What's your biggest automtive related mistake?

[DarkSunrise]

Thankfully nothing too major for me in terms of working on my car.

- On one of my older cars, I jacked it up on a pinch weld that was already partially bent. Ended up bending the pinch weld completely flat. Was kicking myself after that one.

- I had a set of 18" BBS wheels on my STI. One time after pulling off one of the wheels, I left it standing on its own. Fell straight on its face on asphalt and left small scratches all over the face. Face, meet palm.

[STV3]

Oh here's a good one. My 2005 SRT-4 ACR comes stock with 16x7 BBS wheels. Me not knowing anything at the time had replaced them with 17x7 XXR's because I thought the BBS's were ugly. Sold them to a guy on the forum with bald tires on them for $230.....

Yeah saw them posted up the next day for like $800 lol

[JACK 8URT0N]

Dumping $$$$ into a twin turbo S4. That car was was fun, but more trouble than it was worth.

[tahdizzle]

Not taking out the sr20 from my totaled 200 sx se-r.

[campy]

Originally Posted by STV3

Oh here's a good one. My 2005 SRT-4 ACR comes stock with 16x7 BBS wheels. Me not knowing anything at the time had replaced them with 17x7 XXR's because I thought the BBS's were ugly. Sold them to a guy on the forum with bald tires on them for $230.....

Yeah saw them posted up the next day for like $800 lol

Not quite the same, but I feel kinda bad for the guy who sold me his set of oem frs wheels and tires with (95% treadlife left) for $100.

I saw him a little while later on the buy/sell facebook group, looking to buy wheels/tires. Oem wheels without tires were going for $200 minimum.

[strat61caster]

Thinking I could do the timing chain on my truck in a weekend, start to finish it was at least 2 weeks and three weekends and it didn't run right for nearly a year: I forgot to reinstall the crankcase ventilation to the intake, figured that out, fixed the timing and it's probably only 5% worse than when I started.


Should never have done it, it didn't need it.


That won't be my number one mistake in my lifetime, will update in a year after I buy a Wankel unless my life gets decidedly worse.

[vroom4]

Forgot to pull ebrake on my jeep wrangler in someones driveway.

Came back out the next morning and it was in the treeline 1/4 mile away. Not a scratch.

[STV3]

Originally Posted by campy

Not quite the same, but I feel kinda bad for the guy who sold me his set of oem frs wheels and tires with (95% treadlife left) for $100.

I saw him a little while later on the buy/sell facebook group, looking to buy wheels/tires. Oem wheels without tires were going for $200 minimum.

Hey you live and you learn. I know I sure did. Don't think the guy I sold my wheels to felt bad at all. He asked me about the price like 3 times and I was like yep $230. I asked if he wanted pics and he was like "nope on my way". He drove from almost three hours away.

[53Driver]

When I was about 12, my uncle's friend let me go get his brand new Chevy pickup that was parked about a mile down the dirt road we were hunting off of (on private land and I knew how to drive). Made the mile walk down the road, jumped in, fired her up and went blazing back up the road at about 40 mph. Soon as I came to a stop where they were all waiting, the smell of burning brakes wafted over the entire truck not to mention the whole smoke cloud that finally caught up to me. I forgot to pop the emergency brake. My uncle's friend learned a valuable lesson that day. Don't let anyone drive your new truck, especially a 12 year old kid.

First time I tried driving a motorcycle. My then roommate's biker boyfriend (she was hot) showed up at our residence. As he walked through the garage, he saw the bike I had just bought sitting there. He came in and asked if I wanted to go for a ride with them in the country. I told him I had just got it and was awaiting to take the motorcycle instruction class in about 2 weeks. He's like "Dude, can you drive a standard? Do you know how to ride a bicycle?" I'm like "yeah on both counts". He responds with, "come on outside, I'll give you a quick lesson on what to do".

This is the point where my roommate should have been filming. So he fires up my bike, pulls it out of the garage and takes her for a quick spin around the block for a "function check". Gets back, puts the bike in neutral and gets off. I get on, he walks me through the controls and tells me "now remember, if you get in trouble, just disengage the clutch using the clutch lever".

So I proceed to roll on the throttle while engaging the clutch. Bikes starts to move and I think "hey this is easy". Then I accidently roll on too much throttle, bikes starts to really move down our drive way (it was about 50 yards long, lived on a golf course) and I think "disengage clutch!" so I do just that. Except I forgot to come off the throttle so my engine revs like crazy. I panic and dump the clutch and at this point proceed to burn out and do a wheely down the rest of the driveway. My brain is jelly at this point. I zoom across our street and into the woods across the way. As I'm heading toward a huge pine tree I finally realize I'm about to die if I don't do something so remembering my mountain biking days I do the valiant thing and bail off the bike. Bike proceeds for another 20 yards or so before crashing. I remember laying there as this dude runs up yelling "DUDE ARE YOU OKAY?" When he realizes everything but my ego are intact, he runs to the bike to make sure it isn't damaged. When I finally got up and looked back at our driveway, my roommate is laying on the ground laughing so hard she can barely move. Yeah, I didn't ride again for a long time.

[Nevermore]

This one isn't a mistake, just thought you'd get a kick out of it. So, before I got the FR-S knew literally nothing about cars, liked them more than the average 'appliance' driver maybe, but mechanical knowledge was non-existent. First time I take a wheel off (flat tire) it took me a minute or so to realize the difference between an alloy wheel and steel wheels because I couldn't figure out where my hubcap was after I unbolted the wheel. My mazda had alloy wheels, and thus no hubcaps.


As for an actual mistake, I sold said mazda to my uncle, on credit (payments) for $200 less than my asking price because he needed a car and my dad said I should do it. We had a buyer willing to pay $3k for it, but when my parents took it to the court house for inspection it decided not to start and the buyer walked away. There was literally noting wrong with it. We had it towed to the mechanic and he was able to start and drive it the next day.


Anyways, sold it to my uncle for $2800, $200 a month payments. Took him over two years for him to pay me completely. I just received the last payment last month.

[Leonardo]

I let the seller pressure me into buying a car that was junk. I was 19. If you have doubts; it's better to pass up a "deal" then get taken.

[Njnickd]

Originally Posted by Leonardo

I let the seller pressure me into buying a car that was junk. I was 19. If you have doubts; it's better to pass up a "deal" then get taken.

A million times this. Bought a 9 year old bmw with 100k and an expired emission sticker for like a grand over the price of a perfect running one, but I had to have a black on black bmw. Never passed inspection. Ever. 2 local bmw dealerships couldn't find the vacuum leak.

Burn in hell 325ci.

[ScoobsMcGee]

I was 18, driving home with a friend at around 5 am on a back road in Amish country. We were in a tan 1986 Olds Delta 88 Coupe which was also used to relocate (ram) construction barrels and other foolish acts that I'm glad the statute of limitations have expired on. I started to doze off while coming to a 90 degree left; beyond the turn was a decent incline followed by a wood fence and a field.

The shaking from the hill woke me up just enough to yank the wheel and avoid the fence, but not before hitting the sign warning of the sharp turn. The post from the sign slammed down into the ground with enough force to flip the bottom up and impale the catalytic converter, ripping the entire exhaust backward and twisting the u-bolt that held the end of the muffler in place.

There was no way to get the exhaust off without tools, so I drove about 30 minutes to a friend's house with the mangled exhaust, from muffler to cat, hanging behind the car and throwing sparks. Just in case anyone didn't see this monstrosity, the now unrestricted 3.8 sounded like a Harley being revved through a loudspeaker. Once there, we pounded on the door until someone answered, and were granted the use of a sawzall to deal with the u-bolt. 3 blades later we were on our way home, with what was likely the loudest post 1980 Oldsmobile in PA.


When I woke up, my parents said that they didn’t want to know what happened, but I wasn’t allowed to drive it until I made an appointment to get it fixed. It took over 10 years before I finally told them the story.

[pinski]

Buying my old Lexus. It was comfy, quiet and reliable but had as much soul as a toaster.