When did a simple repair on your vehicle turn into a complete nightmare?

[DanielDudley]

Bought a Fiat Spider 2000. Needed a radiator and a timing belt. Radiator fluid is dripping out the exhaust. Add a head gasket. And another timing belt. New water pump ? Why not ? Entire bottom of engine covered with oil and sludge. HMM. Clean engine while doing belt replacement. Front seal appears to be new ish. New radiator is from some Eastern European factory. Have to take old mounts from dead radiator and plug weld to steel side pieces of new radiator, as per factory. Ones on new unit are upside down and backwards. Radiator cap is shot.

The wiring was messed up, someone took out the emergency flasher switch because the engine would not shut off with the switch in place. Oddly spliced wires removed/rerouted. Redid the tail light wiring splices. Everything magically works, ignition normal.

Turned out the radiator fan was running backwards, so previous owner added a second backwards fan and a bypass switch. Fixed that. Radiator fan locked up the first time it was switched on turning the right direction. Took that apart and removed obstruction. Replace Thermostatic switch and wire in new bypass switch. Fan cycles correctly, car cools correctly.

Rear brakes were totally non functional, as are emergency brakes. Rear calipers frozen. Rebuilt the calipers, replace hoses. Rear brake compensator is frozen. Bypass the compensator, deglazed the front rotors, bled the whole system. Front calipers are ''new'' already. Grease the pistons. Topped up the steering box and adjusted the lash. Popped all the tie rod ends off and greased the new but dry joints. There are 6. Greased the ball joints. Replace tires with fresh tires, as old tires which have 100% of tread life remaining are like hockey pucks. Brakes now work, car steers and stops straight.

Car now ran great, but used about a quart of oil every tank of gas. Aftermarket oil pressure gauge was installed with brass metric adapters and fittings, none of which were assembled with teflon tape or sealant. Seal fittings. Oil pressure goes up to 60 PSI at 4000 RPM.

Needed a new battery at this point, old one would no longer hold a charge for even a day. New battery only held a charge for 2 weeks without being run. Dash clock was causing a major parasitic drain.

Car drops out of fourth gear. Amazingly, changing to correct gear oil seems to help. NAPA has it in stock, for tractors. Hard starting issue turns out to be the head temp sensor connections are corroded. Car gets parked for rest of year.

Car wasn't being driven enough, so I lent it to a friends college student son to drive all this summer. Drives like a champ, brakes work great, steering loosened up, uses no oil between changes. Never over heats.

Has a slight drip at front differential seal. I expect that the catalytic converter is probably toast, as it was seriously contaminated with radiator fluid.

All these things would have cost me a fortune in labor, almost nothing in parts.

Car ran and drove when I bought it with ''Just a slight radiator leak.''. Almost forgot the rotten fuel line.

[ian c2]

Originally Posted by john70t

I was leaning over a 1989 golf in the dark to check timing at the flywheel and my finger slips into the inspection hole.
Tiinng sound.
My hand rolls, and I pull it out, but not before losing a fingernail. Lucky lucky.

About 25 years ago I had a mark1 gti cabriolet for summer fun .
Had arranged to go out Saturday night in a friends neibourhood and decided to an oil change in the afternoon .

No problem .
New filter , new oil , shower and get ready for the night out .

Drove about 5 miles to his house and parked on his driveway .

He came out and we was admiring the new white gravel he’d just finished leveling that afternoon .

He lived in an old “listed building” and the only other nieghbour shared a courtyard with him had split the cost 50/50 to put new rock down , and it looked fabulous !!
Totally in keeping with the 2 historic protected buildings , but came with a great cost and a great deal of hard work ..

We weee then having a beeer in the house when around 30 minutes later , his wife came in and said “ there’s something wrong with your car” ...


When I’d removed the old filter , the rubber o-ring had stayed connected to the car .
I then installed a new filter , not realizing it now had 2 rubber o-rings ...

Filled it with new oil , no problem .
Went inside for an hour or so to get cleaned-up , no problem .
Drove 5 miles to his house , no problem .
Parked on his new white courtyard rocks , no problem .
Car cooled down after 30 minutes , PROBLEM !!

[Willem Fick]

There was this time I did an oil change on my wife's 2004 Mini. Turned out that the sump plug was seized solid, and the only way out was to drop the sump. In order to do so I had to strip out the entire front of the car, including radiators, power steering pump, air-conditioner pump and I seem to recall even the starter. Oh the joy...

[Porsche-O-Phile]

When my former GF decided to “be nice” and “do me a favor” by taking the car to jiffy lube to get the oil changed. Farking azzholes used air tools to install the oil filter. Yes really. I had to disassemble the front of the car to get enough room to skewer the thing with a long screwdriver and put enough leverage on it to twist it off. I think I used more expletives that day than in the rest of my life combined. To this day I have to restrain myself from not flipping off every single one of their locations that I happen to drive by. I somehow managed to just say “thanks but I prefer to do it myself” and leave it at that with her... Idiots really, REALLY shouldn’t be allowed within 20’ of air tools. Seriously, people should need to take an exam demonstrating that they’re not complete morons to be allowed to even touch them.

[GH85Carrera]

Since 1974 I have only owned 3 cars. I still have 2 of them. (I don't count my wife's cars as "mine" even though my name is on the title)

Anyway I don't get to blame previous owners of the cars for much especially when I bought my 914 new and drove it for 22 years. Back in my single days I was dating one particular hottie that was a lot of fun, but her car was a neglected disaster. Her brakes were metal on metal. So horny Glen decides to fix her brakes. How bad can it be?

I ended up working on that POS for several weekends. If a bolt was not frozen, it was already rounded off from some idiot that only had vice grips as a wrench. She did admit her ex-husband did not have many tools, but he was one. After rebuilding most of the front end and getting the brakes working she would call me to accuse me of breaking the brake lights or anything that went wrong with the car. I finally realized she was great in bed, but not that great.

[toddbailey]

It started with a modest over heating issue,
replaced the 95 C radiator fan switch with a 75 C
Took all day, reviled the radiator, thought it was properly bleed, started up the engine and it ran and it ran, temp gauge never got above 70%, fans never came on either. shut it down and notice the water level had dropped a bit, as I refilled it I basically had a steam explosion. once I could approach the car I the level had dropped even further, I opened the vent bolt and more steam. Once things cooled dow to the point where I could touch thing I started squeezing the radiator hoses only to fine there mush have been a air blockage cause as I squeeze the top and bottom hoses more air escaped from the vent bolt. after I finally got enough water in the cooling system. I thought I'd give it another try. so I hit the hit and engine turns over but doesn't start. days of research and testing indicates the BG crank position sensor had failed. now I'm stuck waiting for another shipment of parts and hopefully the engine will run, not over heat and no additional drama. we'll see, I heard that the 944 engine isn't very forgiving when it comes to over heating.

fingers are crossed...

[monknomo]

on my 944, I went in to replace the fuel filter and ended up making new fuel lines, new brake lines, dropping the torsion bars, making new lines for the fuel rail and getting a new fuel pump.

Stuff was *rusty*

[Swennydawg]

'85 Camaro V6 2.8 Ltr. I've owned several Camaros from the '70s but this was my first one from the '80s. Bought it used and it ran great but overheated during rush hour,sitting in traffic and stop n go traffic. Re-did the entire cooling system-pump,thremostat,hoses and radiator. Felt good about the car and then it over heated again! Blew a head gasket and my mind. Re-did what was needed and went to the local dealership to talk to a Chevy mechanic (car was running hot) and as I walked through a sea of Chevy's, hello! I saw underneath the front of an '85 Camaro and I'll be damned. Air damned. I had never seen one before. I manufactured one from sheet aluminum along with a couple of wood screws to hold it and the pony never got past 1/4 on temp gauge again.

[dvenman]

All the above make my "10 minutes a side to take the Boxster's rear anti-roll (anti-sway, for my American cousins) brackets, replace the bushes then bolt it back up" seem tame.

Stripped the heads off on one side, and the entire bolts outside the bracket on the other.

A friend with oxyacetylene and welder got a nut on one remaining stud to be able to bolt it up on one side, but ended up at the local Porsche specialists getting three timeserts.

Total - Ł140 for what should have taken me a total of 20 minutes...

[RKDinOKC]

Simple repair almost always becomes a nightmare when I go to pick the car up and they expect me to pay the bill.

[Td5]

My ’85 911 refused to start, starter spinning, but nothing else. So I changed the DME relay, nothing. Instead of thinking a bit I did something really stupid. The front mount fuel pump did not run so I drained tank and changed pump, did not help. After this I changed sparkplugs, have no idea why, but something made me think that is needed. Then I pulled the injectors and noted that this wonderful gasoline had partially changed to white sludge. Cleaned injectors, still no start.
Finally after all these stupid exercises I sat down and did little thinking. Measured the crankshaft position sensors and one was bad. This took me couple of minutes and so far I spent a lot of time with other meaningless issues. Funny thing was that the sensors was much cheaper from BMW spares department, only difference was that cables was a bit longer.
Lesson learned here, a little thinking will save a lot of time & money.

[Kraftwerk]

I am in pretty deep right now with my suspension refresh on my 1983 SC..: With every repair on a vintage car there's a lot of while your in there stuff, everyone knows this, but it has been one thing after another. I finished the front, right? Front looks great like Christmas presents under the tree! But now I changed my mind on a few things: I will to switch the T-Bars ... I want to de-install the brand new weather sealed mono-balls and use Elephant Rubber @ the strut top camber plate.

With the wheels in the air the rack feels "sticky" Not good, so I might have to pull the rack ( 3rd time!) or at least look into the fact that the brand-new bump-steer 'knuckles' are 'silver' and not 'gold'-color ...or is it vice-versa? Anyway they are SO the WRONG thing, a re-called part? or just 'feel' wrong.. So that for sure has to be switched out, looked at, decided upon.

Then I lost a ball bearing to my rear axel. ONE ball bearing.... and since I was right near the clutch I decided to re-do my omega spring, of course the spring shaft chipped- off at the "c" clip. so thats toast. Not sure they even sell them anywhere. Its possible that the parts dept. at Porsche, Stuttgart can hook me up, they had everything last time I was there. So maybe I need to fly to Germany for this very small part. Hey, anyone need anything?

[pieter1]

Well let’s start I was looking for a 996 coupe 6 speed for a while below 120k miles and below $15k. So found it in Fort Lauredale sales a hole describes the car as perfect so I fly from Charlotte to South Florida to buy it. Got there it’s not as described. So purchase it any way and drove her back great road trip. Got to know the car very well.

Valve cover leak, Spark plug tube leak, coolant older than me, no oil change (said it was done), wheel alignment out, left rear ball joint toast. Well need a clutch soon.

So far done myself (DIY)
Valve cover leak sorted
Spark plug tubes done
Spark plugs done
Oil change
Coolant flush
4 new lower control arms
Cleaned MAF
Re dyed the seats and steering wheel
All this in the last two months

Winter project
Clutch and DMF
LN IMS
Tranny oil change
Wheel alignment

[Brorag]

plug threads blew out--$9300 later...

[Scott Douglas]

In tank fuel pump on my wife's old '04 Mustang convert quit, with a full tank of course.
I didn't want to have 15 gallons of gas sitting around my house so had it towed to a local shop that'd done work for me before, on my BMW.
Shop calls a few days later and says it's ready to be picked up. I go over and look at it. The gas inlet system is all funky with electrical tape wound around the fill pipe rubber. So they get to re-do that.
Then I get another call and it needs a new/used computer. Seems someone fried the original when hooking up the new pump. I googled the VIN that showed up when I hooked up my code reader to it and it was from some wreck out of Reno, NV.
Finally got the car back, it ran, but the fuel gauge wasn't right at all in it. Decided I'd had enough of it and sold it off to Car Max. I really hated that car, and not just because it was red either.

[john walker's workshop]

Ever work on a 928?

[Por_sha911]

Not unique but no fun none the less: doing a valve adjustment and a piece of a head stud falls to the ground when I take a lower valve cover off. Tear down, new studs, new clutch (slave cylinder decided to leak during re-install), yadda yadda yadda

Oil change and look up to see the drive shaft boot torn. Oh joy.

Lots of Pelican parts ordered.

[svandamme]

bought a 73 S, not knowing much bout cars
went in for maintenance and the shop gave me a 2 page list of defects
FFWD 3 years, body rust repair, engine rebuild and lot's of coffee & headaches later I
sold the car for the price i bought it cause the car was still rough , I ran out of moolah and just got tired of it all.

Now I do know a lot more about cars, So i got that going for me now, which is nice.

But make sure to get a PPI if you don't!

[lgb240]

Spark plugs on my 2007 F150 5.4. Ford
2 piece spark plug design means half the plug breaks on removal, leaving metal end fused to aluminum head.
7/8 plugs broke, purposely made extraction tool got 6 out of 7 broken ones out. Last one wouldn't cooperate. Threw in the towel and paid to have head removed to get last plug out. Google it...much pain and anguish, common problem. $2700 spark plug job.

[sugarwood]

Originally Posted by john walker's workshop

Ever work on a 928?

What are the worst parts of working on a 928?
This should be a new thread. Lots of people would find it interesting.