Silly screw ups
 

When I originally got the car I installed a radar detector and wired it from the glove box 12v connector. About a year later all of a sudden one day I couldn't turn the cool/neutral/hot air conditioner dial..it was stuck

i brought it to the dealership and the tech said the excess wire from the radar connector got stuck around the mechanical gears that turns the knob in the cabin and charged me $50 for labor just to remove the glove box and wire tie the cord for me :bonk:

any of guys have any silly stories similar to when you added or modded something on your car but accidentally messed another component up?

Yeah... heard friend of a friend bought their first frs tried to drift on that day and crashed, sent back to dealer said his steering wheel locked during drive. Lol dealer winked at t he guy and said, "you're f**king with me right?" Lol anyway that was a very interesting and bad lie xD

Hope this is making someone laugh

Glad to know I am not the only one that ran into the "stuck a/c control due to self install wiring stupidity" problem. Like you, ended up being charged labor to zip tie something that probably took 2 minutes to do :cry:.

No, I've never have had any silly screw-ups working on cars.

This will give more room for @Ultramaroon, @Tcoat and @Cole to expound on theirs .......:bellyroll:


humfrz
:scared0016:

While taking the trunk apart to remove the rear emblem. I dropped one of the nuts into the trunk "skeleton".

Rattle rattle rattle. That's what everyone likes their trunk lid to do right!

None with this car (since I don't work on it) but the list over the decades is endless.
I wouldn't even know where to start to tell you the truth.

My first car as a teenager I put windshield washer fluid in my coolant reservoir.

Ohhh, I've done the reverse of that. I don't reccomend filling fluids and shooting the breeze with the other techs in the shop....:bonk:

10 years ago I put windshield washer fluid in the coolant of a diesel truck at work. It was very little so the garage mechanic just shook his head and left it.

In my last car I dropped a nut upwards (yeah... dropped it up, not sure how) into the frame if the hood. For months it'd rattle when I closed the hood. Same car- it was very modified and I ran Torque all the time. One morning the heat wasn't coming on and the coolant temp soared with the heat on. It turns out I didn't tighten the rad cap enough and the pressurized coolant system blew out a gallon over 30 miles. No damage, it didn't overheat. I just topped off the coolant after and learned my lesson.

Torque is awesome.

The frs isn't modified much, no stories yet.

I mean, it's not like it'll do permanent damage

Cleaning diesel throttle body with a rag. Left rag on top of throttle thing and it sucked it up, so once I realized this, I quickly turned off car. Called local mechanic, he analyzed situation, took out a gadget and 10min later tells me to just burn the cloth rag up. I bring lighter and he laughs and tells me to turn engine on and just rev and hold it for 2min. Truck took a beating but it burnt it up. Lots of dark smoke for a few seconds then truck ran good. Never felt so relieved like I did that day...

I still see it around driving in town. Has well over 200k miles over what it had that day.

Know a few people who have had similar situations.

Worst one is a Honda Civic driver who lost his oil cap for engine in a gas station. He lived close so decided to just cover the oil hole with a sock (lol) until he got home....

Yeah, it sucked the sock in.

Haha when removing my OEM wing, I dropped one of the bolts into the trunk lid too, and we tried EVERYTHING to get that thing out. Iit rattled around when you drove, but you could NOT get it out, it always got stuck on the way up. So in the end, we just sprayed that type of goo that is supposed the eliminate rattles that you can't reach, that turns into thick, sticky paste when it dries, and drenched the bolt with that so it's now stuck in there.

But at least it's quiet :D

My clutch was making squeak noise. I did research and found out its common problem on FRS. I thought my throwout bearing is going out after reading this forum. My mileage hit 36019 when I entered dealership so they charged me $56 to lubricate clutch wire. I argued it should be cover under powertrain warranty but they didn't budge. Sucks living in small town with only one Toyota dealership. No rebates or incentives and service sucks ball.
They told me I have to pay full MSRP when I was shopping for Rav4. Dealership told me Toyota and Lexus do not have incentives or rebates to keep resale value high. Which was BS. Drove 3 hrs to Atlanta and bought it 4k cheaper than my local dealership.