Lets hear about your worst auto repair experience. - Page 2

Burnin' oil · 10-20-2011, 01:25 PM

I have many memories of being on the verge of going ballistic out of frustration but the details are fuzzy. Usually something like Legion's experience with the socket. I had a tough time replacing a power steering pump on a Suburban because actually removing the pump was so friggin' difficult. It was wedged in behind crap and kept getting stuck. Very frustrating.

john70t · 10-20-2011, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by legion

Worst shop story:

I was 17. My '85 Plymouth Duster had started to overheat. On the advice of my non-car guy dad (I had no mechanical know-how at the time), I took the car to Pep Boys. They charged me $500 to change the radiator. Pulling out of the parking lot, the car started to overheat. I went in and complained that they had not fixed the problem that I described, and demanded they fix the problem at no charge. I finally left after they threatened to call the police on me. My dad stopped payment on the radiator (it was on his CC), and I took the car to another shop. $40 later I had a new water pump and a car that didn't overheat.

Man, that should have been obvious.
Unless the impeller or shaft broke, the absence of a missing drive belt was right there.....staring him in the face for hours....

Kinda inspiring to learn about this "mechanical stuff", huh?

924slover · 02:50 PM

some of my worst times were when i was putting a project back together. I have a habit that i still cant get rid of to this day of saying to myself " I'll remember how this goes back together" and of course months later im stuck with 3 wires and only two spots and im cursing myself and wondering why the hell i didnt label anything.

The other repair that required the most cursing was replacing the clutch in a 924s. It was similar to the mini sump repair. I must have removed the whole rear half of the car.

avi8torny · 10-20-2011, 05:15 PM

A couple of high school buddies and I were proud of ourselves for doing a clutch job on my 70" Beetle one summer night....It was short lived though, the test drive yielded some nasty sounds from the transmission. Turns out we put the throw out bearing in backwards. Quick fix though. Gotta love early VW's.