Love that line.

Back in the late 70's - early 80's i was on my way back from delivering an oversize load in Ukiah Ca. and was planning on changing my oil when i got back home. Somewhere in Pa. i stopped and called dispatch (before cell phones) to tell them i'd be empty in CT. in the morning and headed home.
They said the company that made the load i hauled to CA. called and they had another OD. load to the same place in CA. if i wanted it. I wouldn't normally make two rounds coast to coast with out a break but these loads payed wicked good so i said i'd do it.

So i pull into the Truck Stops of America in Maybrook NY. that night to get an oil change.
After they're done i park around back and crawl in the bunk. In the morning it was pretty chilly in the truck so i started it up and curled up in my sleeping bag till it warmed up a bit.
When i finally got out of the truck there was oil all over the parking lot coming from my truck.

Long story short they forgot to put the O ring in the filter housing.
Glad i didn't take off for Ct. right after the oil change.

So two weeks ago we're making plans to go to San Diego to see the grandkids, I'm out with the CR-V at Lowes which is right next door to the America's Tire shop that I got the Michelin's put on. It's time for a rotation, which I'm not supposed to do now having had my chest cracked open, so I go over to see how long it will be. Only an hour wait, so call the wife to tell her I'll be a while longer than anticipated with the mulch she wanted from Lowes.
I have a nice talk with another customer while waiting my turn.
They drive the car in and start doing the rotation. All is going well, with me standing just outside the service bay keeping a close eye on everything. I want to make sure they put MY valve stem caps back on after checking the pressure and balance.
As the guy is putting the last wheel on the right rear, I notice he's having trouble with the last lug nut. He's about to put the impact wrench on it when I tell him to STOP!
Take the wheel all the way off.
Thread ALL the lug nuts on the studs, BY HAND.
One won't go on by hand.
Sure enough, they messed it up, probably a piece of aluminum got into the lead thread and jammed it up. The stud was OK with another of the lug nuts on it by hand.
They look around and find a 'used' one in their stash, but it sticks out like a sore thumb.
If I hadn't been standing there the guy would have just run the nut on with the impact and then where would I be?
I got a new lug nut at the dealer for $10. What a rip off, but it beats having the stud messed up.
I hate having others work on my cars, but now that I'm older and can't do certain things I'm resigned to the fact I'll be at their mercy to get it right.

One brake caliper bolt fell out after some suspension work, caliper levered itself between the upright and the wheel, locked that wheel up while I was on the slip-lane entering the freeway.

Shop manager acted like "ho hum, bring it back in".
This was the dealer, not an independent.

That reminds me of the wife's MR2. She had been advised the rear brakes needed to be done ( she didn't drive it hard enough). I had the day off so took it to the dealer and left it. When I picked it up, they said they had changed the muffler but hadn't had time to change the rear rotors and pads. Uum, OK when I got home and told her what they had done, she was on the phone to the service manager within minutes. I remember her asking him which he thought was more important, brakes or the muffler. The upshot was, after a ten minute arse chewing in which she advised him no vehicle of hers would see the inside of his shop ever again, he agreed to send the brake components to us so a local garage could install them.
My wife taught school for 33 years. The service manager never stood a chance.

Best
Les

Damn near got in a fight with four shop guys about 12 years ago. I was preparing to go out of town and took the 911 in for a simple tire balance. I pulled my jack adapter out and told them one side at a time is how it had to go. As I looked out the window they had the car up on four jackstands. You guessed it, crushed oil lines and bent floor pans. I flipped out and was quickly surrounded by four guys accusing me of being overreactive. I pulled up the carpets and showed them the bent floor pans and showed them the crushed oil lines. More words were exchanged and it became a very tense situation with threats toward me…. I grabbed a large rubber mallet and told them which ******* wanted to step up first to take the beating. No one stepped up. I left out of there without paying a dime and that’s the last time I pulled the 911 into a shop.
It’s not that I don’t trust mechanics. I just don’t trust idiots. Unfortunately, the world is full of idiots and a lot of them are mechanics.

Once had a tire shop steal the 18" Michelin Pilot Sport spare tire on a factory alloy wheel from my trunk and replace it with a nearly-bald POS tire on a steel wheel. Told the shop owner about it and the tire & wheel were promptly replaced, the tech responsible was fired, and I was comped with free wheel alignments for life. Never went back to that place though...

Took the Taco in for a minor recall and figured why not let them do the oil while it's there. Long story short when I got home I checked under the hood to have a looky and lo and behold they forgot to reinstall the oil fill plug!

I hate this thread

I've got a few, although the one that pissed me off the most didn't happen to me or a friend or family.

Many years ago, I moved to a new place and live in an apt with only a few of my tools when my wife was driving our car and the timing belt went. I didn't know any local mechanics and thought, I'll take it to somewhere corporate where you can call corporate and they'll kiss your butt. So I took it to Pep Boys (yeah, HUGE MISTAKE, and the corporate number was a joke). Anyway, it was a simple FWD GM 2.5L timing belt, should have been pretty easy. It took them a few days to get the parts (which seemed insane).

Then when they were working on the car they called "we need to pull the head and give you a head job in case the valves hit the pistons, change the fuel liter ($400), etc..." They were trying to add something like 150% more to the bill for BS stuff.

No, the pistons didn't hit the valves, just put a new belt on. It doesn't need a fuel filter.

They call and tell me "it's done, but it runs really bad, the pistons probably hit the valves, etc..."

I went to pick up the car. It seemed to idle fine. I noticed on the bill that they charged me something like $8 for a new autolite plug that at the time should have been 99¢, but whatever, my car was fixed and it wasn't worth complaining about. So I paid and started driving home. About 1/2 mile down the road, and everything seemed fine, so I turned the AC on. As soon as I turned the AC on, the car started bucking like a bronco in a rodeo. Turned the AC off and it immediately smoothed out, so I drove the rest of the way home with the AC off. I got home and found that the all of AC compressor bolts were loose. And by loose, I mean that I could see 1/4" of threads between the head and the flange/bracket. So I tightened the bolts up, and drove back up there. I asked for the manager. I told him that I didn't want to make a big scene, but it felt an awful lot like they had tried to defraud me out of a lot of money for stuff that was complete BS. I think I then demanded a bunch of money back, the cost of the plug, a price increase on the parts (they'd quoted one price for parts, and then doubled it, etc...).

The one that really pissed me off though, happened to a complete stranger. I was working at a FLAPS. One morning this lady comes in with 4 adorable little girls in tow that must have ranged from 8-3 or something like that. It looked to me like she was barely scraping buy with the girls and the car and life. The lady was buying something like 10 quarts of oil. In the process of small talk, it comes out that all of the oil is for her to get to and from work that day because she had an "oil leak", and work was a 4 mile drive.

It was Tue and on Sat she had an appt to take her car to a Firestone shop. They had looked at the car and told her that she had a leaky oil pan gasket. It was the only place she could go, because she had a firestone credit card.

Because this lady had a bunch of little kids and looked like she was using the change from under her couch cushions and floor mats to buy the oil because that was the only way she could afford it, I asked to see her oil leak. She took me to the parking lot and popped the hood. I don't remember exactly what it was, but some little FWD econobox with the motor canted back and the oil filter facing the front of the car in the middle of the block.

The leak was coming from the oil filter gasket. And when I say that, it's because I could fit my fingers between the block and the oil filter gasket. I screwed the oil filter on. We filled her car with oil, and I told her that her car was fixed, she should cancel the appt with Firestone and NEVER go back to that Firestone because they were trying to screw her.

I had a few other small ones, NTB shoved a screwdriver through the centercaps on my wife's car once because they were too stupid to figure out how to get them off. Same NTB once broke a couple of lugs on our daughter's car and tried to charge her to replace them.

THere were several more that I heard about second hand when I worked at the FLAPS.

What's the most infuriating thing to happen to you at mechanic/oil change/tire shop??
 

I got “triggered” when PepBoys was mentioned.

On a Caddy Catera (Opel Omega) I was sold on an alignment with a the first set of new tires (although the old tires had perfect wear pattern), not only they butchered the alloy rims in the process, but a few months later the car was “hopping” at high speed, they loosened some tie rod on one side but not the other attempting to align, then abandoned. I ended up taking the car to few other shops an none was able to realign.

Sears was no better: brought a Volvo station wagon for an oil change, and the kid stripped the drain plug trying to loosen it (but was tightening instead). Had to drive 90 miles and wait 3 hours while the car being worked on with the Snap-on tool rep and his truck present.

This happened in 1990 but I still hold grudge.
I took my VW Rabbit to a chain auto store for “tuneup special” while visiting my girlfriend (I wanted to “reward” my car for accomplishing 350 miles trip without a hitch), they tried up selling me on other services which I turned down. But upon picking up the car and while still in the parking lot, it ran rough and had no power. The sleazy manager claimed that it was like that when I brought it in, and that I was advised of more work was needed.
But upon refusing to accept the car in its current condition, and threatening to get the police involved, he walked to the car, opened the hood and switched back a couple of spark plug cables.


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Dang these stories make me happy to work on my own cars. It has always been part of my car hobby to fix and maintain my own cars.

I thought I didn’t have anything to contribute to this, but I just hadn’t thought back far enough. I have a ‘93 Sentra SE-R that I got new 30 years ago (see my post last week about it.) I didn’t really wrench when I was 18, and the car was new anyway, so I took it to the dealer for oil changes and the other normal servicing. About two and a bit years and maybe 35k in, I started hearing some noise from the gearbox. Sounded like bearing noise. It’s new and under a 60k/5 year powertrain warranty, so I take it in, describe the symptom and leave it with them to look at. They decide there is something wrong and they’re going to pull the transaxle and replace the input shaft bearings. I think it’s odd that they’re only going to replace thos and not the layshaft bearings too, but OK. Get the car back, no change. Goes back to them for a second time they open the gearbox up again and maybe this time they replace the layshaft bearings. On both of these trips, I’d get the car back with some other stupid little thing that wasn’t right with it. Pick the car up and on the way home there’s a loud scraping fron the left front wheel - sounds like a dust shield on the rotor. Get home and jack it up and, sure enough, they bent the dust shield and it was starting to cut a groove into the rotor. I go back there *again* - they didn’t do loaners (it’s only a Nissan) so every trip requires my dad to take me back to school and take me back - and insist both that they’re going to fix my car right and they’re going to fix their ****up and they’re going to give me a loaner. They’re resistant on the latter but I’m standing in the middle of the showroom and I’m not shouting but I’m not using my indoor voice either and it has the intended effect and they get me a rental. Finally I get the car back with no gearbox noise and nothing else wrong.

I was an ME student at Georgia Tech at the time and spending all my free time at school helping design and built Formula SAE cars so I decided I had no damn excuse not to maintain my own car. At least that way if something got ****ed up I immediately knew who to blame. So that’s how I started doing my own wrenching, for which I’ve been grateful. It’s occasionally frustrating (most recently trying to replace the brake pads on the left front caliper of my Saab), but also highly gratifying to work on my own cars.

Not all auto mechanics are piano scientists.
Some perhaps dangerous.

Long ago stopped to fix a flat and they forgot to tighten the repaired wheel on the car.
It came off on the freeway car rolled (back in the early 40s) with my grandparents, 8 year old mom and 2 uncles.
It was remote in Arizona desert so they packed my grandmother legs in ice for 3 days, never reset all her broken leg bones.
Fortunately with limitations she lived for 70 more years.

This is a cheap downer thread....:(
1. Cut the inner tube mounting the tire.
2. 4 wheels not balanced.
3. Damage rim barrel with loose air gun socket.
4. Damage rim with tire machine.
5. Always retorque lug nuts and check air pressure.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1684814694.jpg

My 1977 Capri 2.8 liter was backed into the fender at the shop at a different shop the mechanic spilled brake fluid on my 1972 Triumph TR6 front left fender the size of a flat basketball. And finally, my $1.3k barnfind 911S was in a Porsche Indy shop and they too spilled brake fluid on my car, but didn’t tell me about it. I went into the garage and saw them wiping the car down and thought it strange. Got home and saw the damage. The paint was 15 footer, but the damage covered my original cost of the car. Still have it and trying to get it road worthy.

Saab brakes up thru 1986 are easy if AND only if you have the factory tool to twist the caliper back in. Crazy design with e-brake actuating the front brakes but with the tool, pad changes are easy.

Had the Duramax truck into a local dealership for oil/lube service.

Started the truck and it didn't sound right and the heater blower motor didn't sound right.

Got it home and found one airbox screw was not the correct one and the airbox was not seated allowing non filtered air into the engine.

The door to the cabin filter was not installed correctly and the crap from the filter had fallen into the blower fan.

The lube part of the service was not completed.

They did make it right after I had returned the next day and calmly explained what I had found after they had "completed" their service of my 1 ton.

I just had the difs/transfer case/internal and external transmission filters and fluids changed at another diesel specific shop in town. No problem there.

I had a 80's vintage VW Jetta GLI that needed tires . That car came with BBS wheels and plastic decorative caps for the lug nuts . Went to a local Sears auto/tire shop . Went inside , picked out the tires and I told the service writer that the U shaped tool to remove the plastic lug caps was in the glove box .

I killed some time by walking through stores at a near by mall . Walked back to the Sears and there sat my nice red Jetta with 4 new tires . I did a quick walk around and noticed none of the plastic caps were installed . Went inside to pay and asked about the caps . Service writer says they are in a bag on the front seat .

After paying I go out to my car and there is the bag of caps . Every one of them all torn to pieces . I knew immediately that a tire goon jambed a socket over the caps and fired away with the air gun . Went in to service writer and asked " when were you going to tell me that you damaged the caps " ? Total silence . Needless to say Sears ordered all new caps for me .

In 1980 I purchased my first new vehicle . A 1980 Jeep CJ5 with a GM 4 cylinder engine . While driving home from the lot the engine shut down and quit . Called the dealership and they towed it in . When the Jeep got back to the dealer it fired right up .

This dance went back and forth for a few weeks . My frustration level getting higher with each interface with the dealership. The final straw was my last visit after yet another tow in . The service manager came out and said they can't find anything wrong and go away !!!!

That really pi$$Ed me off so I went to leave and it wouldn't start ! I calmly walked into the dealership and asked for the owner . I knew if the Jeep cooled off that it would start , it quit after getting hot .

I calmly told the owner but loud enough for everyone in the showroom to hear . I laid out what was happening since I bought my brand new Jeep . I then stated I was going out to my Jeep . I said as soon as it starts I will put it in 4wd low and that I will drive it through the showroom window !

The owner laughed at me and I slowly walked to my Jeep . I thought to myself is this worth the aggravation ? It seemed like an eternity but about 15 minutes later she started . I put on my seat belt and pulled around to the front showroom window . I reached down and put it in 4wd low .

As I slowly moved forward the owner comes running out waving his arms . After a short discussion he said they will do whatever it takes to fix it . They ended up replacing the ignition distributor because it had a faulty electronic module . When it got hot it would cut out . That was the worst automotive experience I have ever had . And that Jeep ran like a top for years after that .