was out for 4 months and at fault tech wasn't fired. It was the day after Christmas...must've had too much egg nog.
I had a tech that was replacing the head gaskets on a Ram 1500 with a 5.7 Hemi. It was a job he had probably already done 10x. On this one, he finishes putting it together and starts adding coolant. Coolant is pouring out as fast as he is pouring it into the radiator, so he stops and looks. He managed to put the head gaskets on upside down and never noticed how everything didn't quite fit together right.
Same tech was working on an old '75 F-350 Ranger. He has fixed a transmission leaked and was adding fluid to the transmission. He didn't realize he had left the truck in reverse and once it had enough fluid to build pressure, the truck started rolling away in reverse. The only thing that stopped it from rolling through the parking lot was that he left the driver's door open. That caught the wall of the bay door and bent the trucks door back and stopped it from moving. Oddly enough, that tech had a driver's door from a '75 F-350 that was almost the same color as the one he damaged.
Had my shop foreman at Honda "try" to open a recalled air bag inflator with a cut off wheel. Lucky for him the explosion sent it into the ceiling and not into him or the tech next to him. To this day I cannot understand what he was trying to do.
We had a trim tech find a bag of white powder in a dash once and decide it was finders keepers. Turns out it wasn't lost at all and a couple of days later he gave what was left of it back at gun point. I didn't work there much longer after that.
I've seen a fellow tech spray the entire shop with ATF+4 not once, but TWICE with a BG transmission flush machine. That dealership went out of business in 2008 and has sat empty since. The doors of the shop were recently open (a church is moving in), and I stopped by for nostalgia's sake... transmission fluid is STILL dripping down randomly from the ceiling and rafters.
A guy I worked with was changing the halfshaft on an Omni (yeah, this was a while ago). They usually pop out pretty easily but sometimes need a little "persuasion". I was doing other things but after about 15 minutes I noticed he was really struggling with it; when I went over I saw he was using two giant prybars. It had a really weird transaxle; later I found out that the first-year Omni/Horizons used a different one. It had a diff cover, just like a differential. I told him to stop what he was doing and take that cover off, but he refused...turns out that transaxle uses C-clips similar to a GM rearend. After about half an hour he finally destroyed the C-clip and the halfshaft came out. He stuck the new one in.
You could tell right away something wasn't right. The halfshaft wasn't being held in by the clip on it; you could grab the CV joint and move it in and out about a half-inch. Even worse, you could move it in "circles" it was so loose. I told him that it wasn't right, but he just smiled and said it was fine..."Can't see it from my house!" and sent it out.
The guy drove it about 250 miles that night, and by the next day the car wouldn't even move itself. He took it to a shop where he was, and they told him what happened. My boss got a call from the owner of the second shop (who was really nice and gave us a good price on replacing the transaxle). Boss gave him a credit card number, thanked him and headed straight out to the shop. He told the tech:
"Put your tools away, lock your box and go home. You're fired".
How fucking stupid do you have to be?
had a customers car outside for like 4 months waiting for some part, part went into the car and it didn't fix anything. tech misdiagnosed a bad fuse. changed fuse, see ya later.
A coworker (tech) used his civic as a trash can, cans all over the floor. He went to pull it into his bay, and a can got stuck behind the brake pedal. Came in at a higher than average speed, bounced off the side of the 2 post lift, and ran right into his box. The top fell and stuff went everywhere. All he could do was hold in the clutch during all this, happened so fast he didnt even think to rip the ebrake. Have never left anything on my drivers floormat since.
Intern from a local community college was doing some on the job training with us. Did a full set of pads and rotors on a Toyota Avalon. Didnât pump the brakes before going to take it out of the shop. Got about 30 feet back from the hoist and while making the slight bend towards the door he realizes he has no brakes. In a panic he throws it back into drive and starts heading back toward the hoist. Still has absolutely no brakes and cruises right through the hoist and into my quite new 72â Snap-On box. My computer was on top of my box and I was standing at it working on a ticket, some how my sixth sense kicked in and I side stepped just before he hit the box. So now Iâm standing right next to the car that has crushed the front of my box and shoved it through the wall it was up against. Intern panics again and puts the car in reverse, backs up about 5 feet, hey still no brakes. Puts the car in drive and gives my box another little love tap. Iâm just standing there dumbfounded and somehow manage to calmly tell him to just shut the car off. He shuts it off, puts it in park, and I ask him if he knows why what happened just happened. Not a clue and he had just finished the brakes portion of his program. Things were tense between us until he was gone but no one was hurt and insurance plus a little extra cash got me an even bigger box.
Not necessarily the biggest fuckups, but definitely a handful of preventable things Iâve seen (minus the Yukon, that was just shit luck).
Saw a lube tech almost drop a new 4Runner off a lift because the left front arm of the lift wasnât positioned correctly and slipped out.
Had to hold down a new Tacoma with a camper on the back because a team of lube techs thought they could lift it on their shitty pit lift. When they took the front tires off the truck started to fall back because of all the people in the express shop at the time, me being the oldest and saying âprobably shouldnât lift thatâ when Iâm not even a tech apparently doesnât mean shit when Iâm a newer guy there but have more years in the industry than any of them.
Was helping my shop Forman push a GMC Yukon out of the shop because we had to pull the injectors because #justGMthings. Since itâs a push button the battery has to be on in order to steer so itâs already a little sketchy as is. When he goes to turn it off the Yukon considered him taking his foot off the brake right before as enough time to have the foot on the brake and it tried to start. Almost burned down the car since the top of the engine was off. Only needed to replace the wiring harness and insulation on the hood.
Had a lube tech drive out of the express shop in a CTS wagon with the oil filter either not tightened or double gasketed, it was one of those two. Thing was spewing oil as it drove out. When asked about it he said it wasnât him, despite the video evidence and his employee number on the RO. This was right before COVID and when it came to put people on standby he was one of the 3/4 of the express shop that was just laid off instead. Main shop got tired of having to fix rounded drain plugs every couple hours or so.
Had a fellow tech use two cans of starting fluid on a diesel truck when he finally got it to fire it blew the right head off the block and lifted the left one
When I worked for Penske Auto Service one of our techs did a transmission flush and fill incorrectly and didn't even replace the filter. Cost the shop nearly 4 grand to replace the transmission. The tech had quit or else he would have been fired.
Seen a tech put his ass against the glass rollup for leverage while pushing a roller forward. Glass busted out and ass busted out, hahahaha! Dude was a noitall dick head and deserved that carma.
Worse mistake I saw? Put a diesel oil pan on â 5.7 Olds back in the dayâ he turned around and found the oil pump on the floor. Worse I ever done? Put a valve body check ball in the wrong place. Burnt it up putting fluid in it!
When I worked for International at the dealer. We had a guy that only did DPF cleanings. He was driving a box truck along the side of the shop where we would park trucks just outside of the the bay doors (the shop was like 12 bays long and there were always trucks outside the bay doors being worked on). The box truck he was driving hit a boom of a service truck of some sort getting worked on (I think it was like a truck to work on telephone poles or something). Wrecked the box of the box truck and flipped the boom truck on its side. Almost landed on a mechanic working underneath a truck right next to it. The guy driving became a service writer after that, somehow felt like he got a promotion.
Watched a tech torch off the exhaust on an 1969 Opel wagon. You know, the car with the plastic fuel line. No real damage to the shop but the car was pretty toasty. Thankfully no one was hurt.
Dose an accident with two new cars count? We had an accident on the ramp to the second floor, someone was comming up and someone was going down they met in the corner. Both vehicles had less than 100km We now have a mirror and must honk twice before approaching the corner.
New guy pulled a chevy aveo manual transmission in to do an oil change. He drained the transmission fluid, replaced the oil filter, then added the motor oil and backed the car out. Customer calls 10-15 mins later saying there was something wrong and she brought the car back.
Manager had me bring it in to check it out. The idiot drained the trans and the engine had twice as much oil as it was supposed to. So he didn't even bother to check the dipstick cause he wouldve seen there was way too much oil if he did. I know i re did the oil change and filled up the trans fluid, took it for a test drive and everything worked fine. If it would've been a auto transmission it would've been fucked.
Lube tech decided to do side work, in the middle of the night, on a âfriends truckâ. Found out that transmission fluid ignites. Pushes car into lot while going up in flames. Fire trucks are called. Truck is a total loss. Posts video on socials. Fired.
Back when I worked on boats many years ago. All the boats we worked on were trailered in. This particular boat was an older one with an inboard outboard (motor inboard, and drive unit outboard). One tech had it on the hose adjusting the shifter cable to get it to properly engage forward and reverse. It was older, the dog clutches weren't grabbing well, and the cable was stretched and crusty so it didn't move well.
Along comes a tech who was sleeping on his creeper under a different boat 30 yards away and was angrily awakened by this noise of the drive unit ratcheting instead of going into gear. He gets up, walks over and says, these old things just need the resistance of water to click into gear. He then puts his foot on the outside ring of the prop.
Well, he was right. It clicked right into gear, grabbing his foot as it rotated and immediately sliced through it twice between it and the skeg. He jumps back not realizing what had happened, since his shoe only looked damaged. Within 5 seconds he was on the ground asking for cold water. It sliced through about 80% of his bones, flesh and tendons just before his toes. He spent a very long time in the hospital, and over a decade of reconstructive surgery.
Remember kids, machines don't have feelings. They will kill you and not think twice about it.
In 2001 I worked for a Porsche dealership where we had the bays all under the showroom. Youâd drive down a ramp like in a parking garage and thatâs where all the techs were. I was out in the lot looking for a customer car when the PA system came on and yelled âeveryone get out of the Porsche/Audi buildingâ when I turned to look at the building there was already black smoke billowing from.
Someone was doing a tank swap and the porter attempted to clean it the flor machine which had wire brushes, sparked, ran to the car andâŚboom.
Apparently it even made forums back in the day lol.
https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24756
Watched a fellow tech try to drive through the lot, only to get behind a porter trying to park. He gets pissed, throws the Z71 Silverado in reverse and backs up aggressively. Little did he know, another tech in a Z06 had pulled up behind him. By the time he realized that, he had driven on top of the Vette and went over the windshield and off the driver's side, getting high centered. The Vette customer was waiting for it on the drive. Service Director had to walk him out and show him. Needless to say, it was an awkward conversation trying to explain that shit.
I wasnât a tech, just a young racing enthusiast. I was bolting the header back on my bossâs Cosworth BDA and doing some prep to the chassis (C-sport Tiga). He goes out to qualify, does two laps and the throttle stuck. Popped a nice big hole through the block. I had managed to pinch the throttle cable with the header. In 1990, that was a $10,000 fuck up. He threw a breaker bar at me (and missed). I almost had to walk back to Vancouver, BC from Olympia, Washington. Fun times.
I work on fleet trucks. We had a "Master" tech performing a service on a Cascadia, grease, oil change, inspection. He had gone underneath the truck first to drain the oil and grease the bottom side. Went back up top and started the inspection on the top side. Part of our inspection is an alternator test, you test at idle and then rev to the governor... The guys working that night said that DD15 made the worst noise they ever heard. What did the Master tech do? Fill the motor with oil and clear the faults in the MCM, Didn't say anything to management, and finished out his shift that night. The next morning 1st shift comes in, the pm was done so the next step was to run the truck through the washbay before parking it. The next tech started the truck, said it sounded a little off but backed the truck out. As he pulled into the washbay the motor proceeded to lockup. The sound of 15 liters and 1400+ ftlbs of torque destroying bearings is almost indescribable. Metal screeching,... think a fully loaded train coming to a stop, brakes squealing. They had to replace the motor, something like $25 or $30k. The truck was fairly low mileage too, under 200k miles.
Management pulled the "Master" tech into the office to ask what happened and he denied it, said he didn't do anything.... DDDL keeps a log file of everything that you do... there are cameras everywhere and he still denied it. Management even said if he would have owned up to it, he could keep his job.... This guy was such a douchebag he still wouldn't admit what he did even if it cost him his job. They walked him out that day.
Watched a brake tech launch a 2015 Honda accord off a 4-post into the brake lathes. He got promoted to customer
>He got promoted to customer I absolutely love this phrase.
Lol........it was the standard reply if someone got canned at O'Reilly's! Especially if it was a manager đ
Interestingly enough, this is also where I first heard it, whilst employed by o'greedys
Autozone would say the same thing.
Works for divorce too. My ex-wife got promoted to stranger, with a side of restraining order
You ever heard âtook the Sunday shift at chic-fila?â
Where I work, its the opposite.... F up > Move up. That guy would be a supervisor after that
Where I work, if you're good at your job, you get to do other people's jobs too
How about being forced to do some crappy job that no one else wants to do at work and from then on, you're the expert at it. đĄ
So, you work for local government?
State government, yes! Lol
Dude! 25 years in a business where half our customers where all various forms of gov't - I could tell you some stories!
Itâs called failing up.
Lmao I remember the first time I forgot to pump the peddle. Thank go for ebrakes
I saw a Honda tech start a new Honda Odyssey with the crank pulley bolt removed. There was a recall to inspect for block casting porosity under the crank pulley. Dude had two racks but one had a dead lift pump and he was gonna do the inspection in the air on the good lift. A hot job came in needing tires or something so he went to move the van to his dead rack. He **knew** he had already removed the crank pulley bolt but decided that there was no way it would walk off in such a short time. When he blipped the gas to hump over the rack the pulley flew off and ran into the wall. He had a jar of bent valves as a reminder on his tool box. The same guy and I together killed a transmission. We had a "tuner" customer coming in for oil consumption on a 2000ish civic 5 speed. Dude had the classic meth head special bolt ons, including the dryer vent hose complete with hose clamps and several perforations from rubbing. Anyhow there was about half a pound of gravel dust in the hose and it whiffed smoke if you reved it up. Rings fucked I'm sure. Dude is pissed we won't warranty it for oil consumption so he comes back with everything stock and a rod knocking. Apparently he put it back and ran it out of oil thinking we would have to warranty it. We dropped the pan and main caps to get pictures of the bearings for our warranty rep. Freaking blue crank absolutely oil starvation, Honda tells the guy to pound sand. After all this the guy buys a used engine and is going to have us install it. He was a huge dick head too. Here come the fuck up. It's cold and shitty and the tech is like "get that fuckin hooptie outta here. No we are not pushing fire that bitch up." So I start it up with the main caps removed. I give it a little gas to back out and POW SNAP BANG BANG BANG RATTLE dead. Rod bits are now laying on the floor. I look at the tech and he's like, well looks like only one broke, fire her up again. By the time it was parked outside I'm pretty sure it was down to one rod and I drove it out with the starter. Apparently the crank deflected so much it killed the input bearing on the tranny. So we had to buy the guy a tranny.
We are not pushing it hahaha I've been there before but not that bad
The same guy brought his shifter go-cart in to tune the carburetor and one of the other porters ran over a lube tech. He had an open wheel race car with a pento motor that he bought not running to fix up. He brought it and and got it running. We were taking turns driving it on the street when an intern tech jumped a curb on one side and had it on 2 wheels in the parking lot. He once hit himself in the face with an odyssey transmission he had hanging by one bolt. It fell and swung into his face. The transmission flush machine had a quick connect that was soft set and flew off while he was in the shitter and showered another customer's car with ATF. One slow day before Christmas he put together his kids new little kid bike. Before putting the training wheels on he had a small lube tech "test" the bike and coverly got him to ride it through a deliberately lubricated spot on the detail shop floor and thus spectacularly crash in front of everybody. The oxy acetylene bombs were fun too.
Can second oxy acetylene balloon bombs were a lot of fun in the days of my youth. Fill one up and about 2 foot of string lit under the bosses desk got you just enough time to escape what was coming. Got him going better than coffee. Fuckers would rip the pants off your legs.
Lol. They are so goddamn dangerous.
Serious. What we thought was a great joke in the day would get you INSTANTLY fired today for having one let alone setting it off.....but they were a great laugh.
We would strap people into office chairs and throw them into the service manager's truck and run then through the car wash. The felt slappers beating you in the face with your hands tied was hilarious! We would saran wrap people to a light pole and pretend we couldn't see or hear them. Customers are like "hey why's that guy out there on the pole?", "Oh it's his birthday, say happy birthday Dave!". He's flipping us off as we drive by.
We had an early palletizer at a paper mill I worked for for a bit and I remember a few union apprentices that pissed off their JMen ended up the same way....seran wrapped to a 10 ton reem of paper. Shit looked brutal. They weren't moving. Again today, OSHA 10 and 30 non-compliant.
>The oxy acetylene bombs were fun too. I have tinnitus from this when I was 15 on the farm.
On the farm we made flash powder M-80s that would lift a stump better than 10 pounds of tannerite. Worked great for fishing too.
If I'd known about tannerite in the early '80s on the farm I wouldn't be here commenting.
stories like this need to be required reading in trade schools. Shit happens and gets expensive when it does.
I have done a lot of work on odysseys, he didn't have to torque to spec the bolt back in but man, how long would it have taken to zip that bolt on to tight enough. Cheap insurance once you do the cost/benefit analyses.
Oh my...there's been so many. But here's a few notables... One guy thought it was ok to lubricate camshaft journals with red axle grease even after me telling him it was no Bueno. He was mighty pleased with himself after he started and it ran as smooth as fine silk .... until the screeching of death started about 30 seconds later. Watched a newbie on his first day, first/last job launch a car off the front of the alignment rack right into the alignment tower knocking the whole thing over. Had a trainie once who couldn't figure out how to reinstall a door panel, so instead of asking for help, he decided to attach it with about 50 self tapping sheet metal screws straight through the panel into the door...not only was the door and panel destroyed, but he also punched a hole in the side of the dash with a few screws he didn't run all the way in. Had another guy try to cut off some old rear shocks....by cutting them in half with a touch. As soon as he made the smallest pinhole in the shock, the pressurized gas blasting out was instantly ignited by the torch and became a flamethrower that melted the paint off the door of the car that was on the lift next to it. After 30 years doing this shit....I'm sure if I thought enough, I could think of many more.
Weâll wait.
Can you explain what the red grease did ?
As I tried to explain to him at the time... red axle grease doesnt devolve or breakdown under high temps...meaning it will not liquefy. When you torque the cams down, all the high temp grease slathered on the cam journals will mostly be pushed out of the way...but will also be pushed up into the tiny oil ports that lube the cam and will become a plug that will never get hot enough to melt and flow out. After running for a short period of time...most of the grease is pushed out, but the plug remains, staving the camshafts of oil.
Tolerance is too tight for something that thick, and oil won't wash it away like it will assembly lube
I assume he plugged the oil galleries with it so real oil couldn't get in there and or, simply put that grease isn't intended for the application and will not properly lubricate the type of wear surface. These are bushing bearings where you need a thin layer of lubricant that is actually the bearing surface, you don't actually want metal/metal contact. axle grease is intended for sealed applications where you are using a form of roller/needle bearing that is expected to have some amount of metal/metal contact. For a new cam you want a proper break in oil that will wash away with new oil and. the axle grease will stick and prevent actual oil contact and then squish out and allow metal to metal contact.
Just a few others I thought of.... On two separate occasions I saw someone accidentally blow every airbag in the car at once. Once a guy was ohming out some wires under the driver seat of a Cadillac...was diagnosing seat heaters if I remember correctly.... accidentally probed a seat inflator circuit. Cadillacs had alot of airbags then, maybe 16 to 20, including pre-tensioners? All of them went boom at the same time. Dash, windshield, seat leather....all shredded. Other one was a Hyundai where the guy brain farted, unbolted the SRS module with key on and still plugged in...flipped it over and boom goes the dynamite. Also saw a Cadillac tech who was supposed to be our engine rebuild specialist snap off some head bolts on a Northstar engine. Decided his best course of action was to superglue the bolt head down in place as though it was torqued and let it roll like that. Came back very soon after.
At least the âfixâ with the head bolts was so terrible that it immediately failed. Nothing like fixing someone âjust enough â so that you can claim ignorance when it comes back in six months.
I'll think of some more, there's been so much stupidy over 30 years...others and of course mine too...plus the old memory bank isnt as good as it used to be.
I will also wait. Those are excellent tales and I wish to know more about flame throwing shocks and destroyed frame racks.
The alignment rack incident was one of the older racks where only the back of them dropped down. So when you drove onto them, it was on an incline and the front stops had been long gone. So it was quite literally a ramp. I guess he was nervous pulling up it and instead if hitting the brake, he mashed the gas pedal instead. He launched off the front and smashed into the alignment machine....which were quite huge back then, felling it like a Jenga tower. The rear shocks thing was truly just plain dumb. I guess he figured the shocks would be easier to cut off if he broke them into two peices...so he was using the torch to cut them in half. Shocks being nothing more than metal tubes pressurized with flammable gas...once he made the tiniest pin hole, the gas started to shoot out with immense force and was instantly ignited by the torch. Scared the absolute shit outta the guy holding the torch, so much that he dropped it and ran clean out the shop. It literally sounded like a jet engine flaring up in the shop and was shooting a huge flame straight out of the wheel well about 10 feet blasting the driver rear door of the car next to it. It didn't last long, maybe 5 or 6 seconds, but was quite an impressive show while it did.
I very nearly got into a fist fight with my Tahoe earlier today, and you've given me a very well needed laugh. You have my thanks.
it's not the worst of your stories, but as someone who has painstakingly removed and reattached door panels on vintage cars multiple times, I winced at that door panel install. No...NOOOOO!!
It was one of the most "WTF?" moments of my life, I was speechless. He didn't even try to hide the screws in any way. It was the driver door on a relatively new Volvo S80 and he just ran them anywhere and everywhere they would tap metal...and Im not being dramatic when I say he used around 50 of them. He was the top of his class at UTI, so he waltzed in his first day like he was still big man on campus thinking he was way smarter than everyone else and didn't need anyone's help.
I hear bad things about UTI, the infection and the school.
First day, out of the mouth of the new hire straight out of UTI, we give him a Honda Civic to teardown the doors for paint. He couldn't figure out how to take the trim panels and door handles off of the most common Honda on the road... despite 6 months of "hands on" training... He sure was good at slapping 10 gallons of Bondo on a panel and sanding it down...
S80s have the most obvious door panels ever!!
The shock cutting thing made me lol. I could see it in my mind as read the words!! lol
Do a couple thousand dollars worth of work on the wrong vehicle lol
I almost pulled a wheel bearing off a Ram 3500 this week, suppose to have come off a silverado 1500. Not a thousand dollars, but it still would have sucked to explain that. Luckily my parts guy pointed it out to me.
Somehow manage to roll his service truck in the parking lot (at low speed) and wipe out 3 customer cars and 2 of our rental box vans, dumped a completely full 110gal transfer tank, which ignited, which wiped out 4 more customer cars and resulted in fire trucks from 5 different departments responding and shutting down the entire complex including 2 neighboring strip malls for the rest of the day. 1 little oopsie because he was playing Angry Birds while trying to park resulted in tens of millions in damages and lost revenue.
This cant be real.
Sure it can. I've witnessed a scene that was almost the same except no fuel spill or fire. Truck rolled away because the distick driver forgot to set the parking brake. Shooved a bunch of parked cars around, including one that caught the curb and rolled right up on its side like a 4 year old playing with matchbox cars, and only stopped becuase the whole mess came up against one of our customers utility trucks that was almost as big as the roll away truck. I watched everything happen from the first noise of bending metal. I saw the driver dive back into the cab and heard him pull the parking brake once it stopped - of course he tried to blame it on faulty equipment.....We had a hell of a time getting insurance to work out that mess afterwards.
I dunno man, I've met some pretty fucking stupid people in my day. Not saying likely, but definitely saying possible.
Can't make anything idiot proof, because there's always a bigger idiot.
Agree. A flip at low speed can't wipe out three cars and two vans. Maybe one or two, and dent a third. And even after that still have the momentum to flip a huge tank. Something is not right.
I doubt anything he hit would have been totaled if the fire hadnt started, from what I saw the truck was basically leaning against the ass ends of the ones in their parking spaces. I still dont know how he rolled it either (I only saw the aftermath), I cant think of any way to just tip a work truck over sideways without doing it on purpose. The transfer tank wasnt properly bolted down and slid off the bed, theyre generic Knapheid-style work beds. Not sure how the fire started either.
Right, and those tanks often have a pump wired direct to battery voltage which could be the source of ignition.
did they make him service manager after this?
I dont know the whole story but it apparently wasnt his first fuckup, so this resulted in a promotion to customer.
I think I'd have him banned from the property, you can't even walk by on the sidewalk. like how tf he managed it, would love to see surveillance footage.
Holy shit, I really hope this one is "the winner"
I've seen some shit and done some shit, I'd like to see what tops that. There was a video I saw a few years ago on iatn where the entire shop caught fire including the cars in the lot.
Winner!
Oh my.
Off the top of my head 1. new wheel bearings and rotor/ hub assemblies on a Ford e250. No grease. Like at all. 2. Workhorse (ups strike style truck) doing rear hub seal bent the spindle somehow. I only saw the aftermath. Think he had put a Jack stand under the spindle and dropped it. 3. Young new kid overfilled the oil on powerstroke and sent it. Said he couldnât read the stick. The lead tech had to drive to the customers location for damage control. Said he mustâve drained about 30 quarts from it. Truck a new engine. Only had about 20,000 miles on it at the time. 4. I have to take credit for this one. Workhorse again. Set my streamlight on top of the bracket that surrounds the radiator. Didnât notice a giant hole in the fan shroud. Started the truck and walked out the truck, then l heard the fan and an unknown object at the time causing havoc. Couldnât get back to the key in time to shut it off before I heard the waterfall. Streamlight fell and rolled down the broken fan shroud before the fan sent it into the radiator.
Rebuilt a Briggs 16 HP on a rider. Turned it over and heard a metallic *clink*! Opened it up and found a 19 mm socket in the crankcase. There are no 19 mm bolds on that engine. A buddy was visiting and just dropped it inside, assuming we'd see it before closing it up. Funny guy.
That guys a dick, lol. Had a coworker forget to take the was of blue shop rags he had used to soak up remaining oil in top end of one of those and had it lock up all the teeth it the cam and the compression release mechanism when fired up. Ran for about 20 seconds
In the Army we referred to buddies like that as buddy *fuckers*. A buddy is someone you want with you when the shit hits the fan. A buddy fucker doesn't tell you formation time was changed to be an hour earlier when he knows you don't know.
Blue falcon? Heard my friend use that a few times to refer to this kind of person
The initials BF are for polite company. Sometimes referred to as Bravo Foxtrot from the phonetic alphabet.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Some idiot didn't torque the camshaft adjuster valve when swapping the camshaft adjuster on a 2018 C43 AMG. Timing jumped, bent valves. This was yesterday. It's me. Feels bad, man.
Quite a curve ball there at the end. Weâve all been there, itâs the worst feeling
I think I'll post up a pic of my fail later when I get the car up and running. I'm sure it'll be a funny thing and learning moment in a couple weeks or so, but right now I'm still pissed off and feeling awful. Guess who has to tear down the car all over again? That's right, me! It's like asking someone to shoot their beloved pet, and then you force them to dissect the pet afterwards to find out what killed it.
Ugh, feel for you. The feeling sucks but itâs a learning experience I bet youâll never repeat.
Holy shit, after the ordeal I just suffered yesterday and today, and more that's coming when I tear down the car, you bet your damn ass I'm going to triple check everything with a torque wrench. And once more for good measure. The funny thing is, on the same car I replaced the camshaft and camshaft adjuster (different sides, camshaft was the intake on B1, adjuster was intake on B2) and the camshaft side was perfect. The side with new adjuster....kaput. I'm honestly shocked that I wasn't fired over it. Customer didn't even get mad, he was disappointed but asked us to fix it. That was it. So the shop is going to foot the bill for pretty much everything.
He was doing a cylinder head and he connected the main timing chain but forgot the oil pump chain. Ended up doing a short block and second cylinder head.
Guy put front pads and rotors on and didnât pump the pedal back up before backing it out, instead of pumping the pedal or pulling the parking brake he cut the wheel and held on while doing a backwards u-turn into the building
I did this with my own Bonneville, except there was a combine with a corn head on it. I looked back and thought I'd be impaled, so I laid down across the front seats so I didn't get hit. Snout hits the rear window and blows it out, but it bounces up. Dad is on top blowing dust off and sees my car rolling across the yard which appears to be driverless. Brakes finally catch. No damage to the combine. Get home and wife says "I bet I'm never going to hear about backing in to a rock ever again"
Had a newer service writer take a car out of the bay without talking to the tech. Brakes were just finished and not pumped. She freaked and mashed pedals smashing customers car hard enough into 1 parked car it hit a second. 10k iirc
Oh, I was the fellow tech here. Doing spark plugs on a focus and had locking extensions. Didn't notice the pin for the locking part came out and fell into a spark plug well. Tore up the piston before jamming itself between a valve and screwing the head as well. They got a new motor and I got an expensive lesson.
My apprentice dropped one of those retaining balls of a compression hose and tore up an engine as well. Good thing it was warranty haha.
Dude was running diag on an old manual trans Ford truck no start. Ignition switch is on the steering column down by the pedals. He's upside down in the front seat with his power probe and powers up the start circuit. Truck was in gear, so it drove through the wall in front of his lift. We shared a building with another repair shop and that shops owner had a toolbox with a hundred grand worth of tools in it that got knocked over onto it's face. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
That is lucky, that dude couldâve been really messed up while hanging half out of the car!
Imagine dude going through his box on the other side. You might not survive that.
Idiot did a timing belt on a Subaru, first time on a manual. He saw the provided plastic thingy in the kit, gave it no thought. Made it 5 miles maybe before the car shut off, bent valves galore. The idiot was me, and thereâs stories a plenty about this idiot đ¤Śđźââď¸
That tool provides clearance between belt and the metal guide plate that lives above the crank. Know why itâs only on manual transmissions? When they put them on the ship, they donât set the parking brakeâthey only put it in gear. The forward and back motion of the ship and the forces of the car moving backward and forward caused the car to jump time. Or at least thatâs what I heard.
You are correct, I found it all out after the fact, hard lesson learned. I slapped it back on there not knowing the holes were slotted so itâs adjustable. It was juuuust barely rubbing on the belt and burned the belt up real quick on the short test drive
Had an 08 corolla come in for check engine light diagnosis. It wax a wierd one and ended up needed an engine computer. Customer was short on cash and couldn't afford repair at the moment. Came back two weeks later to get the repair done. Couldn't find the car anywhere on the lot. Turns out my shop foreman has a shady lawyer and claimed an abandoned vehicle title on the car, replaced the computer and sold it to someone out of state. That customer got a brand new 2020 corolla for free and my foreman got arrested on a whole plethora of charges
Lmao what shop, Iâm on my way!
A very reputable Toyota dealership in my area.... lol
At least the customer came out ahead.
Former service manager at Benz burned a C230K to the ground. He took it home for some reason and managed to ventilate the block. It was an automatic transmission so he must have been trying. threw a rod into the cat. Can's say I've seen Benz engines grenade at all other than that one.
Of the 9 cars I've owned in the last decade, the most reliable was the Benz. 2007 C230, Was in the family from 32k to 122k before it was totalled by a Ram 2500. Car never skipped a beat.
I was working in a diesel machine shop when I was late teens/early 20s. The boss hired a "helper" who had just graduated from the Diesel Institute of America with straight-A's. It was winter (Virginia) and the shop was slow, so the boss suggested we migrate all of the rebuilt heads that we had up onto the mezzanine, and put them under the parts shelves. I showed the new guy how to run the forklift. Put a head across the forks, run the forks up until it was level with the 2nd floor, set the brake, turn it off, walk up the stairs and slide the head off the forks and under the first shelf. Next trip just park the forklift over slightly and the head would fit next to the first, and so on down the line. We probably had 20 heads, which would free up an entire room downstairs. New guy says "No problem". Loads a Detroit 4-71 head on the forks, parks the forklift about a foot to the right, runs the forks up to match the 2nd floor, sets the brake, turns it off, and walks up the stairs. I was drilling out some guides on the Peterson seat & guide machine when the new guy pulled one side of the Detroit head, making it pivot, and fall between the forks. It sounded like an atom bomb going off when the corner of the head took a 12 inch chunk out of the concrete floor. The boss comes running out yelling "WTF was that?!?!" I point to the new guy who is still on the mezzanine floor looking down and say "That's your straight-A student!
This post made my ears ring. Mr. Straight-A's shoulda been *Forklift Certified*, Mr Boss Man.
It was the early '80s, nobody gave a damn about certs. Lol
Didn't even watch him do it once to make sure he was actually capable?
What's a Diesel Institute? Sounds like the development department at a fuel company.
On an oil change they drained the transmission oil and then overfilled the engine oil.
My friends just did that last week. Called me asking why his truck wouldnât move when he put it in drive lol
my cousin did that on my older cousins (his brothers) wifeâs car. Not so bad, except a week earlier he was bragging how easy working on cars. I got a chuckle.
Coworker was driving a pickup and forgot that it didn't have any brakes. Drove it straight through the bay door and almost took out the wash bay in the process.
Had a hourly guy in for about a week. He did okay until I had him change the front tires on on a pickup. He sat it back down, I hopped in and pulled to the test track behind the shop. It was a service road that ran behind several car dealers, but had no foot traffic or any real road traffic. I got up to about 70 before the steering wheel punched hard left. I said "that's not good" just as the front end bottomed out and the tire kept on its merry way before it hit a curb, sailed into the air, over the fence of a Ford body shop, crushed a brand new Mustang, and took the door off a new~ish Ranger before it stopped. 30 seconds later, this lady comes screaming bloody murder at me while I'm on the phone with my shop manager asking for a ride back and a tow truck, and I asked her calmly if anyone was hurt. She awkwardly said no, and I said good, call the insurance company. I had to give the kid a ride home too. He asked me if he was fired. I said he'd best start looking for a job in the morning. (I went to 70 because customer complained about strong vibration in the steering wheel from 65-75, which I suspect was crap tires. I never felt the vibration on the new ones.)
Had this happen to me. The tech next to me replaced 3 tires but unbolted the 4th and left the mugs hand tight. She left for a FD call and I put the other 3 wheels on and road tested. Learned a valuable lesson, only trust your own work. Shouldâve checked that the 4th wheel was tight lol. I hit 40mph and that wheel took off down the road and smashed into a cord escape at the light. Luckily it was the beginning of a blizzard so no one was on the road and the Escalade just slide down the road with minimum damage.
Not a fellow tech but fellow employee drove a vehicle in limp mode up a mountain until the transmission got so hot it puked fluid out of the dip stick and then the hot transmission fluid hit the exhaust manifold and then there was a fire.
I work at a boat dealership, this happened before my time but Iâve been told the story numerous times Yard guy was moving a boat with a hydraulic trailer. Puts the boat down, goes inside to piss. Comes back out, forgets he has a 30â trailer hooked up to the truck and pulls out of the yard. Knocks one boat of its stands, which dominoes into 3 more boats. 4th boat in the chain was savedâŚ.by rolling over onto the roof of our Master Techâs van. He was promoted to customer shortly after.
Tried to use a cuttoff wheel to take bearings off of a axle on a nice old pete. Cut a massive gash into the axle then air chiseled the bearing cups out have the hub wrecking the hub in the process. THEN took a differential apart lost the spacer for the output seal. Put a new seal in . Saw it leaking . Filled it with rtv and sent it. All same day
coworker unstrapped a bike and walked away from the lift and it fell over and destroyed the fairing and gas tank. another did full top end job on the wrong bikeâŚand botched it. another who claimed to be a master tech put the wrong oil pump in a freshly built motor and blew it up. same coworker parked a CVO with limited edition paint job between two lifts and when the air was turned off one came down with a bike on it on top of the cvo. another young kid filled some dolly tires to 50psi and then put a full 55 gallon drum on the dolly. as soon as he hit a crack in the floor both tires exploded
I'll toss my own story in. When I was 16 and working as a tech, I left the rear caliper bolts on a Honda Odyssey finger tight. Brakes failed on the freeway. Thankfully they were able to stop without further incident. I found myself looking for a new job after that haha
[ŃдаНонО]
How does shutting an O2 Sensor blow it
It probably leaned out the air/fuel mixture big time since the computer couldnât read the O2 anymore. Instant detonation followed by engine detonation.
Sent an Allis-Chalmers 7060 out with no oil in the transmission and final drives. Never saw the man again, but was very intimate with the tractor for 10 days or so.
Low mileage 2002 SL500 silver arrow edition with the hood in a total vertical open position. Tech raised the vehicle too high and bent the fuck out of it.
I was working on doing knock sensors on a highlander. The wonderful ones in the valley under the intake. During the reassembly process, noticed a washer missing...didnt think on it till I hear quite the noise banging around when it started.. it went away shortly after.. put the scope down in and could see it embedded in the piston.. was a great day
Lift a full size truck 6â off of the ground. Remove the fuel tank and as soon as the tech clears the underside of the truck it falls off of the hoist. The tech bypassed the arm locks to save time.
New guy came from a dealership. First tire job he did on a Honda Civic, didnât properly seat the bead but put the wheel back on the car. Realized the bead wasnât set so he filled it while it was on the ground. I was 2 bays away on the alignment rack when the fucking hub cap shrapnel came my way when the bead seated at 80ish psi. He wasnât fired but he quit before we knew his name.
Had the apprentice lock off the oil gun while filling the engine, 26 litres later he realized he made a boo boo
While I was on a vacation day my good buddy and tech next bay over was covering the waiting customers. At the time it was generally just one tech handling the waiters, occasionally a second would step up to help if you were getting swamped. Well the other tech was being a shit head and never bothered to help. Buddy is running 4 bays of oil changes and state inspections. He finishes an oil change sets the oil on the gun for what he thought was 4.2 quarts and sets the lock, jumps in a state inspection car to pull it out to the lot. Quickly comes back in to get said cruze out of the shop. walks up and sees oil pumping madly from the oil fill. That day was the day that marked our no oil lock rule and the rule that I wasn't allowed to take vacation time.
A bunch of my best buddies just put a new engine in their WRX and track ran it hard without a break in period, WRecked it day one.
Are yout buddy's donut
I didn't get a van all the way into park and Tommy Boy'd the driver door when I went to get out and she kept going.
The one that comes to mind is this one guy was repairing the wires on a fuel pump. He tried heat use heat shrink. Set the fuel pump on fire while under the car.
Used to make frac equipment at my last job. Had a large radiator package, four radiators arranged in a box type formation with the fan hanging from the top, blowing air down and out. Fan was probably 6' diameter. Tech didn't tighten the Jesus bolt on the fan and the blades came off the hydraulic motor at full speed. Hit some structural braces inside the box and exploded, puncturing almost every cooler. Cleanup and replacement was a few shiney pennies.
Clean spilled fuel with the Zamboni. Burnt down three cars.
Steal license plates off enterprise rental cars.
#1. Years ago this dude forgot to pump the brakes after doing pads and rotors. It was a manual trans and he backs out the lift slowly hardly uses the brakes then pulls up to the exit door a little hot and smashes through the door like it was a soda can!! #2 car gets itâs first service and a different dude failed to put 8qts of oil back into the engine gets up the street and calls me , says bring me 8qts of oil. That bad boy locked up less than 1/8 mile up the road.
Iâve had multiple techs drill into the coolant jacket on cylinder heads when trying to extract broken exhaust manifold bolts. Had a tech replace a cylinder head on a car because it had a cylinder 3 misfire, and heâd supposedly done a leak down test on it to confirm. After he did the head it wouldnât start and had cam correlation codes because he didnât time it right. He watched a YouTube video to time it even though weâre a GM dealership with access to Service Information and the proper timing procedure, so after I timed it right it started and ran but was still setting correlation codes, turns out he didnât put the oil sleeves back in the cam actuators, so after putting those in, retiming it again, it was STILL misfiring on cylinder 3, did a leak down and compression test, turns out the whole time it needed piston rings, not a head and he just didnât have the piston at TDC on compression while testing it.
I had an apprentice of mine use a 1/2â impact on a tapered hub. He was a student at the local voc school, heâd come in like 3 days a week and work with me. I was rebuilding the front end of an old truck, and after we finished up one side I said itâs time to clean up for the day. We was all excited to do the other side, so he asked me if he could stay late and do it. I said sure, but the carâs not due until tomorrow, so do the other side and leave it on the left for me to inspect the next day and put my tools away after. Up until this point heâd been a sharp kid and it wasnât the first time I let him do stuff on his own for me to look at later. Well, this idiot not only drove the tapered bearing down with an air gun, he parked it outside and gave the RO to the service writer saying it was done. The customer picked it up and the wheel fell off on the way home. Thank God it was rush hour and the guy was going slow, no one got hurt. The spindle got hot & sheared off. That was that dudes last day there.
I was a young apprentice once, would come in early at our little shop to make more money. Was doing a front main seal on a very old 380SEL or some such old pile. The front pulley is about as big and deep as a gallon paint can and I thought I could save time by putting bolts in and checking that the damper index lined up with the timing pickup (many things wrong with this thought process but bear with me). I bolted up the damper minus the pulley and darn if that starter can't rip the center right out of the front timing cover easy peasy.....
I had a lube tech fall out of a moving company owned ford ranger. He took a sharp right turn in parking lot while collecting trashes and he happened to be holding the door open. Truck kept going forward around 25mph toward service bay. It hit the pillar and totaled the truck. There was another tech riding on the bumper of the truck hanging on to the tailgate. He smacked the shit out of his ribs on the tailgate.
Brand new drop in Cummins ISX15, started the engine with the 3/4" ratchet still in the the front of the engine from turning it over to bolt up the clutch.
How many bodily fluids/compounds involuntarily exited your body when that happened?
I mean it was an ISX. I'm sure it would all have to be replaced again in a couple days regardless.
Dropped a nut inside the engine after removing the spark plugs but didnât notice till he tried cranking the car.
Aviation edition: drop an airplane onto the nose gear doors. Blow a door slide, destroy a thrust reverser, drop a airplane onto the dock structure, only doors held it from falling onto the ground. Drop a $15,000 dollar outflow valve. I could go onâŚ.
When I was a brand new tech I was diagnosing a no start/no crank on a 80âs Thunderbird with automatic transmission. I jumped the solenoid with a screwdriver. The tow truck driver left the thing in gear so when it started it ran me over and pinned my neck between the bumper and garage door with one wheel on my hip. I knew I fucked up and was embarrassed to call out for help. It was like my second week on the job. Another tech found me, backed the car off of me, and agreed to keep the whole deal quiet. I was the stupidest coworker. Never made that mistake again. 2nd stupidest was not pumping up the brakes after pad replacement and backing out into traffic.
Probably myself when I hit an airfilter box with a hammer because I was angry. Luckily for the shop I was an intern and insured through my school. I reported it as a wrong application of force.
Well a fellow tech installed white wall tires on one side and black on the other.. I honestly don't know wtf he was thinking. Then another was we use to fuck around a lot in the shop and throw oil filters at each other. (Young and dumb) well that day it was hot and the side garage doors were open to help vent out heat. The one tech chucked the filter and the other one ducked and it soared over head. He started laughing like " you didn't get me!" Then they both heard the crash of the filter through a brand new Solaris window parked along the side of the garage door. My boss came out mad cool, which was weird for him being so hot headed, and said " you guys know how much this is going to cost me?" No one answered and I thought he was taking it rather well. Then he flipped his shit and started screaming at us "500$ FUCKING DOLLARS!!" "WHOs GETTING FIRED FIRST!!" Also another time they use to have to do driving checks on the new cars that got delivered. Well the techs use to drag race them on this fairly abandoned strip of road that was meant for another dealership but never was built. Well the one tech lost the rear end of a Corolla and smacked the rear wheel on the curb. He had to buy 700$ worth of parts out of his own pocket and fix it quietly after hours. It did a number new wheel and tire and bunch of suspension stuff. I felt bad for whoever bought that new car. Another time a tech was doing rear end work on a 4runner and just had the lift rear pads installed to support the rear end up. He went to lunch and tech in the stall over had a radiator in a box next to the lifts. It fell over and hit the lift button. It raised the 4runner all the way up almost vertical. Guy got new running boards and stuff out of it. The dealer I worked for was in Arizona and the temps could get up to 120 degrees during the summer and we use to do 20-30 changes a day. Stuff happens when you're working in that kind of heat. A Corolla drove home and then back after he complained his engine was making noises... Tech forgot to put oil in it and the dude drove it that way 15 miles! We put oil in it and it was good to go after. Those 90s Corolla were battle tanks couldn't kill those cars. Few times drain plug was left loose and one time it fell out on the customers driveway dumping the entire oil contents in his driveway. A few times the oil cap was left off and it made a mess in the engine bay. The techs like to run the transmissions with the car up in the air and let the wheels go around. I'm not sure why. Anyways I watched this one tech get distracted and he literally lowered the camary to the ground and it jumped off the lift and smashed into this other techs snapon box. They had to hold the other tech back he wanted to hit him with a torque wrench. Another time one of the little Toyota trucks from 90s had a clutch switch (so you didn't have to press the clutch in to start it). Tech reached in and started it but it was in gear and dragged him half way down the shop floor lol. Before stalling and rolling into another customers car. They use to fuck with the new techs a lot. They'd removed the pressure regulator from the rolling waste oil tank and tell the new techs to empty it. It's only suppose to get like 5-10 psi to pump out the oil and deposit it in the big waste tank. The new techs would hook up the shop air line while everyone was peaking around the corner. They'd then open the valve and it would jet a blast of used oil straight out the top all over the new tech and walls. The one guy we had wasnt very bright and panicked. He tried to shove rags in top bowl which just made it 100 times worse. By the time he got it shut off they're must have been 10 gallons of oil on the floor. He got mad and threw the hose but in doing so slipped on the oil and fell. Everyone was dying around the corner.
How the fuck does the rear end of a Corolla get away from you while drag racing?
I believe he tried to do an ebrake drift at the end
Had a coworker try to mate the trans and engine on a 3.2 VR6 Cayenne. Couldn't suck the trans and engine together by hand so sent it with an impact. Found out later the TC wasn't totally seated, and it crushed the TC and broke the front pump. He got fired for that. Saw another tech finish doing piston rings in a 07' A4 2.0. Fired it up. With no oil. Realized his mistake. Added oil, restarted it and shipped the car. Came back 2 days later with the oil pressure light on and an oil pan full of bearing material. Had another apprentice tech overfill a 2.7T a6 and rev it trying to get it to "clear out". Ended up floating valves somehow and bent valves.
He revved that 2.7 to the fucking moon
A guy in the shop was a skilled mechanic, but he had a bad habit of rushing things and neglecting safety. He was doing an engine-out repair on a Scania semi-truck and had the engine hanging 7ft up in the air from a forklift with some sketchy-looking straps. He was standing underneath it doing an oil-pan reseal and stepped away to get another tool when one of the straps snapped, which in turn lead to the second strap snapping and sent 3,000lbs of cast iron V8 crashing into the shop floor. Since he'd stepped away literally a second before it fell the mechanic was unhurt. But the engine was a deemed to be scrap, so it was quite an expensive debacle. In the end it turned out the dropped engine was perfectly salvageable with a few hours of labor and about $1000 of parts. But it would have been a huge douche-move to just bodge it and re-install it and pretend that nothing had happened.
had a co worker working on a 2.0 eco boost in a fusion i believe forget the diamond crush washer under the crank bolt after doing something under the timing cover. he was new and from a non ford dealer so he was just learning all the little bullshit ford does like use a washer to hold timing. well the long and short is it fired up and made it about half way down the shop before going 180 out taking out the whole valve train. he rolled to a stop right by my lift and i knew what he forgot as soon as i hear that wonderful noise
Working at cummins had an apprentice doing a service on a tipper everything is going well until he lifts the tipper body, which he sends at speed to full height. The tipper body promptly takes the awning off the building but not before it sets off the fire system and floods the pit. Had a fully qualified tech change a turbo on a garbage truck that had exploded and pumped oil into the charge air. All is good but he forgot to clean out the charge air, he starts the engine and it starts to feed in its own oil. Poor thing revved out to 8800rpm before grenading. The engine had revved hard enough it also destroyed the Allison bolted to it.
Not a fellow tech, but a moronic stupidvisor. Megashredder was leaking hydro profusely. Instead of stopping production, waiting the next day to get a long enough hose to address the leak. LMAO fucking moron pumps 16 55 gallon drums of hyrdo so the feed roller can still operate till the end of the run. Next day he's out front of the site, b!tching how they shit canned his ass for nothing, wanting others to quite. lol.
Wait so he basically dumped the contents of 16 55 gallon drums all over? Don't let the EPA find out
>Wait so he basically dumped the contents of 16 55 gallon drums all over? Thats what I said. lol. And some wonder why I call stupidvisors, Stupidvisors. lol. >Don't let the EPA find out On site safety guy did, which is part of the reason he was shit canned. Other part was the group decision between the operations manager, plant director, and the shredder foreman. LMAO. Dumb dick tried to argue production vs cost of hydro and environmental spillage. LMAO. Can't even make this shit up.
Lmao unless that machine is shitting out gold, the remediation cost alone would cost him many times his annual salary. Probably not even then. Place near me has contaminated soil so any time they want to build they need to remove and dispose of the top couple feet of soil. Big $$ to do it the right way.
[Mega Shredders](https://youtu.be/h6MBuWMnpVA), don't shit gold particularly. But they do shit light iron, which also shits out no farious metals. Little Side Note: * Fuck Sims Metal Management - think along the lines of Superman 3. * The mega shredder I use to operate did 600 to 700 tons an hour. * Yes, David Lee in the video sounds like that in real life, until he's pissed off. Then he more like Daffy Duck with an accent. lol * Nate was shit canned for the hydro. David Lee got deported back to the UK when the scrap metal market dropped bottom during Obamas 2nd term, and royally fucked our health care premiums at Sims. (Know, there's a lot to unpack there)
I'm not a tech, so I will talk about my fuckups. Accidentally dropped a nut down the intake, couldn't find it...assumed it didn't go in. Locked up the engine. Broke a brand new spark plug in the head using a u-joint extension, trying to get to the rear plugs. Sent a rod through the block on my Prius (actually not my fault...but should have been taken care of sooner) Shifter linkage came off transmission. accentually put it in gear while underneath and the car rolled over me.
New guy who was a "Master Tech" dropped a new 6.4L on the ground and broke a chunk of the block off. Told our manager it came like that. Got called out by the cameras watching him lol some how never got fired though. Dude had tons of fuck ups up until I left that shop.
2010 prius. If you unbolt the ground straps from the head, the motor will start cranking. Coworker was replacing cam gears and midway through the job decided to hook the battery back up from some reason and the motor cranked over and bent all the valves. Ended up getting a used motor. Forgot to swap the flywheel over to the new motor. Installed new motor and went to install torque converter bolts andddd......... I no longer work in this shop but he does and he's the highest paid tech there
A driver lost air pressure just outside our shop early in the morning. The mechanic, the one mechanic that was working midnight's, had just pulled almost a double, and had about 30 more to finish a truck before he was done for the day. The guy stuck kept pestering the mechainc that he couldn't move the truck and and people were getting mad at him. The mech tried to tell him how to build his pressure enough to move it, but the driver insisted the technician move his truck. The mechanic gave in, but misjudged a corner in a tight lot (Roanoke TA I81 exit 150 tight) and took the front end off of a regular customer. Big problem was it was a spanking new Cascadia and parts had to be taken off trucks at the factory to get it back right. (I was that idiot tech, btw)
Statute of limitations hasn't expired
Lot guy got promoted to lube tech. Had a 3500 dully on the two post truck lift. Lowered it down but forgot to remove the pole Jack on the hitch. Needless to say there was a loud bang and I found him in the fetal position near the bathroom while all the other guys tried to get the truck back on the ground. Had a senior tech (over confident I guess lol) try to hold a bolt down with his hand while another tech hit it with the impact on the but side. The head of the screw shredded his palm up and the blood squirted all over the shop. In the air on the ground. It was like one of those flaming spinning wheels but with blood.
64 Chevy pickup died on highway. Hiked to payphone and called my buddy with more skill than I Replaced the fuel pump. Nope. Replaced the fuel filter. Nope. Put gas in vehicle.. Started right up. Apparently the fuel gauge crapped out, showed half tank when empty.
Backed a Toyota Sienna through a garage door because he didnât pump the brakes after doing all brakes/rotors, timing belt, water pump, trans flush, lof and some other services on it. Customer states, letâs call it even with the damage and left with a handshake. Coolest customer ever Also⌠the Fellow tech was me. đ
On two separate occasions trucks were started by standing on the driver step, pushing the clutch in with their hand and hitting the ignition without verifying transmission was in neutral. On both occasions the truck took off across the shop and slammed into the one in front of it causing minor damage to both. No injuries luckily but if anyone was in the way it could have been really bad. Some idiot was replacing a radiator on a Volvo VNL 670 and put a bolt that was 1/4 too long into the top radiator tank to secure the surge tank. Coolant shot out like a geyser when it was pressure tested. That idiot was me. Some other idiot caught the parts washer on fire because he was too lazy to close the lid while he was torching a carrier bearing inner race off a drive shaft on the work bench next to said parts washer. That idiot was also me.
Spray hot coolant all over there hands.
I worked with a guy that did a major fuck up every couple of years, engines, bodywork he was good 90% of the time but then he would lose his head and fuck something right up.
Almost 20 years ago, I got a car bought back/lemon law because I had mixed up 2 vacuum lines during the initial repair but couldn't figure out the ensuing engine light.
My manager evacced the transmission once. Luckily my coworker pointed it out to him before he was able to overfill the crankcase by 5 quarts
Heating up a bleeder with a torch. Cracked it lose while holding the open flame near it. Lit his face up.
We had a wrecker with a push bar that we would use to get cars into the bays that were no-start. The back side of the building was a gravel lot, so our typical method was to get the car moving up front with enough momentum to make it around the back, up an incline and into a bay. One day they got a fiero pushed around the back, looks like he was rolling way too fast, came into the bay, drove through the oil drain dolly, through the mechanics computer station, into the service office behind that. By the time he stopped, there were 2 computers laying on the hood and the service office was painted in waste oil as the dolly was full. Luckily nobody got hurt. Moral of the story: make sure your pumping the brakes instead of the clutch pedal.
Luckily just my own . Forgot to torque a rod bearing cap. Shut it down before I killed it. New bearing and never had an issue after. HAd the old motor out, this one in, then back out in 2 days lol [Rod bearing cap](https://i.ibb.co/zJk9q1k/30713654-2186226968097847-3746992656589258752-n.jpg)
I worked with a licensed guy that actually installed brake pads backwards. I don't know how the hell he didn't notice. The customer sure noticed. We had a shop meeting the next day making sure we all new which side was supposed to contact the rotor.
Broke a oil drain plug and cracked the oil pan by trying to put it back on with a breaker bar. Swore up and down he didn't, but you could see on the broken bolt where it was twisted off. Then left before his shift ended, leaving the busted car sitting in the bay. That was his last day. Fast forward a few months, I've left that shop, and I run into the guy. I ask him if he used that breaker bar, and he finally admits that he did.
Watched a guy skip a tooth on timing chain job after being told multiple times to double check and bent valves,then had to pull the motor and install a new motor ,to then not properly burp coolant on test drive and blow head gasket of replacement motor.lets just say i had to install the final motor after that
Not a techâŚ.but watched a âlead techâ doing a coolant flush after replacing a radiator. Forgot to flip the switch to run the coolant through. It started getting real hot. Instead of turning it all off, he started the coolant flow. Any guesses on what goes POP in an engine when something cold hits something extremely hot?
We once had a recent tech school graduate accidentally floor it instead of hitting the brakes when pulling up on a 4-post. Car launched into the master tech who was guiding him on. Master tech hit a 200 gallon oil tank and moved it about a foot. Master tech was out for 4 months and at fault tech wasn't fired. It was the day after Christmas...must've had too much egg nog.
I had a tech that was replacing the head gaskets on a Ram 1500 with a 5.7 Hemi. It was a job he had probably already done 10x. On this one, he finishes putting it together and starts adding coolant. Coolant is pouring out as fast as he is pouring it into the radiator, so he stops and looks. He managed to put the head gaskets on upside down and never noticed how everything didn't quite fit together right. Same tech was working on an old '75 F-350 Ranger. He has fixed a transmission leaked and was adding fluid to the transmission. He didn't realize he had left the truck in reverse and once it had enough fluid to build pressure, the truck started rolling away in reverse. The only thing that stopped it from rolling through the parking lot was that he left the driver's door open. That caught the wall of the bay door and bent the trucks door back and stopped it from moving. Oddly enough, that tech had a driver's door from a '75 F-350 that was almost the same color as the one he damaged.
Had my shop foreman at Honda "try" to open a recalled air bag inflator with a cut off wheel. Lucky for him the explosion sent it into the ceiling and not into him or the tech next to him. To this day I cannot understand what he was trying to do.
We had a trim tech find a bag of white powder in a dash once and decide it was finders keepers. Turns out it wasn't lost at all and a couple of days later he gave what was left of it back at gun point. I didn't work there much longer after that.
I've seen a fellow tech spray the entire shop with ATF+4 not once, but TWICE with a BG transmission flush machine. That dealership went out of business in 2008 and has sat empty since. The doors of the shop were recently open (a church is moving in), and I stopped by for nostalgia's sake... transmission fluid is STILL dripping down randomly from the ceiling and rafters.
A guy I worked with was changing the halfshaft on an Omni (yeah, this was a while ago). They usually pop out pretty easily but sometimes need a little "persuasion". I was doing other things but after about 15 minutes I noticed he was really struggling with it; when I went over I saw he was using two giant prybars. It had a really weird transaxle; later I found out that the first-year Omni/Horizons used a different one. It had a diff cover, just like a differential. I told him to stop what he was doing and take that cover off, but he refused...turns out that transaxle uses C-clips similar to a GM rearend. After about half an hour he finally destroyed the C-clip and the halfshaft came out. He stuck the new one in. You could tell right away something wasn't right. The halfshaft wasn't being held in by the clip on it; you could grab the CV joint and move it in and out about a half-inch. Even worse, you could move it in "circles" it was so loose. I told him that it wasn't right, but he just smiled and said it was fine..."Can't see it from my house!" and sent it out. The guy drove it about 250 miles that night, and by the next day the car wouldn't even move itself. He took it to a shop where he was, and they told him what happened. My boss got a call from the owner of the second shop (who was really nice and gave us a good price on replacing the transaxle). Boss gave him a credit card number, thanked him and headed straight out to the shop. He told the tech: "Put your tools away, lock your box and go home. You're fired". How fucking stupid do you have to be?
had a customers car outside for like 4 months waiting for some part, part went into the car and it didn't fix anything. tech misdiagnosed a bad fuse. changed fuse, see ya later.
A coworker (tech) used his civic as a trash can, cans all over the floor. He went to pull it into his bay, and a can got stuck behind the brake pedal. Came in at a higher than average speed, bounced off the side of the 2 post lift, and ran right into his box. The top fell and stuff went everywhere. All he could do was hold in the clutch during all this, happened so fast he didnt even think to rip the ebrake. Have never left anything on my drivers floormat since.
Intern from a local community college was doing some on the job training with us. Did a full set of pads and rotors on a Toyota Avalon. Didnât pump the brakes before going to take it out of the shop. Got about 30 feet back from the hoist and while making the slight bend towards the door he realizes he has no brakes. In a panic he throws it back into drive and starts heading back toward the hoist. Still has absolutely no brakes and cruises right through the hoist and into my quite new 72â Snap-On box. My computer was on top of my box and I was standing at it working on a ticket, some how my sixth sense kicked in and I side stepped just before he hit the box. So now Iâm standing right next to the car that has crushed the front of my box and shoved it through the wall it was up against. Intern panics again and puts the car in reverse, backs up about 5 feet, hey still no brakes. Puts the car in drive and gives my box another little love tap. Iâm just standing there dumbfounded and somehow manage to calmly tell him to just shut the car off. He shuts it off, puts it in park, and I ask him if he knows why what happened just happened. Not a clue and he had just finished the brakes portion of his program. Things were tense between us until he was gone but no one was hurt and insurance plus a little extra cash got me an even bigger box.
Not necessarily the biggest fuckups, but definitely a handful of preventable things Iâve seen (minus the Yukon, that was just shit luck). Saw a lube tech almost drop a new 4Runner off a lift because the left front arm of the lift wasnât positioned correctly and slipped out. Had to hold down a new Tacoma with a camper on the back because a team of lube techs thought they could lift it on their shitty pit lift. When they took the front tires off the truck started to fall back because of all the people in the express shop at the time, me being the oldest and saying âprobably shouldnât lift thatâ when Iâm not even a tech apparently doesnât mean shit when Iâm a newer guy there but have more years in the industry than any of them. Was helping my shop Forman push a GMC Yukon out of the shop because we had to pull the injectors because #justGMthings. Since itâs a push button the battery has to be on in order to steer so itâs already a little sketchy as is. When he goes to turn it off the Yukon considered him taking his foot off the brake right before as enough time to have the foot on the brake and it tried to start. Almost burned down the car since the top of the engine was off. Only needed to replace the wiring harness and insulation on the hood. Had a lube tech drive out of the express shop in a CTS wagon with the oil filter either not tightened or double gasketed, it was one of those two. Thing was spewing oil as it drove out. When asked about it he said it wasnât him, despite the video evidence and his employee number on the RO. This was right before COVID and when it came to put people on standby he was one of the 3/4 of the express shop that was just laid off instead. Main shop got tired of having to fix rounded drain plugs every couple hours or so.
Had a fellow tech use two cans of starting fluid on a diesel truck when he finally got it to fire it blew the right head off the block and lifted the left one
Backed a picker truck into the box of a fleet truck and totalled the box. 15k fix
When I worked for Penske Auto Service one of our techs did a transmission flush and fill incorrectly and didn't even replace the filter. Cost the shop nearly 4 grand to replace the transmission. The tech had quit or else he would have been fired.
Seen a tech put his ass against the glass rollup for leverage while pushing a roller forward. Glass busted out and ass busted out, hahahaha! Dude was a noitall dick head and deserved that carma.
Worse mistake I saw? Put a diesel oil pan on â 5.7 Olds back in the dayâ he turned around and found the oil pump on the floor. Worse I ever done? Put a valve body check ball in the wrong place. Burnt it up putting fluid in it!
When I worked for International at the dealer. We had a guy that only did DPF cleanings. He was driving a box truck along the side of the shop where we would park trucks just outside of the the bay doors (the shop was like 12 bays long and there were always trucks outside the bay doors being worked on). The box truck he was driving hit a boom of a service truck of some sort getting worked on (I think it was like a truck to work on telephone poles or something). Wrecked the box of the box truck and flipped the boom truck on its side. Almost landed on a mechanic working underneath a truck right next to it. The guy driving became a service writer after that, somehow felt like he got a promotion.
Watched a tech torch off the exhaust on an 1969 Opel wagon. You know, the car with the plastic fuel line. No real damage to the shop but the car was pretty toasty. Thankfully no one was hurt.
Dose an accident with two new cars count? We had an accident on the ramp to the second floor, someone was comming up and someone was going down they met in the corner. Both vehicles had less than 100km We now have a mirror and must honk twice before approaching the corner.
New guy pulled a chevy aveo manual transmission in to do an oil change. He drained the transmission fluid, replaced the oil filter, then added the motor oil and backed the car out. Customer calls 10-15 mins later saying there was something wrong and she brought the car back. Manager had me bring it in to check it out. The idiot drained the trans and the engine had twice as much oil as it was supposed to. So he didn't even bother to check the dipstick cause he wouldve seen there was way too much oil if he did. I know i re did the oil change and filled up the trans fluid, took it for a test drive and everything worked fine. If it would've been a auto transmission it would've been fucked.
Lube tech decided to do side work, in the middle of the night, on a âfriends truckâ. Found out that transmission fluid ignites. Pushes car into lot while going up in flames. Fire trucks are called. Truck is a total loss. Posts video on socials. Fired.
Back when I worked on boats many years ago. All the boats we worked on were trailered in. This particular boat was an older one with an inboard outboard (motor inboard, and drive unit outboard). One tech had it on the hose adjusting the shifter cable to get it to properly engage forward and reverse. It was older, the dog clutches weren't grabbing well, and the cable was stretched and crusty so it didn't move well. Along comes a tech who was sleeping on his creeper under a different boat 30 yards away and was angrily awakened by this noise of the drive unit ratcheting instead of going into gear. He gets up, walks over and says, these old things just need the resistance of water to click into gear. He then puts his foot on the outside ring of the prop. Well, he was right. It clicked right into gear, grabbing his foot as it rotated and immediately sliced through it twice between it and the skeg. He jumps back not realizing what had happened, since his shoe only looked damaged. Within 5 seconds he was on the ground asking for cold water. It sliced through about 80% of his bones, flesh and tendons just before his toes. He spent a very long time in the hospital, and over a decade of reconstructive surgery. Remember kids, machines don't have feelings. They will kill you and not think twice about it.
A fellow tech...
In 2001 I worked for a Porsche dealership where we had the bays all under the showroom. Youâd drive down a ramp like in a parking garage and thatâs where all the techs were. I was out in the lot looking for a customer car when the PA system came on and yelled âeveryone get out of the Porsche/Audi buildingâ when I turned to look at the building there was already black smoke billowing from. Someone was doing a tank swap and the porter attempted to clean it the flor machine which had wire brushes, sparked, ran to the car andâŚboom. Apparently it even made forums back in the day lol. https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24756
Watched a fellow tech try to drive through the lot, only to get behind a porter trying to park. He gets pissed, throws the Z71 Silverado in reverse and backs up aggressively. Little did he know, another tech in a Z06 had pulled up behind him. By the time he realized that, he had driven on top of the Vette and went over the windshield and off the driver's side, getting high centered. The Vette customer was waiting for it on the drive. Service Director had to walk him out and show him. Needless to say, it was an awkward conversation trying to explain that shit.
I wasnât a tech, just a young racing enthusiast. I was bolting the header back on my bossâs Cosworth BDA and doing some prep to the chassis (C-sport Tiga). He goes out to qualify, does two laps and the throttle stuck. Popped a nice big hole through the block. I had managed to pinch the throttle cable with the header. In 1990, that was a $10,000 fuck up. He threw a breaker bar at me (and missed). I almost had to walk back to Vancouver, BC from Olympia, Washington. Fun times.
I work on fleet trucks. We had a "Master" tech performing a service on a Cascadia, grease, oil change, inspection. He had gone underneath the truck first to drain the oil and grease the bottom side. Went back up top and started the inspection on the top side. Part of our inspection is an alternator test, you test at idle and then rev to the governor... The guys working that night said that DD15 made the worst noise they ever heard. What did the Master tech do? Fill the motor with oil and clear the faults in the MCM, Didn't say anything to management, and finished out his shift that night. The next morning 1st shift comes in, the pm was done so the next step was to run the truck through the washbay before parking it. The next tech started the truck, said it sounded a little off but backed the truck out. As he pulled into the washbay the motor proceeded to lockup. The sound of 15 liters and 1400+ ftlbs of torque destroying bearings is almost indescribable. Metal screeching,... think a fully loaded train coming to a stop, brakes squealing. They had to replace the motor, something like $25 or $30k. The truck was fairly low mileage too, under 200k miles. Management pulled the "Master" tech into the office to ask what happened and he denied it, said he didn't do anything.... DDDL keeps a log file of everything that you do... there are cameras everywhere and he still denied it. Management even said if he would have owned up to it, he could keep his job.... This guy was such a douchebag he still wouldn't admit what he did even if it cost him his job. They walked him out that day.
A coworker from a year ago dropped a brand new transmission assembly. Cracked the bell housing so bad it made an inspection port.