Share your dumb maintenance errors!

My most recent. Just a few weeks ago I was changing outer tie rod ends and ball joints on one of my cars and couldn't get one bolt loose so I took the grinder with a cutoff blade to it. I was so focused on cutting the bolt I didn't see the rubber CV boot and cut it wide open. I went to AZ and bought a Dorman split boot to fix it. I think that was the biggest piece of junk I've ever bought. While spreading the boot open enough to put it around the axle the boot ripped. I ended up ordering a Bailcast boot out of the UK and had wait a couple weeks for delivery. It was either wait on a decent split boot or pull the axle to replace it. The Bailcast CVS 18 universal boot is a well made boot if anyone ever needs one. I glued together the piece I had to trim off to make it fit then pulled on it as hard as I could. The piece didn't tear nor did the glue joint break.
 
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Left the drain plug out when refilling the oil on my 3500.

Too dumb to figure out i did not have enough fuel left in the tank after changing the pump on my Trailblazer. Couldn't figure out why it would start or even pressurize the rail. Got mad and shut it down. Wife tells me the next morning to add fuel. Criss Angel mind freak. It fired right up.
 
Left the drain plug out when refilling the oil on my 3500.

Too dumb to figure out i did not have enough fuel left in the tank after changing the pump on my Trailblazer. Couldn't figure out why it would start or even pressurize the rail. Got mad and shut it down. Wife tells me the next morning to add fuel. Criss Angel mind freak. It fired right up.

I similar with my motorcycle once! I was over-thinking the problem of the bike not starting. Checking everything, I thought it was some deep engine problem. Called a buddy with a truck and we were going to take it to the bike repair shop. He showed up, opened the gas tank, shook the bike. Saw the tank was empty. Flipped the reserve switch and it started right up... lol. I still hear about it decades later!
 
I was changing the tires on my Ford sedan from the winters to summers. I used a hydraulic jack without any jack stands. I figured it was safe because I wasn't going underneath the car. When I had one of the tires off, I heard a clicking noise with a gradually increasing pace. I realized what it was and backed away from the car. A few seconds later, the car fell off the jack and the jack dented the floor pan. I think the reason it fell was partially due to bad placement on my part and also partially due to a bad jack pad.

I was able to correct the dented floor pan with a dead blow hammer. There was no significant damage from what I could see. Today, I always use jack stands, even when I don't go under the vehicle, and I limit as much as possible the amount of time the jack bears the weight of the vehicle.
 
Messing with spark plug torque on a hot engine. Luckily didn't damage the threads but the plug itself separated. Was a good lesson in patience.
 
Changing oil on a '85 MB 300E with M103 I-6 in my parents driveway (this was my first car) - sump capacity was 6.5 quarts IIRC and I used one of those quarts of engine flush you idle in the engine for 10-15 mins. Well went to drain and I guess the drain pan I used only held I guess 7 quarts or so - that was kind of a fun cleanup.
 
I accidently grabbed the wrong container and poured the power steering reservoir full of DOT 3 brake fluid.
I drain the reservoir yearly and refill with fresh fluid.
Needless to say, I had to flush the complete power steering system and refill with the correct fluid.
It is working great. Thankfully, no damage done.
Guess my mind wasn't in the right place, and luckily
I caught it before the damage was done.
 
Did a head gasket many years ago on VW Rabbit and installed the head gasket upside down. Car ran for about a minute after the first start until the cam siezed. Head was scrap, my boss was not impressed. Turns out the oil feed hole for the top end was blocked by the upside down gasket. To this day I'll always remember that on German made parts the word 'Oben' means up 😆
 
As a young teen growing up on a farm, I had learned a lot by trial and mostly error on junk cars. About 45 years ago, fasten seat belt buzzers were very annoying and I thought I could remove it. I tried bypassing it with a paper clip and quickly discovered that I needed to learn how to work with electrical circuits. Fortunately, no damage. The wire became warm but it didn't blow a fuse.
I did something similar years ago testing a fuel pump relay. Turns out a shorted out fuel pump draws enough juice to make a paper clip glow like a light bulb. Not great when you're holding the paper clip between your fingers.
 
Many years ago, changed the two front lower control arms on a Crown Vic. Torqued them in the air unloaded and not on the ground loaded.

Torn the bushings out in a week and had to do the job all over. Learned my lesson there on suspension parts and bushings.
 
I accidently grabbed the wrong container and poured the power steering reservoir full of DOT 3 brake fluid.
I drain the reservoir yearly and refill with fresh fluid.
Needless to say, I had to flush the complete power steering system and refill with the correct fluid.
It is working great. Thankfully, no damage done.
Guess my mind wasn't in the right place, and luckily
I caught it before the damage was done.
I somehow managed to put coolant into the brake fluid reservoir... Brake fluid was leaking a bit out of the master clutch cylinder, and it turned out alot out of a rear brake cylinder, so I was checking and topping the brake fluid up every drive until the weekend when I could fix it. I was leaving from working late and somehow grabbed the 1 gallon coolant jug instead of the 1 quart brake fluid out of the trunk... I finally clued in as I poured it that this sure didn't look like brake fluid. Fortunately coolant seems to be less dense and it floated on top, so I went back inside and grabbed a pump soap bottle from the bathroom and pumped the coolant out of the reservoir and then filled and drained the reservoir a couple more times with brake fluid. No long term issues that I could tell.
 
This was probably 8 or so years ago. An extended family member died one evening and my dad calls me up, says he's going to make the drive out of town up to go be with his family in the morning. This was a bit after midnight, I was asleep. He asked if I could give his car a quick once over (97 Maxima). I said sure, head over and pop the hood. I'm still shaking the cobwebs out of my head, but do some just routine checks. Oil level - good, Brakes and brake fluid - good, external leaks - none, coolant level - radiator good, reservoir low. I head over to the shelf to grab the coolant, which was in a green bottle. I grab a green bottle, and begin to pour it in. Just as I'm about done I realize what I'd done.. I had grabbed the clear bottle full of green car soap. Panicking, I drain the reservoir, pull it out and take it inside to rinse it out, reinstall and fill with actual coolant. Fired her up and let it reach operating temp and kept an eye on the reservoir waiting for it to producing bubbles. No bubbles were had, and the car made the 36 hour round trip drive with nary a problem.
 
i had the worlds biggest brain fart in the world. i accidentally put all the new motor oil away in the fridge. i just unloaded it and put it all in then went into the house without realizing and then i wanted some sweet tea so i went to the garage fridge and i see all the motor oil. I freaked out and immediately took it all out face red as hell even though no one saw anything and thank goodness. Felt dumb as hell realizing that i was just putting oil in the fridge and even trying to move stuff around to make space for it all as if it was a completely normal thing and i did it all without realizing. almost as if they were 2 liter bottles and milk and tea jugs.
 
Back in my teens, my Pa was awesome in allowing me to explore my interests in auto maintenance.

He had a 2000 Passat. Me being just ignorant enough...I pulled the trans plug instead of the engine oil plug.

We happened to have an especially service-oriented VW dealer where we lived, and although my Pa had to pay for a flatbed, the dealer covered the refill under goodwill service (it was under warranty). My Pa never let out a word of negativity, just said to be careful next time. One more plug for that dealer...they were awesome. They bent over backwards for you. Stevens Creek VW in San Jose, CA. No idea if they’re anywhere near the same, as we left CA in 2005, and basically everything could have changed since then.

Another more recent one was after I drained my MTF, I just kinda assumed I had some kind of 17mm implement to pull the fill plug...wrong. Glad I had another vehicle to drive so I could get the correct tool.

Then there’s the usual stories of hitting a hot wire with a wrench and grounding it with a shower of sparks, etc.

One of the worse ones wasn’t me, but my Pa. He had picked up a mechanics’ special 280zx on a whim. I think it was an ‘82? Anyhow, we straightened most of it out, but then after we did something, I went in the house to make us some iced tea, and came out to blue language only a sailor like he could invent. He’d crossed battery terminals and fried the ECU. ****. That was something like $800 he hadn’t wanted to spend. It soured his experience with the car, which sucks because a straight-six, t-top kinda 2+2 touring car, even from then, is kinda cool. (It was even a kinda vaguely Smokey and the Bandit black/gold two tone).
 
2. Last summer I did a spark plug change on my 4.0L Ford Explorer. I made 2 mistakes that probably damaged my manifold gasket that ultimately needed to be replaced. First mistake, is disconnecting ALL of the plug wires at the same time. Don't do that and if you must, label them. Second mistake, if you're not sure of the order, don't assume they are logical and sequential. This motor goes 1, 2, 3 on the passenger side, but 4, 6, 5 on the drivers side. I didn't expect that. When I turned it on, BANG. It misfired and caused an expensive repair.... So lesson is to do 1 plug/wire at a time. Or label them. Or if nothing else, double check the order.
Back in my tech school days, I was doing a tune up on a Subaru. They didn't allow us to mark wires and plugs, we had to yank them all at once, then rely on the tech manuals for firing orders if we didn't have them memorized. Well, I put it all back together, no fire. Run through the firing order, it's good, so I reset to the second most common firing order, still no good. Quintuple checked my work, tried a few more things, still no go!

After about an hour, I go grab the instructor, walked him through everything I'd done, literally following the book(s). Turns out, this particular car's #1 cylinder was at the back of the engine, not the front. :rolleyes: The up side is, this was a teaching moment for the entire class AND the instructor, it wasn't my dumb mistake, it was the vehicle was set up differently than anyone expected it to be.

I learned in tech school that I wasn't going to turn wrenches for a living, I became a general contractor instead. While I still throw a wrench for minor stuff, I leave all the electrodigicals to the pros!
 
Did strut with a 3/8 ratchet and water pipe cheater stick on the Xmas day, the head of the ratchet snapped, blocking the driveway so the whole family had to cancel the road trip till the store opens so I can put the car back together and unblock the driveway.
 
I wrapped up the timing belt job on the VW Beetle I’m getting up to date for my daughter to drive. When I did the initial start up, it ran great for a minute, then started knocking and bucking and died before I could turn it off in a panic of worry. So, I pulled the timing cover back off thinking I had screwed that up. NOPE, all was well.

In the meantime, antifreeze was making it’s way in a flow under the car in a thin stream. Curious as to why, I crawled underneath to see why. It was coming out of the flex pipe and onto the floor. How the heck does that happen?

Well, I had mixed up a couple of hoses, and sucked all of the antifreeze in the overflow though the intake.....

Hoses hooked up right, oil changed, and it runs like a champ, though I had some white smoke for 30 minutes or so as the exhaust cleared out all of the antifreeze in it.

Talk about feeling dumb....and lucky.
 
After Dad passed, I moved in with Mom so she could keep the house. Dad was a cabinetmaker, and built a shop on the property. It had two loading bays, one of which he'd converted to do automotive work in his retired years. Because those bays were originally for loading and unloading wood, they were built about 16" above the grade of the gravel driveway. Dad had rigged up some rough-cut 2x12" (actual dimensions) oak planks as ramps to get cars in and out of the loading bay, propped up on old railroad ties.

It was possible to get cars in and out... with some help to make sure the tires were aligned on the planks... and some nerve.

Then there was the day I tried to get my Saab 9-5 into the repair bay, got it mostly up the ramp, and paused to check alignment... and when I hit the gas again, the planks shot out from underneath the front-wheel-drive car, and the front crossmember landed with a THUNK on the concrete edge of the door opening, wheels dangling in air.

Thankfully, being a Saab, it was undamaged, and there were plenty of suitable lifting points to jack it up and slide the planks back under it.

After which I raided Dad's collection of lag bolts for hardware to actually secure the planks to structure... and reinforce them with some mid-span bracing.
 
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