Share your dumb maintenance errors!

Fuel pump on my fox body died over a decade ago. Disconnect fuel lines, drop the tank, clean off the pebbles & debris, then remove the assembly. Swap the pump & put it back together. There's a molded fuel line that traces part of the tank...I didn't tuck it back on there. Most likely I forgot but it could've been hidden by the Panhard Bar bracket too. Well I headed up Orange County later that night to meet a girl. Car got terrible mileage on the drive up....heard a dripping liquid sound while getting gas....the line I didn't put back had melted on the tailpipe that goes over the axle. Part had been discontinued by Ford & I didn't go to the junkyard. Ended up buying a piece of fuel line that's used on the Factory Five kit cars if they use the SBF 5.0
 
Last oil change on the truck Meijer had no oil filters at all in the size I needed, And I had no motivation to go anywhere else… so I did a quick google search and the internet told me the older larger filter for the 5.7 hemi equipped Ram’s will fit. Well, the internet was wrong, but I only realized after I had already drained out all of my old oil.
 
I let a dealer do a CVT fluid drain and fill once on my Subaru. The lube tech completely stripped the threads on my transmission case for my fill plug and when I went to do the next drain and fill 60K later I found it weeping around the gasket. Upon removal, I found that he had used some RTV gasket maker to hold it in there. Unfortunately because it was two years after the fact, I had no recourse.

I count this as a dumb maintenance error on my part because I would usually have done the original drain and fill myself but I got tempted by convenience.
 
First time i changed my dads oil was the first time I stopped the bolt, Thank God it was an aluminum plug with a steel oil pan so no damage was done and a steel plug was purchased

Another time was when I was working on my dads 07 Ram 3500 diesel one day and I made the mistake of getting a cheap Walmart oil pan, it had 16 quarts of capacity but couldn't handle how fast the 12 quarts were coming down.

The Supertech oil pan has the slope that leads to a sinked part with 2 holes drilled out (they changed the design to have 4 now) and me being dummy thought 2 holes would be ok and went for it, probably 5 quarts in and its hitting the top and I panic and run inside to get kitty litter ready to spread because it was spilling over and making a mess (it was on my driveway). One mess later and 1 oil mat ruined, there now remains a large black patch on my driveway since the incident.

All of this could've been avoided had I just plugged my finger in the drain hole to regulate the oil flow...
 
First time i changed my dads oil was the first time I stopped the bolt, Thank God it was an aluminum plug with a steel oil pan so no damage was done and a steel plug was purchased

Another time was when I was working on my dads 07 Ram 3500 diesel one day and I made the mistake of getting a cheap Walmart oil pan, it had 16 quarts of capacity but couldn't handle how fast the 12 quarts were coming down.

The Supertech oil pan has the slope that leads to a sinked part with 2 holes drilled out (they changed the design to have 4 now) and me being dummy thought 2 holes would be ok and went for it, probably 5 quarts in and its hitting the top and I panic and run inside to get kitty litter ready to spread because it was spilling over and making a mess (it was on my driveway). One mess later and 1 oil mat ruined, there now remains a large black patch on my driveway since the incident.

All of this could've been avoided had I just plugged my finger in the drain hole to regulate the oil flow...
Funny story, I’ve had a few close calls like that but nothing too major. I’m not sure I would have done anything different— using your finger to plug the hole sounds like a messy proposition, assuming you’d have to repeat that action many times till all the oil is out. Add some burns if the oil is good and hot. No thanks I’d rather let the driveway take the fall 😂
 
Years ago I hurriedly changed the oil on my '95 F250 w 351. I had deleted the water cooler and 2 pc lower rad hose so I just ran an FL-1A

Anyway, classic case of not making sure the o-ring came off with the filter. It stayed on the block and I threw a fresh filter on. Thing is I specifically remember thinking the new filter tightened up awfully weird, but I wrote it off and soldiered on.

Backed it out and had it idling as I swept the shop floor and kept wondering what that weird sucking/gurgling sound was....fortunately, there was snow on the ground so the leak was painfully apparent.

It was kind of a good lesson because now I'm super hard core about making sure there's a gasket on the old filter when it comes off. Not only that but I'm now so paranoid I insist on laying eyes (or fingers, if no line of sight) on the mating surface on the block and seeing/feeling bare metal.
 
The classic: forgetting to replace drain plug and dumping in a couple of quarts of fresh motor oil...
Or a too small drain pan, on a sloped driveway.
 
This just in - changed oil in vehicles I provided for my son and then taught him how. He recently bought his own car - a 2021 Lexus IS300. Needed an oil change - so came over and got started. Asks me what to do with used oil. I pour in jug and look/smell tells me ATF. Had only moved off ramps. Get it up with floor jacks/ramps … can barely see plug with WS - can not even put one finger on it without removing a section of a complicated exhaust system. Obviously the car is under warranty … No gonna take things apart …
Went on flatbed wrecker to dealership - $500 all in … plus the mom insisted we pay since I should have done the first oil change. Yes ma’am …
 
This just in - changed oil in vehicles I provided for my son and then taught him how. He recently bought his own car - a 2021 Lexus IS300. Needed an oil change - so came over and got started. Asks me what to do with used oil. I pour in jug and look/smell tells me ATF. Had only moved off ramps. Get it up with floor jacks/ramps … can barely see plug with WS - can not even put one finger on it without removing a section of a complicated exhaust system. Obviously the car is under warranty … No gonna take things apart …
Went on flatbed wrecker to dealership - $500 all in … plus the mom insisted we pay since I should have done the first oil change. Yes ma’am …
Double gasket’ed an oil filter once. Didn’t start dumping oil until I was about half way to work the next day... Had to get a tow to a local shop and get a rental for few days. It didn’t hurt anything except my pride.
 
Double gasket’ed an oil filter once. Didn’t start dumping oil until I was about half way to work the next day... Had to get a tow to a local shop and get a rental for few days. It didn’t hurt anything except my pride.
own one too - XG16 off/on … Still on ramps - whole sack of kitty litter 😷
Good as those Fram filters are - they don’t hold to the gasket that well …
 
I once did a cooling system pressure test on the Escalade. I pressurized the system to 20 PSI (the pressure rating of the cap) and noticed a small leak on the upper radiator hose. It was one of those leaks you can fix by loosening the clamp, twisting/re-seating the hose, and tightening the clamp back down. Well, I loosened the clamp WHILE the system was still pressurized at 20 PSI. I then barely touched the hose, and BAM! The hose blew off the radiator fitting, coolant came gushing out and spilled EVERYWHERE, and the clamp went flying off into oblivion (to this day, I have never found it). I felt really stupid over that. And I had to go upstairs and tell my wife she couldn't drive it tomorrow, and she would have to wait until after I got a replacement clamp and some more coolant. She wasn't pleased.
 
Put a 180 degree thermostat in the Dakota. Dumbest thing I've done to a vehicle ever. 195 degree Mopar back in and I have heat and the old 3.9 seems to happier.
 
Put a 180 degree thermostat in the Dakota. Dumbest thing I've done to a vehicle ever. 195 degree Mopar back in and I have heat and the old 3.9 seems to happier.
I went through that phase once. Even went down to a 160 on one vehicle, and it tripped a CEL. Went back to 180F until I realized (for my application) the only thing a lower temperature thermostat is good for is drinking more fuel. OEM rating from now on.

180F stats can be helpful as a bandaid for engines with cooling system problems (absoultely not a fix), or maybe even forced induction / highly tuned engines that see some abuse.
 
At this moment I think I MAY have dropped a bolt down the thermostat housing hole of my 5.4 triton. I can't find it anywhere, but boroscope down as far as I could get shows nothing. The probability of it having fallen down that hole is small but I can't find the bolt so I'm concerned. Next step is to pull the water pump and look in there.
 
I ended up spending almost a whole day and about 3 pullers trying to pull a harmonic balancer off an engine and forgot the remove the flat washer. It blended in so well I didnt even notice it.

I also took a pinball machine up to a pinball show in Akron OH, and did not plug in one of the jones plugs for the playfield. I spent about 2 hours wasting time with schematics chasing my tail down the rabbit hole, missing out on all the fun stuff, only to later discover the cord laying in the bottom of the cabinet not plugged in.

I painted a hood and it came out awsome only so it could rain before I could get help moving it inside. Had to start all over once it dried.
 
Haha, the above post reminds me of a dumb maintenance error I've made not just once, but TWICE.

Trying to get a harmonic balancer off, I used some Autozone 3-jaw puller that you can rent for free. The only way I could get it to attach was the jaws on the outside of the pulley. Cranked and cranked on that sucker until finally it fell apart in two pieces. The outside pulley separated from the inside which was still attached to the crank. Dumb mistake, they call it a harmonic balancer for a reason, not a crankshaft pulley. That was on a 1985 F-250, I think that event had to have been 10-15 years ago, because I completely forgot about it which lead to....

Couple years ago I'm doing timing belt service on my 07 Pacifica. Same thing, can only get the jaws of the puller to grip the outside of "crank pulley" and proceed to pull off the outer section. There's no getting them back on once they separate. The F-250 debacle was all the sudden a very vivid memory. Won't make that mistake a third time.

Fortunately new harmonic balancers for both vehicles were only about $50, but put the project off for a few days waiting for the part to arrive.
 
I took my car to a Firestone service center once... does that count?
In my book it does and any other chain stores for that matter.

Chain stores are the worst. My favorite was bringing my '01 Frontier to a local "reputable" chain store (think it was Autotire) to get a simple Missouri safety inspection that was required for bi-annual registration renewal. They failed me because one of my CV joints was "leaking grease." I told them no thanks on the $350 repair, and when I got home the culprit was some ATF that had leaked down onto the axle from when I did a transmission fluid D&F a couple days prior. Boots / CV joints were perfectly intact. Took the truck to another shop the next day and passed with flying colors.

I have at least a dozen other stories (equally bad or worse) of shoddy repairs / ripoffs performed at chain stores (not just me, I learned my lesson after the first couple). There might be some good ones out there, but it's a very rare find.
 
Back
Top