Dumbest car thing you ever did

Sold three running complete non rusty Giulia Supers for $500 each.

On behalf of my Dad: He decided not to buy a used 300SL Gullwing for $5000 and instead "invested" in a stock which promptly went bankrupt.

Oh where do i start? Removing a two piece driveshaft from a 1-ton truck at 14yo, i unbolted the rear ujoint, when i got to the carrier bearing i put a wrench on the bolt head and zipped the nuts off with an impact. I never supprted it and when i removed the second nut the 100 pound driveshaft dropped like a rock, right on to my face.

I had to put the spare tire back under a van which was on a hoist. It was a full size spare on a steel wheel so pretty heavy. I figured it would be easier to do the "clean-and-jerk toss". All fine in theory, except the van wasnt up very high. As i hucked the tire and my torso up i full on busted the back of my head into the reese hitch real real hard. I went down like a sack of potatoes.

I had a captive nut break free inside the frame of an xj. I cut a little hole in the frame to get a socket on it. That was also a solid plan except that i managed to catch the carpet on fire inside the jeep.

Had a customer drop a car off with a rusted brake line. He parked it directly in line with the shop bay door. Typically when you blow a brake line you still have SOME brakes. This one did not. I didnt know that. I drove into the shop, hit the brakes, and crashed right into my bosses new snap on tool box. The tool box handled it really well, it just need a trim piece. The s10 bumper was pretty berked though.

I fired up my carbed jeep for the first time after a driveline swap. I was standing outside the jeep and hit the key. Auto trans was in reverse, carb was on high idle. It fired right up and took off. Luckily i had opened the garage door before i started it. It drug me about 40 feet before i got it shut down. And about five feet from crashing into dads barn.

Trying to drift my Bravada on bald/dry rotted all seasons in the snow on a road I didn't know. Landed in a ditch high centered. On the way home after this I slid into my best friend's grandfather's truck.

I bought a B5 A4 with an AEB engine... enough said

One time I did 3 or 4 oil pan gasket jobs on the rx7 in mid February during college so I could go ice racing (didn't want to leak oil on the lake, go nature!) turns out the oil cooler line on the timing cover was loose.

In the dumb but lucky category: When I was NINETEEN, I'd just dropped my girlfriend home very late on a rainy night and was enjoying myself lightly sliding around corners in her neighborhood.

When the car got out from under me and spun across the road -as it was bound to do- I found out the very, very stupid but lucky way that the distance between two trees on the side of the road was juuuusst about 10 inches more than the length of my prized but ratty-ish 320i.

Yep - The car spun and slid to a stop spot on between two trees, and didn't touch either of them. It took me three straight minutes of back and forth, the bald tires churning mud and grass, to get it out. I drove home very slowly.

On behalf of my dad:

He was a teenager in the mid-70's, that era when now-classic muscle cars were dirt cheap. At 17 he had a 1969 Cutlass 442 with the big block. Apparently 455 cubic inches were not enough, so he added one those comical looking high-rise tunnel ram manifolds with dual 4-bbl carbs. How did this all fit? By hacking a giant hole in the hood for the carbs to peak out of. Not having much tuning experience, he went through several engines. The most spiteful one bit the dust on his way back from his summer job as a ranch hand in the middle of rural Colorado. And it didn't just die, it BLEW the hell UP, ripping the hood open and folding it against the windwhield. Luckily he had a nice window to see through as he pulled off the road. Not having cell phones in the 70's and being too far from anything, he had to sleep in the car.

Last week: Unhooking my E36 track rat from the tow vehicle, in my driveway. Flat-tow rig. E36 has no parking brake, but I put it in gear like usual to keep it from rolling down the driveway incline.

Unhook the tow bar and it starts ROLLING BACKWARDS OUT INTO THE STREET, RIGHT BESIDE 3 CARS I have parked nose to tail on the right half of the driveway.

I manage to chase it down and get in the driver's seat thinking I must have left it in neutral, but it's in gear.

Now the thing is all the way out in the street and I start it up to pull back in, when I hear a loud sound and remember I disconnect the drive shaft from the diff when I flat tow it.

The boyfriend-in-law helped me push it back in the driveway.

There have been many, but the one that comes to mind is almost killing myself at the $20XX Challenge. 2013 IIRC.

I had hauled a non-running Forester for another Challenger. I tried to roll it off the trailer alone. As it came down the ramps, the trailer hitch bottomed out on the pavement. I put a floor jack under the car to raise the hitch out of the asphalt, forgetting that the stupid car would roll the minute the hitch cleared.

The car got loose, and started rolling quickly downhill, directly toward someone else's car.

Hitting someone else's car was completely unacceptable to be, and I did the only thing left I could do. I tried to stop the car. I was pushing with all I was worth, but it was a loosing battle. There was no question in my mind I was about to do some serious damage at about 25 mph.

I wouldn't have stopped it if a couple other Challengers hadn't jumped up and helped me (Thank you, Derrick Freese)

I am also not sure if I would have gotten out from between the two vehicles before they hit.

When I was... 16, I was autocrossing dad's NC miata and punched it for the last straight away before the timer. Little bit of uneven pavement, meant that my punching it was too soon as the car was not settled yet. Fishtailed off track and up and embankment. Car was fine (still is) aside from popping off the lower trim piece on the front end. Drove it home with the top down and that piece sticking up out. Dad still made me do my last run for the day in the car too so I wouldn't scare myself out of it for future events. (Get right back on the horse so to speak) Still go to this undisclosed event every year!

When I was 17 (I think), it was pretty early on when I was working at the shop. The shop is on high ground and the driveway/parking in front of it is a decent slope. I just finished doing a brake job and forgot to pump up the brakes. Gave the car just enough gas to back out of the shop, brake pedal went to the floor and I kept rolling. Didn't think to pump the brakes, just pressed harder, tried throwing it in park, and ended up successfully avoiding all parked cars and my boss' camper as I'm rolling down the hill, swung hard into the grass to slide it to a halt. The front wheel that did the sliding was about half buried into the mud/dirt since the ground was soft.

That was not the scariest event at the shop though, the worst wasn't even my fault: test driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee to try and figure out what the customer was talking about, well I figured it out when the death wobble started! That was scary.

AWSX1686 wrote: That was not the scariest event at the shop though, the worst wasn't even my fault: test driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee to try and figure out what the customer was talking about, well I figured it out when the death wobble started! That was scary.

Ah, death wobble... The one time where the panic reaction of "stomp the brakes" is actually the correct thing to do.

When I was 16, a few of us were leaving a friend's house, when I reached the stop sign, my best friend pulls up and asks if I want race to the next stop sign. Naturally, 16 yr old me thinks it is a great idea. So, we proceed to race my dad's gremlin against his dad's swb chevy van, both of them powered by mid-70's straight sixes down this two lane residential street for several blocks. I must admit, I won, plus I was not in the suicide lane. My best friend and I have been helping each other make questionable decisions since we were toddlers, and somehow we survived our childhoods.

Borrowing my dads toyota with no bed and doing burnouts, not noticing the tar and rubber slung up the back of the freshly primered cab.

Got angry at my 84 cutlass for overheating again and in a rush to get home floored the 307 to get out into traffic in the wet. Looped it into oncoming traffic. Didnt get hit but had one angry semi driver.

Went for a ride in a friends 79 camaro. He buried the 160 speedometer and held it floored down a foggy highway. Im glad i didnt die that night. Ive done alot of dumb things in cars.

When my dad was 17, he took his mom's car, a 66 Nova sedan out for the night with his friends. They'd been drinking, rather heavily, when something clicked. The train tracks by the field they were in passed within a quarter mile of his house, so he drove the Nova home on the tracks, a distance of about 4 miles.

Total cost was 4 tires to replace the week old tires he ruined, and a pretty impressive shiner from my grandfather.

It's my understanding he did it again with his 76 Bronco a few years later, before trading it in on a 78(when they grew in size), which he claimed to be the dumbest thing he ever did and I agree.

I was 16 (sensing a trend here?), spent the entire Summer rebuilding a notchback mustang on a Highschool kid's budget. Needless to say, corners were cut. I finally get it running, to find that I just can't keep traction unless I'm absolutely loafing. Given my age, experience level and overall wisdom, I attribute this to my awesome abilities as a mechanic, rather than the 9 year old, dry rotted tires that were on the car.

Did I replace the tires immediately? Of course not! I spent the money on a supercharger! I looped it sideways into many, many ditches before the rear tires literally exploded in tandem. As a bonus, it absolutely reeked of gasoline, so I was a hit with the ladies.

In reply to calteg:

not really a dumb thing but certainly reminds me of a time I had been trying to date/impress a girl and took her out in the rx7 (when it was a nice driving street car with a clean interior) she really liked the car thought it was cute etc, so I was flogging a bit and she made the comment - "it even smells sweet!.. like strawberries!" which is not the traditional "did you ride a dirt bike to class?" comment I would get from my peers --- then I realized I was burning coolant and that was the smell of combusted ethylene glycol and my coolant seals were failing...

My 16 year old just got his own car (2004 MINI, tons of miles and lots of warning lights we're working through). Even though he's a car guy and racer, he can't help but work on the "look". Came home yesterday to him trying to install his new headliner fabric while the headliner was in the car. Glad I caught him about 5 minutes into the job or he'd have been high as a kite. Showed him how to remove it and make his life a little easier. I can't imagine what the next few months will provide.....

For me, I can't begin to remember the dumb stuff. A 12" woofer in a box in the back of my '59 Sprite. Glad I wasn't smart or had enough funds to add an amp or it would have probably rattled that car to death.
Driving around in my '67 GT6 after we replaced the clutch with the transmission tunnel off because it looked "cool" to see the road going under me. Until I hit a puddle and it soaked the inside of the car.....
Putting the oil filter canister in the wrong groove on my '03 MINI Cooper and puking oil out on a "spirited" drive to work. I truly believe Royal Purple saved the motor that day. Enjoyed that so much, I did the same bonehead move about a year later on an oil change.....

-Rob

Yea, where to start...I did a lot of dumb E36 M3 when I was 16 or 17. I think all the statutes of limitation should be expired by now.

Topped out (and then some) the 85 mph speedo in my parent's 94 K2500 on some super sketchy PA back roads within a couple days of getting my license.

Had my first car, a 94 Volvo 850, airborne more times than I can count, and surprisingly the car took it like a champ. On one occasion in particular, over an especially good railroad crossing that had a steep takeoff ramp, probably 30 ft of tabletop, into a "landing ramp" I REALLY thought for sure I berkeleyed something up when I cleared the tabletop and most of the landing ramp completely.

Raced a friend in his Tahoe with the Volvo and in the process of doing so watched him miss understeering into a telephone pole by a handful of inches. He went bounding through a ditch and into a field, where he seamlessly transitioned into ripping donuts. Minutes later, as we were driving back into town, I went ripping around a turn screaming at the top of 2nd gear and squealing the tires like mad, only to find a cop sitting just around the turn. So I proceeded to (successfully) attempt to lose him by driving at high speed through a residential neighborhood and making lots of random turns. Only time I've ever run from a cop.

It should be noted as well that the exhaust in that Volvo had completely rusted off right behind the cat by that point in time and it was LOUD AS berkeley. Of course, I never bothered to fix that as long as the car lived because teenage me thought it sounded bad ass.

I got more tickets than I can count from about age 16-22 and had my license suspended for 3 months at age 17 for accumulation of points.

Finally killed that Volvo by understeering it into a curb in a random parking lot while hooning during a snowstorm. School got out early that day and I was supposed to come straight home and that parking lot was definitely not on the way home, so I had to get the car back to a spot where it was reasonably believable the damage could have occurred purely by accident. So I drove on a completely caved in wheel and flat tire, in the snow, with some very broken front suspension components that caused the whole right front wheel to flaccidly flop around, for several miles back to where I could call mom and make a believable excuse. This story, or at least the version which was presented to my parents, was relayed to my dad at the exact same time the impending license suspension was announced. That did not go over well.

calteg wrote: ... As a bonus, it absolutely reeked of gasoline, so I was a hit with the ladies.

That hit a nerve. My now-wife reminds me periodically how when she met me, my Datsun 1200 - with its twin side-draft Webers - always reeked of gas. That car was awesome.

Furious_E wrote: ... I went ripping around a turn screaming at the top of 2nd gear and squealing the tires like mad, only to find a cop sitting just around the turn. So I proceeded to (successfully) attempt to lose him by driving at high speed through a residential neighborhood and making lots of random turns. Only time I've ever run from a cop...

Oh yeah... that.

Driving through my favorite twisty-road neighborhood in the middle of the night, came to the usual straightaway and floored it. As I neared the end I saw something reflecting in my headlights, with just enough time to wonder what it was as I passed a cop sitting there... waiting. I lifted, with many thoughts passing through my mind, including: I'm going 80+, the cop is sitting still, pointing the wrong way, engine probably off, and I'm heading into a bunch of twisty roads I know well, in an autocross-prepared car... foot goes back to the floor.

I made it home without getting caught, but boy was my heart rate up and I never did that again. I should note that all my antics with cars got a very late start, so if I'd gotten caught, I suspect the judge would be less than forgiving, likely throwing in a "... and you're old enough to know better."

In reply to kb58:

Ended up marrying one of my Highschool girlfriends, so it worked out. Kinda amazed she would even get into that deathtrap. At the time, gas was $.70/gallon, I felt like the fuel leak wasn't worth tracking down.

Then again, I also left the windows down, keys in ignition, praying someone would steal it. I assume they got over powered by the fumes because, disappointingly, it was always still in the parking lot when I returned.

calteg wrote: In reply to kb58: Then again, I also left the windows down, keys in ignition, praying someone would steal it. I assume they got over powered by the fumes because, disappointingly, it was always still in the parking lot when I returned.

So while we're on THAT subject...

Again when I was about 17, I was getting off work late one evening when the girl I was interested in at the time invites me to go see a late movie with her and her friends. Since the movie started around 10:30 and curfew was at 11 per both my parents and the provisions of my junior license, that was a no go, so I decided instead to meet the girl and hang out outside the theater until the movie started. Rolled up and jumped out of the car (same Volvo as most of the stories above), leaving the windows down and keys in the ignition, since, you know, it was going to be within eyesight the whole time...

Girl ends up talking me into spending the $9 or whatever to go in and watch the beginning of the movie with her. By about the time the previews were done I had to split, so she walks out to the parking lot with me aaand...where the berkeley is my car?

First thought is one of my friends spotted it and moved it just to mess with me, but that notion is quickly dispelled when I realize the only one of them who can drive stick shift is working at the time. After a few panicked laps around the parking lot, I make the sheepish call to mom and dad, then the police. Officer shows up a few minutes later, takes some info, and basically tells me good luck but don't expect this to end well

A few nerve wracking days pass with no developments, until I finally get a call from the police. They've found the car, dumped in someone's driveway the next county over while they were away on vacation. We pick the car up from impound and its really not much worse for wear. I think I lost some CDs and other random junk, the owners manual and registration documents were recovered sometime thereafter along the side of the road, and there was evidence to suggest it may have been driven through a corn field or something, but the Volvo remained otherwise intact and fully functional. Someone had just decided to go for a joyride.

I left my phone and license in my car when I went in to work.

Later that day my car was stolen.

You can't drive in Michigan without having your license available - no memorizing the number.

Hello bicycle.

I've done PLENTY of stupid car-related things, but I think you guys will get a kick out of this one.

When I bought my Trans Am back in 2002, I felt sometimes like I would get zapped in the leg when I was driving it. At first, I thought it was a bug biting my leg. Finally I got sick of the zaps and I took a look under the dash and noticed that there was a toggle switch under there. I didn't know what it was, so I left it alone and attributed the zaps to maybe something else, since touching the switch didn't zap me at that time.

Many years later, I was going through some of the wiring on the car, particularly the battery wiring. I noticed that every time I changed the battery or the battery terminals, there were a few wires hooked straight to power that I was also hooking up. I knew one of them was a fused power for the stereo, but there was another one that I never questioned. What was it?

You guessed it: a straight power lead right to that stupid switch. No ground, just straight power right from the battery. It served no purpose other than to randomly zap the driver.

I tossed that switch and the wiring into the woods as far as I could throw it. No more zaps!

Can't get "zapped" with only 12V. I wonder if it was actually shorting to the frame of the seat and generating a very small but intense hot spot.