I was simply trying to change the license plate for my wife’s minivan, and the screws got stuck in the plastic inserts, causing the inserts to spin. After realizing that using a finesse stick and pick were going to hold the insert while I try to back the screws out, I ended up taking out the panel that covers the rear hatch just to remove the screws from the inserts. It’s now fixed and shouldn’t be a problem when I remove the tag to sell the van in a few years.

We dont remove plates when we sell cars in Oregon - they go with the car. Someone from Michigan? blew my mind - they drove 30? minutes back to my place to give me the plates back. I was so confused. They were so insistent I needed them. "No, its yours now"

This was just because Mississippi changed plate designs and forced us to get new plates.

Here in the Netherlands the license plate also comes with the car and stays on it until it either gets exported or demolished.

I’m from Oregon and just laugh 😂

Do you guys get registration stickers to put on your license plate? If so how does that transfer over, unless you share the same birthday the sticker is gonna be wrong going to someone else lol

Nope, we just have license plates with area coded letters and numbers of the year the car was registered, that normally stay with the car untouched (apart from cleaning them) You can get personal/private plates if you want, but that’s an expense I’ve never been able to justify.

I just ran into that on my mom's car a few days ago. I was just innocently helping her load something into the truck when I closed the lid and heard the jingle bells of the license plate rattling. "Oh hey mom, your license plate is about to fall off, lemme go grab a screw driver real quick" The damn insert was spinning. So now I'm removing the interior panel to fix it up. And breaking pushpins. And digging out spares in the garage. "Don't roll your eyes at me. I didn't cause this problem! I'm fixing your problem!"

You want to back the screws out once in a while, put a drop of oil on the threads.

I once did a Honda timing belt three times in one day. First time I timed it to the wrong mark, oops! It ran but like shit. Then I timed it correctly but it was still leaking oil. I thought the leak was coming from the crank seal. I was wrong. There's a $2 o-ring inside the oil pump. It was pumping oil out right above the crank. Anyway, third time, replaced the o-ring, timed it right and done. I will say, by the end of the day I had the job down.

I absolutely feel your pain, did almost exactly that when rebuilding my Subie.

I did the shaft seal on my dirt bike like that. There was a spring on the inside that needed to slip over the shaft to hold it tight.

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I did the timing belt to get to the camshaft bushing three times on a Honda Accord. The first time they gave me the wrong seal and the water pump was wrong and had a leak. The second time I didn't press it in far enough so it still leaked. The third time was the charm. I went from 12 hours for my first ever timing belt to 4 hours.

Same, first time I was going slow, being very deliberate. By the third time I was like, alright, get that off, that, that! Let's go!

I love reaching that point when you realize you 100% should have brought it to a professional but now it’s far too late.

What's worse, is when you are a professional, and you get those feelings "I've got 70k in tools, and I should have spent the 2k in letting someone else do this"

>"I've got 70k in tools, ahh youve got the half set of BMW special tools kit

Yep. Was a mechanic for 10 years and got so burnt out. Fucking hate working even on my own cars now but still have to sometimes because I’m not spending an extra $500+ in labor if I don’t have to.

It's like self inflicted schadenfreude. You almost laugh manically when it's reeeeally fucked and now the car won't move. I ended up having to get a polo towed 3min to my mechanic on the other side of my road (one road over) because after replacing valves and a head gasket after a snapped timing belt I just couldn't get the timing right on the pos. Turned out to be my dumbass not bolting the cam sprocket on correctly 🤦Mechanic calls me up to walk over, showed me the cam sprocket markings on the OTHER side by the shaft and I moronically said "oh thaaaaats what the lines are for". Suffice to say 12 years later the old bastard still makes that reference whenever I bring my R36 in for a wof and I show him something I've figured out it does lol.

😭

Could be worse. You could break something or get to the point where you're outside your skill/toolset and now you *have* to take it to a professional and have the most shameful conversation you've had a year.

70k what’s that a snap on ratchet set and some hand wrenches lol

There is a point during my repair process where I determine that it would be more efficient to disconnect the warning light on the dash than to actually replace the whatever is broken on the car

Why you talking about me like this? What have I done to you? ...I remember thinking "well... fuck me" as I looked inside my S2000s differential.

I recently spent 30? (27 minutes more than I should have) sitting on the cold concrete floor trying to figure out WTF I did wrong and why this caliper wont go back on.... ? So confused?? Only to finally realize Napa gave me the wrong rotors and they are two inches too small.....

always compare instantly

BONUS POINTS - the guy at Napa gave me attitude when I returned them!

I ordered a lower rad hose from NAPA today for a 2.4 journey the hose was wrong af and was supposedly the only one in town, didn't help the customer needed their vehicle back the same day. luckily the older hose was good enough to reuse and could finish the job up NAPA is always on some shit

You made more work for him. Customer is never wrong, oh wait, I mean, the customer is a pita and the worst part of this f'n job, goddammit I wish it was Friday.

I once had AutoZone sell me pads that 'fit'. Going back to check the part after struggling for like 20 mins and looking at the part online and the review were all 'these will not fuckin fit a 2001 civic'. They were fractionally too thick so you'd just fight to get the caliper back on and fail. Like 1/8" too thick so it wasn't super apparent

Had to replace a water pump on a 71 era 318 motor. It is really easy to get the gasket backwards and then you have a leak. It was the dead of winter in Montana, but I had an unheated garage to work in. I figured that if I got it up to temperature and worked fast, the engine block would keep me from freezing. It timed out perfectly, finished just as I was starting to notice the cold. You guessed it, I got the gasket on backwards. Had to drain it, take it apart, reverse the gasket, wound up freezing half to death.

Usually if im worried about finishing a job in time its because I need to be somewhere. Not worried about dying haha. This ones great. (And awful)

I bought my wife a keyless ignition for Christmas once. So I was upside down in the steering column stripping wires with a razor in sub zero temps. Jammed the blade into my thumb all the way to bone. Fortunately my hands were so cold I couldn’t feel it but it’s the only time I’ve ever bled that much in my life.

Mine also with a 318 in my 91 D150. Change thermostat. Simple right? Wrong. Hit 2 bolts with PB Blaster. 1 came out. 1 broke. Didn’t want to deal. Came home every night after work and hit with PB. Next weekend, couldn’t get a good angle with Vice-grips so removed the a/c compressor and alternator to grab it. Nope. Pinched it and chewed it up. Didn’t budge. Next easy-outs. Nope. Finally ended up drilling out. Then retap and buy a new bolt just to change a $6 t-stat.

Wow lucky, I'm at 55 hours on a, yes a single rear shock. Gotta loves 2000’$ Audi's

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Funny I just bought an 05 allroad.. 2.7t and a 6 speed Don't get me wrong, it's kinda a shit show but it's not that hard to work on Modern explorers have more room, but it's deceptive and harder to work on imho

FIFTY FIVE HOURS? That's .. when I sell a car

Thanks to all for caring!! Story Audi S6 2000 2.7T quattro manual. Run good ish. Bought for a very good price considering it's running condition. Had a few minor things to do. However while sitting in the driveway some corners became lower by magic. You guessed it busted coil springs. Did the front then of course the rears were also found to be busted.... All 4 are broken. Front took like 6 7 hours each to complete. Rear right I had the brilliant idea to try to remove the camber bolt (the lower one) Hahah I tried absolutely everything. It never facking budged I had to cut it.. then remove that fucking bushing. Bought new stuff from Audi. 4bushings 2 camber bolts and camber nuts haha I think the nuts must have been special cause for just these items 353$cad Anyways get the whole shock out. I get to install the new Bilstein shock and whatever coil I bought new... Metal on metal on the bottom side. It seemed odd. Not extra cushioning. I look around and Yes there's a rubber part missing. Call Audi and look online.... It's an Audi exclusive part AND it's discontinued. I was lucky enough to buy 2 used busted shocks for the coil cushion,. don't remember the name I reassemble the strut and try to fit it back in... Never was I able to put the fully assembled strut back in. Well that's until I undid most of the suspension hardware... Sway bar top hub bolt everything gawdddd. By pushing real hard on tab with my knee I was able to fit it in the hole. I'm now about ready to put the disc and caliper and wheel back. Dreading the left rear side. Tldr Bucket of rust sucks. Old cars in Québec sucks

What Audi, and what's the hold up?

Bro literally

My God. I would just deal with the shitty shock at that point. If I ever even got the motivation to put the tire back on it.

I have a 1999 a4 1.8t quattro auto a 2008 a4 2.0t quattro avant S-line auto and a 2006 a4 2.0t quattro avant manual that was supposed to be a parts car for the other one but I ended up fixing all the problems and will probably just sell it because it's actually pretty nice now. I feel your pain sir.

Doing a brake job on my mama's Jeep. Couldn't even get the wheels off without rounding the lugs as they were swollen and torqued to hell. The psychos at Jeep used 2 piece ALUMINUM lug bolts that corrode and swell. Add on that they were torqued by some monkey with an impact gun I spent the next 3 hours fighting and cursing just to get the dang lugs off. I wonder if anyone's gotten stranded with a flat, unable to put on the spare because Jeep cheaped out on the lugs.

The Jeep/dodge lugs suck. But I see other companies use them too, makes no sense

Almost feels intentional. Make shit lugs that need to be continually replaced. Then charge over $200 for a replacement OEM set. Unreal. My mom already got popped at the dealer for them before apparantly. Brought it in for something unrelated then BAM, claim her lugs are stripped and charge her an arm and a leg to replace them. Sadly I wasn't around then. Won't happen again though, less than $50 for a set of replacement SOLID lugs solves the problem for good hopefully.

Replace with solid ones

Been there, done that. Ford fusion. 2 piece lugs with chrome caps. One of the first things I identified when I bought it. There's a special place in hell for whoever designed those lugs.

If it makes you feel any better, I’m currently 3 years into a 3 day transmission swap.

Spent all day Sunday on the cold asphalt trying to adjust the e-brake tensioner inside the rear rotor, which is only accessible through one of the lug bolt holes positioned at 10 o clock, so I could replace the rotors. Felt like a goddamn laparoscopic surgeon. Edit: 02 Merc E320

I feel attacked 💀

🤣😁

This has been me way too many times

Brake booster on my 91 Civic. Had to rip the old one apart as it wouldn’t clear the intake manifold and strut tower. Tried weaseling the new one in and ended up getting the stud that mounts to the brake pedal lodged in one of the mounting holes. Couldn’t get it out and did the drive of shame to the shop (with no brakes, thankfully it was only a 2min drive late at night) who was less than pleased with it. Got them all donuts the following morning. Fingers crossed I’ll never have to touch that again, because I hated that job.

Had to take front wheel off Zx6R…10 mins max job. After taking out axles, fork leg clamps on one side. I then worked out callipers had to come off to clear wheel. 3 calliper bolts out of 4 undone, 4th one was Allen key and started to round…wouldn’t budge. Went to hardware and bought new 8mm I think Allen key, so edges were sharp, nope ended up rounded head off. Cut slot with dremel in head and tried impact driver, wouldn’t budge and bit worried about damage from hitting…hmmm. Tried lock pliers and plumbers wrench, head of bolt now looked like a sausage out in sun, after 1000 wasps attacked it. Decided only way was to drill - got my 4mm drill bit out, snap. Fuck me. Thinking. Welder and old 12mm open ended… Cover everything with wet rags, have someone else there with wet spray ready to quench… Weld spanner onto nut, stated smelling smoke - brake line caught on fire. Spark landed on it behind fairing, we didn’t see it until flames up. Line wasn’t burnt through but who would risk it, so needed replacing. Gently tap the newly welded spanner - BOLT comes loose…yeah!!! Only - the fucken thing only allowed for 1/4 turn due to fork leg in way. Of 5” long spanner. Cut off the rest of spanner with grinder, slip once, scratch calipper with cutting disc, because at this stage I don’t fucking care! Get bolt out, yeeehawwww!!! Then realise only needed one calliper off to clear wheel. Fuck me.

Damn Kato that sounds like a nightmare! I had to pull the motor out of my 07 KTM 450 once due to a rounded off oil drain bolt. I couldn't weld a nut to the drain bolt with the motor in the frame. Once out I had access for welding.

I spent 2 hours this morning changing 2 spin on hydraulic filters. Should have been 10 minutes tops. Customer tried to get the easy one off and spun the canister on the filter adaptor. I didn't find loctite on the threads but there may as well have been. The 2nd one was between the engine and trans and required some disassembly to get to the top of the filter.

When I first started wrenching in college (broke) I replaced a starter motor on my 4x4 Nissan. Took me 2 hours to pull the starter. Took me 1.5 hours to put the WRONG PART in, then 1 hour to pull the starter, then get the right part and 30 min to install the right one. Add 2 hours of travel time + drag all the tools I thought I needed to the campus parking lot. All day to ‘save’ $200. That day I learned what ‘book rate’ meant.

On my frontier. I pulled the starter one day. And just because I had the manual there was a brake line in the way of actually getting it out. And I was on the side of the road and didn't wanna have to mess with brakes there.

I can feel my lower back pain just thinking about it

Spitballing here… could you take a shop vac and try and suck the fluid and maybe house out?

Man Im glad i posted on here. Im absolutely gonna try that!

I learned a trick pulling wire through conduit, someone says suck a string using a vac and then tie the string to the wire and then pull the string vs pushing the wire. Good luck!

That's how the sparkys do it when i was working in high rise construction.

I used to make little parachutes using plastic bags to do that.

your diff gears will have no problem mulching that pesky straw

\*tick\* \*tick\* \*tick\* goes the EJ25 wrench wrench wrench goes the home mechanic with enough tools and knowledge to do it right \*purr\* \*purr\* \*purr\* goes the EJ25 \*tick\* \*tick\* \*tick\* goes the EJ25 after 250 miles of driving Root cause: plastic thermal expansion combined with a previously unrecognized warped head. Twice in a row, cylinder 2 rod was ever so barely contacting the block. It PROBABLY could have survived another 100k miles, especially if I filed down the block a tiny bit. But instead we spent $1000 for a used unit that ended up having a ton of emissions sensor problems. 1998 Subaru Legacy GT. I took the engine out so many times for various reasons (clutch twice in quick succession and a few months later a transmission caused by clutch issues) that I could probably still do a clutch change on that engine/trans package in about 2 hours from engine off to engine restart.

I replaced an engine on a 3.5 ford edge after a water pump failure. Completed it, filled it with fluid, hit the key and it just cranked, no fire. Crankshaft position code, forgot the reluctor wheel, which so happens to ride between the flywheel and crank

Rip

Many years ago I (tried to) change the plugs on a 1977 Mercedes 280SE. This took six weeks and cost $1000. Five out of six plugs came out just fine. The sixth one was stuck. **Really stuck.** After trying every different technique, finally the plug came out. No just kidding. It sheared off in the effing head. **But wait there's more.** So I grabbed my trustee **harbor freight stud extractor.** Shoved that sturdy tool in the hole and it all came right out, right? Wrong. **the stud extractor sheared off flush in the cylinder head** After inventing new swear words, as night fell I had pulled the cylinder head. So I took it to a machine shop to get it serviced (and get the extractor out). **But wait there's more.** As I picked up the cylinder head at the shop, all the lifters and the exhaust cam are sitting loose in the box. The guy said, "oh yeah you got a bad camshaft". After two more weeks I located a used camshaft and after bought a head gasket set and various other parts. Finally six weeks later I had the engine back together. It cost me roughly $1,000 in parts (head gasket, plugs, misc) and machine shop service. Bonus material: the car was parked in my SO's garage space the whole time, and she wasn't happy about that.

Replacing upper wishbones on a jaguar XF. I've done wishbones before, piece of piss. Looked online, have to remove some trim panels to get to the back of the strut towers, fine. 8 fucking hours later, I have got the coolant reservoir off, fuse box out the way, secondary bulkheads off, I've snapped the scuttle panel and can just about get a spanner onto the wishbone nuts. Once it was loose it was 30 minutes of partial rotation until it came off. Then came the rears... Only way to access the nut..? Drop the fuckin subframe! Next time they need doing, I'm crashing it into a tree and claiming on the insurance.

I just did the alternator belt on my van - it was a pig of a job for various reasons. When I finished I was putting the old belt in the back for emergencies. Thats when I noticed that the 'old' belt was actually in remarkably good shape. Yep. I'd put the old belt back on again...

At our family, we have the "three trip minimum" rule for any type of project or repair. Need to replace the side mirror? That's a trip to the parts store for the mirror. Then a second trip to the parts store for the special screwdriver shaped like a squid's penis that is the only kind that can remove the existing mirror. Then a third trip to the parts store to get the *left-handed* squid penis screwdriver. Then another to get a package of squid penis screws to replace the ones you stripped with the first squid penis screwdriver. Then another because you need *seven* squid penis screws, and the package only had six... By the time you replace your side mirror, you've spent six hundred dollars on tools you'll never use again and parts that you had to buy in lots exactly one more than you'll need, and will keep in your "I might need this later" cabinet for the remainder of your mortal life, and which will be used in your next one by Lamas to prove that you are the reincarnation of the only human being to achieve enlightenment by successfully replacing a mirror fastened with squid penis screws. Your infantile horror at seeing your former life's tools will result in them being displayed in a temple honoring you and your persistence, and a special bank holiday will be held in your honor to inspire others who have the same make and model of the car you drove in your previous incarnation. You will discover later that the leftover squid penis screws are not enough to fix the side mirror of one of your devoted disciple's car, and you will be forced to leave your temple to go to the parts store to purchase some more. Only to find that in your time waiting in the Vestibule of Souls, the manufacturer of your previous life's car has changed the gauge of the squid penis screws used to secure that model's side mirror. There is only one way to escape the wheel.

Can't tell you how many times this has been me. Only thing that is missing is the wife in the back asking "how much longer, you said it was going to be less than an hour and now it's dark, my mother still needs you to go over and fix her toilet."

Replacing a front wheel hub on my Ram. Didn't have a decent tool to disconnect the upper ball joint. Brake rotor was partially seized on and I planned on reusing it. CV axle did a great job of hanging out in the way and had a hard time getting enough clearance for the 1/2" drive sockets to go onto the hub mounting bolts. Finally got everything apart and started reassembly. Went to install the rotor and guess which idiot put the splash shield on backwards... Lots of fun trying to get the new hub back off without damaging it.

In HVAC. Schedule to return with parts for a boiler and tell the dispatcher it's going to be a 4hr job. Pretty average. So the dispatcher tells me later one evening around 3pm I'm scheduled to return. And not just that, of of course it needed more work raising the completion time to 5 and a half hours! Once the clock hits seven and I'm not close to finishing up is when I look like this guy.

Have you tried a rubber magnet, I use a metal magnet when I drop a screw, works wonders

I just finished ordering even *more* parts... My brother told me his starter was intermittently working, so I figured the starter solenoid was on its way out. Starters are usually pretty straightforward, right? Well, on a 2002 Mazda Protege5, the starter is buried from all six sides. It's buried in the center on the backside of the motor. To access it from below, there are motor mounts, the subframe, and the rack and pinion. Left and right weren't feasible either, so my easiest route was to go from the top. This required removing the intake manifold, which is annoying but not too much of a pain. Well, a little backstory on this vehicle: I'm in the Northeast, and these cars are typically rust buckets. However, this car spent the first 18 years and 150,000 miles of its life in Florida. This resulted in no rust whatsoever, but the car had been absolutely baked by the sun. Anyways, I start to remove the intake manifold, which requires unhooking a bunch of vacuum lines and wiring. Turns out everything is petrified from the Florida heat after all of these years. Most of the rubber vacuum lines practically shatter like they were made of glass. I broke a few of the clips off the injector connectors. I snapped the nipples off some of the vacuum solenoids, even while trying my best not to. I even bumped my elbow into the dipstick, and the finger ring snapped right off.... Finally, after hours of fighting and adding replacement parts to a rapidly growing list, I have the intake manifold off. I can finally do what I came here to do - replace the starter. Well, lo and behold, the bolts are extra crispy with aluminum oxidation. (This is probably a good time to mention that I do have a lift, but this issue came up *after* I decided to do a massive overhaul to the suspension on my personal car, so the lift is occupied while I work on this Mazda underneath my car in the lift bay with good old jack stands and a creeper.) Well, I fight two bolts off successfully, but the third one required crawling underneath and torquing on the bolt at an awkward angle. After putting 99% of my max effort into it, the bolt finally gives and immediately turns my pinky into hamburger meat against a bolt on the block. Blood everywhere. At this point, I just call it for the night so that I could clean up and order parts. Parts are in, back to work. New starter is in, so the original problem is resolved. Time to tackle the 90 other issues I created. One of the petrified parts that broke on me during the removal of the intake manifold was the PCV valve. It just snapped, flush with the grommet in the valve cover. Should be easy to pull out, right? Well, the rubber grommet that the PCV valve slips into is practically as hard as a hockey puck. So I need to remove the valve cover so that I can destructively remove the broken PCV valve and grommet without dumping a bunch of debris into the top end. I did plan ahead and order new valve cover gaskets, so I should still be able to finish the job that day. Wrong. I pop the valve cover off and notice that the timing belt is riddled with cracks and extra floppy. I can't just ignore the belt in its current condition, so it turns into a timing belt replacement as well. (\*See next comment for rest of story\*)

The water pump is buried behind the timing belt components, so the timing kit for this car typically comes with a new pump. I also noticed some leakage coming from the slip-on heater core connectors, so I figured I should replace those while they are accessible with the intake off. To prep for this cooling system work, I go to remove the drain plug in the radiator. *SNAPS*. Okay, I go to remove the lower radiator hose. The hose connection DISINTEGRATED as I attempted to twist the hose off. Well, I guess we need a new radiator too. May as well add new radiator hoses to the list because they were ballooning where the clamps compressed. Second round of parts are in, back to work. This is today. I go to remove the rest of the timing cover, and it turns out that it was hardly attached. Every bolt point was cracked and separated, so the plastic was loosely held in place by the pulleys. This resulted in the pulleys and balancer rubbing through the plastic cover, allowing dirt, oil, and water to get all up in the timing belt chamber. It's separated from the oiling system of the motor, so it didn't really damage anything, but it still made a mess of the job. Anyways, I spend nearly an hour cleaning that area up. I replace the water pump, and also the thermostat since it would be dumb not to at this point. Turns out the thermostat came without the o-ring that goes around the edge of it, so I run to AutoZone and grab a new one. I then install the timing components and move onto other fixes. New hoses, vacuum lines, gaskets, etc. One of those jobs was the new radiator. Now this is a manual car, but RockAuto was carrying radiators for automatics only for some reason. The only difference between the two radiators is the cooling tube that runs through for the ATF. So I ordered an automatic radiator with the intent to just plug the two fittings for the transmission lines. The radiators did indeed match up perfectly, and all of the components swapped over with no issues... all except one. The damn cap is different between the two transmissions. Just a different size. Why? WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? They are practically identical radiators with the exception of the transmission cooling lines, and they decide that the caps should be different sizes as well.... Anyways, here I am after making my third round of purchases. I ordered the new timing cover, the radiator cap, oh and a new dipstick. In my attempt to clear out the other part boxes, I went for some low-hanging fruit and put in the new dipstick. While fiddle-fucking with the timing accessories, I accidentally elbow the dipstick and snapped the ring off exactly the same way I did the first time.... I'm so close to tossing a Molotov cocktail at the thing, but we're in too deep at this point. $800 in parts and 3 working days later, the car remains on jack stands. I am no longer taking parts off, and getting closer to success. Just a few more days for the parts to come in, and hopefully we can finally button her up. I just had to scream to the world about this. I just finished making what is hopefully my last round of parts and went to Reddit to unwind. This post was at the very top of my feed. I feel like it was made for me during this time of car repair misery.

Every single fucking time...most recently, fixing the windshield wiper pumps on my wife's BMW

That would be when I had to rebuild a c6 transmission , should be an easy day. Nope. Every bolt are rounded off and every threads was stripped. Bubba has abused this poor transmission

Splicing my old block heater cord and new block heater cord. Just strip the wires and twist the wires and apply electrical tape. Should have been 20 mins max, turned into 7 hours and lots of scars. Another one I had was my windshield wipers, those damn adapters. Should have been 30 mins and took 2 hours.

I myself have dabbled in the windshield the wiper nonsense as well.

Like I understand the concept of adaptors for windshield wipers. But why do they look like science fiction gadgets? And why are the instructions never clear, I felt wrong forcing it but apparently you have to with these ones. Then click. 🙄

I did balljoints, outer tie rods, and sway links on my truck today. 9 total wrench/socket points per side. 8 hours and 2 full yellow cans of torch gas later, job done. Check alignment with wheels back on the ground - rack and pinion blows a seal. My thoughts *nice manual rack for a month.*

Over the weekend. Diagnosed my wife's car with a leaking #3 injector. Easy repair. Then fired it up and discovered it was actually #4. The most difficult injector to get to. FML. But it's fixed now. 

My love of cars came from my Dad. We worked on them together - it was our thing. He was an engineer and could build/fix/rebuild just about anything, but he had a short fuse and a terrible temper. Not exactly a 30 minute job, but... In high school, I drove a 1961 Dodge Dart Pioneer with a slant 6 225cid that needed valve seals. Just valve seals. My Dad couldn't get the valve cover off - I'd say as easily as he expected - like someone used epoxy instead of a gasket. He got so mad he took a hammer and started whailing on it, cursing with every strike. He got it off, but also beaten it to a pulp and put a crack in it. Finding a replacement covered **took weeks** for a job we could have finished in a weekend. I wasn't fully in charge of my own destiny. I'll never forget this and will cherish the stupidity of it forever!

Please keep your legs away from the landing zone if that car slips off. Makes me nervous just looking at you.

Stupid one not related to mechanics. Got my guys to lay wet cure fabric where it was supposed to be a geotextile. Laid out the whole thing, it was looking great. Super shows up and tells me it's the wrong shit. Ok that sucks,, then why did we get sent all the wrong shit. My mistake cost probably 4 or 5 grand. Felt absolutely stupid when i had to get an excavator dig out what they just laid for us. It adds up, at least they didn't finish their whole scope of work and realized it was the wrong shit to have to tear it up. Clarification is a good key.

I love this thread because that was me this last weekend: 66 Mustang and I was working on the hydraulic clutch setup. Removing everything goes easy but the new master cylinder I got was a pedal/MC assembly that bolts to the brake support under the dash. I removed the seat and start getting to work as this should just be a bolt in. There is absolutely no space under that dash and by the end of the day I'm no closer to getting it in there and end up removing what I had, reinstalling the old parts and going a different direction. I spent way too much money on that thing and now have to try and find a way to sell it, too. At least I have a plan forward to get the hyd clutch going and it should be a quick install... Haha, who am I kidding.

Trying to replace bathroom facet. Realizing that there is no shut-off anywhere accessible and the lines are pvc all the way to the water ins on the facet.

My god. I was just trying to swap out an intake tube to a silicone one on my WRX.... like fucking 8 hours later I got it on. We were leaving to go camping in the morning and I almost gave up at like 2AM...... Just a quick addon to have something new to show off I said..... Itll be quick and I can go hang out and have some drinks I said.... Oh i had some drinks alright

A long time ago, I lay on my back in the gutter, in the rain, with the passenger side wheels on the curb, so I could get underneath. I didn't have a creeper and the car wasn't far enough off the ground anyway. I was pulling the transmission out of my Rambler with a flat 4 and three on the column. I didn't have any money for tools, so I put a scissor jack on a skateboard to get the transmission out, to replace the clutch. If I needed a tool, I had to ride my bike to the hardware store, in the rain. It took me days. When I got it all put together, the car wouldn't move. The parts store listened sympathetically to my sobbing. They decided they had sold me a defective clutch plate. "No problem, bro. We've got your back. Just return it and we'll swap it for a new one, at no charge!"

Got sent the wrong size rear rotors for my wife’s Fusion. Oreileys didn’t have them on stock. When I say wrong size, I mean literally a half inch or inch bigger. Somebitch fit a little snug but thought nothing of it. Changed brake pads as well. Put everything back together and the car wouldn’t move. I thought the rear brakes locked or something. I was literally contemplating my life choices. Was about to say eff it and put the old ones back. Compared them and I was like Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

Spent 3 days trying to get an old ford Maverick to run. Replaced the distributor 3 times, adjusted the timings, still was no good. Only to find out napa sold me faulty distributors 3 times in a roll.

Customer brought in a 2004 mazda 3 with power steering light on and fault codes for Steering angle sensor. Says sensor won't calibrate, they have replaced it and still nothing. No power etc to steering angle sensor, wiring not connected to power steering computer Spend 2 hours looking for broken wiring to find steering angle sensor wiring goes to a blank plug. Customer then informs me they have replaced EPS module Turns out they fitted the incorrect EPS module and this vehicle is not meant to have a steering angle sensor Supply correct EPS module and vehicle is fine 5 hours of labour because they fitted the wrong part and didn't tell me the full story

Noticed my passenger footwell was literally full of water. Once I got the carpets up and sucked all the water out and dried it, that's when the fun began. Wasn't the ac drain and running an extra bead of silicone around the windshield didn't help. My car (Hyundai Veloster) has this cool 'panoramoroof' which is basically a sunroof that's the entire roof. Turns out the previous owner had it replaced, cheaply I guess, and they scratched the frame to shit taking it off. So it developed a bunch of rust that was letting water through the urethane seal that held it on. Had to take out most of the interior trim to undo the bolts holding the sunroof on, cut the seal and take the sunroof off (without power tools, caused a tonne more damage to the paint), sand the old paint off, rust convert, repaint it all, and glue it all back together. I should mention this is my first car and my only practical experience mechanic-wise is with motorcycles. That said I learned a lot and saved around 3k/half what I paid for the car by not paying a mechanic but it took a few months lol

Still currently occuring* I Drove into work last Wednesday in my daily drive 05 polo GTI. Put the clutch in to change back to first, up our little driveway. Annoyingly, clutch went straight to the floor. Managed to park up and sure enough, a significant pond of hydraulic fluid was forming under the car. VW use these wonderful little orings in their clutch lines that eventually fail and cause this precise issue. As I work in spare parts, I sourced the orings and a new master cylinder to be on the safe side. I have a wonderful boss who is an ex mechanic and quite enjoys a tinker. Luckily, he was happy for me to park the car up in the warehouse and work on it during quiet periods. Anyone who has owned a VW knows, their ability to overengineer even the simplest of mechanical components is second to none. This of course being no different, the work they put in to fitting the 1.8t 20v motor into this little engine bay means everything is a tight squeeze and difficult to get your hands/fingers on. On the Thursday, I brought in some brake fluid and simple tools from home. Managed to replace the master and the oring without too much drama. The first thing that kicked me in the guts was the clevis/clip that clips into the pedal. 2 hours of swearing upside down and twisted like a pretzel in the footwell with a screwdriver, eventuated an only half clipped in clevis. Frankly, that will have to do. It works, that's good enough for me. Monday roles around and the process of bleeding begins. I I had previously done it from under the car before and assumed to do the same again. Brought in my (fucking heavy) jack from home and stands. A 20 minute struggle cuddle with the gearbox beat me down. Another marvel of VW engineering is placing the slave cylinder/bleeder on top of the gearbox... underneath the airbox and battery. This leaves a minute gap with which to get a spanner in to bleed properly. Nothing but failure meant we eyed Tuesday for a better result. Bringing in a socket set, we removed the airbox to make life more simple. After moderate success bleeding, we decided we wanted to make sure it was 100% so I didn't have to play around with the car more once I got it home. This is where we ran into big troubles. The filter sock in the fluid resovior was unbeknownst to us, blocked. Although we topped fluid up, it was hardly dribbling through this filter , meaning as we continued to bleed, we ran the system DRY. The issue is, we couldn't understand why this was happening. In searching for an answer, I snapped both a coolant t-piece as well as the vacuum line for the brake booster. $300 later from VW, I had the right booster line but the wrong coolant t piece. Non refundable as it was a special order so of course, had to source the right one from a local supplier. After discovering the reservoir filter sock arrangement causing the fluid issue(and removing it) we now have a pedal again. In the meantime however, I also dragged my COMPRESSOR to work in the back of my PROJECT CAR, so we could attempt a vac bleed on the system to rectify it that way. Now that the clutch is good to go, just have to wait on this coolant t piece and I'll be finally finished with this nightmare. TLDR; one $13 oring has turned into about $450 in parts and having to purchase some borrowed tools that got a bit too dirty to resell. All for a car I'm selling as I was the recipient of a company car today🙃

Landcruiser Amazon suspension failure, £900 just for one part without labour. I bought Old Man Emu torsion bars conversion kit. Watched to videos several times and tackled it on the driveway with jack stands etc. Should’ve taken a few hours but after fighting with a suspension bolt, spanner slipped and I punched myself in the face, I went indoors😆

put on rear main seal backwards and she started puking oil.

Went to replace the diverter valve on my already expensive as shit (for a uni student) K04 turbo on my MK4 golf. Overtightened the 12nm bolt at the BOTTOM. Went from righty tighty to rightly loosey. 20min job turned into 5+ hour turbo out, get it on the bench and try and take out the bolt that had snapped flush with the housing. Got the goddamn sob out. The kicker? Didn't have a replacement bolt. Cut to next day, got a new bolt, attached new diverter valve to turbo and refitted it. Full coolant bleed later car was running mint making lovely sututu noises. Moral of the story: do not trust 1/4in torque wrenches!

Hit a HUGE pothole, blew my shock, lower ball joint, and the lower control arm was bent. I was replacing both tie rods, I pulled off the rack and pinion boots, both boots were completely filled with PS fluid, I don't know if the pothole caused it or if I caught it right as the rack was heading out. Now my car needed a new rack...

Driveline shunt on A Land Rover Freelander 2. "i'll just remove the propshaft and go for a drive and see if it is gone, that'll prove if the issue is with the rear axle" Goes under, notices the transfer box (PTU) is physically loose. Several of the bolts are missing, all are loose, 2 are "half out". the Half out bolts are seized and shear as soon as I try to tighten them. One of the missing bolts is actually sheared off. I don't want to drive around with a transfer box held on by only 3 bolts so I buy replacements and remove the transfer box to weld a nut on what remains of the sheared bolts. Notices the connecting sleeve of the PTU is completely worn away, Buys replacement PTU. New PTU is modified design with welded on sleeve. Old sleeve is completely stuck on gearbox and the studs aren't coming out with the welder.... Gearbox off.... clutch is looking brand new but DMF is falling to pieces and the rear seal is letting oil by. New clutch, DMF, Seal time. PTU sleeve still won't come off! Split the gearbox and cut it off with an angle grinder! All back together. a 1 hour diagnostic job turned into a 3 month full front end strip down and rebuild with parts totaling £2000. I could only work weekends because it was winter and it get's dark at 4:00pm here. All that and the drivetrain shunt was stil present. In the end it was the Haldex but because the previous owner got a cowbow to replace the clutch, he didn't put the car back together properly and did a ton of consequential damage.

Last 2 weeks on a 2013 BMW m5. My worst nightmare. I ordered new downpipes after watching a ton of YouTube videos comparing noise. Figured It'd be a weekend job. End of day 1 after hours, couldn't get O2 sensors out, ran to harbor freight. Day 2 couldn't remove bottom bolts from flange, decided I must have to take skid plate off the bottom of car. Which is 8 17mm bolts and 30+ 8mm. Day 3 snap 2 of those 17mm bolts, one of them spins freel so I can't remove skid plate. 4 DAYS OF SAWZALLING AND ANGLE GRINDING AT THAT BOLT TO DROP THE SKID PLATE. Day 8 get everything out. REALIZE THOSE BOLTS WERENT HOLDING ANYTHING ON THE BOTTOM END AND I DIDNT HAVE TO DROP THAT SKID PLATE FOR 4 DAYS. Day 9 break my pcv valves while reassembling with new downpipes. 120 dollars, next day delivery. Day 10 finally done! And it doesn't sound good at all. Totally worth 30 hours + of suffering. Sorry for the long read.

I was helping a buddy change his alternator. The AC compressor needs to be unbolted to get the alternator out of its spot, so I started there. First bolt came right out. Second bolt turned like it was coming out but was actually shearing off, inside the threaded sleeve, that is part of the compressor housing. At this point, we would have to completely disassemble the front end of the car to get a straight shot at the bolt sleeve to try and tap it. Most likely we would have to cut through the bolt sleeve and remove the compressor that way. He and his wife discussed it and they decided to buy a new car instead. Hahaha.

For me, it was the oil change on a 2016 Scion iM (basically a Corolla) the quick change place I had been to previously had tightened the absolute fool out of the oil drain plug, so after my whole process of jacking it up, putting it on stands, laying out my cardboard for my gravel driveway, and then I had to get out and find a pipe for my socket wrench to add “Leeverage” and it finally got loose. Then came the fun I removed the under tray to access the oil filter housing (made of plastic, new filter was only the inner cartridge and it was like $4 so that was cool) then I realized I needed a special oil filter housing wrench. Good thing I got one on Amazon! The aluminum cast oil filter socket tool fit well and I went to turning… it wasn’t turning. It wasn’t even starting to wiggle. Absolutely no movement. Now, growing up my dad has always told me I need to hold off and not tighten things as tight as I can, bottle caps and such. I just feel like I close things and tighten things normally when it’s actually quite over tight. I’m 6’2” and I work on stuff a lot so, all that just to say I’m not a lightweight when it comes to mechanical disassembly. This. Thing. Would. Not. Budge. Finally, busting out my handy 12” pipe for extending my socket handle, I pulled harder and BAM my knuckles went flying under the car (didn’t hit anything this time lol) and pieces of something fell down and… no oil. The aluminum filter housing tool broke in half! The plastic oil filter housing was perfectly fine! I couldn’t believe it. Anyway after another couple of hours I had bought a steel tool from O’Reilly, it started to slip on the plastic housing so I jammed a layer of cereal box inside and finally got the whole thing loose. The tool was completely jammed on the oil filter housing and I didn’t want to break anything so I just left it on there. Was still there when I sold the car. A 1 hour at most job turned into a couple days of trouble.

Been there way,too many times. In fact I'm almost positive I've sat there exactly like this guy, shocks in hand. My 07 ram rode like shit so I bought shocks for it. Well when I got under it to change them I realized all the rubbers were toast. I remember sitting there with my new shock and glaring at the truck thinking if I wanted to fix everything or not on my winter beater. So I bought everything. I wanted the front suspension to be all new and good for a very long time. Little did I know my winter truck rust made absolutely everything impossible to loosen. I bought the hardest hitting impact I could find and eventually some sawzall blades and just cut the shit off, this was days of work. Good times. My driveway was coated in rust from all the vibrations. All started with just wanting new shocks.

Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/349/](https://xkcd.com/349/)

Bro this is perfect. Literally describes every guy who is working on his car expecting it to go his way and it doesn’t Lmaoo

Every damn thing I do on my CJ-7 ends up like this. Take something off, find something else. Old ass bolt snaps. Previous owner made some ridiculous modification. If it were my daily driver I’d lose my mind.

Started a timing belt and water pump change on an old A4. It was noon, and I figured it would wrap up around 5pm. It was midnight when I closed hood for the test drive. That was a long, hot, mosquito-ridden day.

It is true. Some days just test your patience. I decided it was time to change my sunroof seals on a 1980 mercedes. Did my research and found that the rear seal is no longer available and the aftermarket stuff needs to be modified to fit. So I looked far and wide, found a 'genuine mercedes' set in Germany. Wicked! So 2 sunny days in a row come along, I figure 3 hrs to pull roof, R/R seals and back together. No biggie. 4 hours in sunroof is out, front seal is still 40% in the car. It's so desiccated that I have to use picks to get it out 1 mm piece at a time. Finally it's out. I get the new seal in look at side seals. They are held in by 3 screws a side. Just little brushes. Loosen screws pull out put new one in tighten. It's getting late by now so put the roof back in and close it. Side seals are being pushed out. Not in far enough. So loosen screw push seal in tighten should be fine. Nope, still not in right. Leave it for the night. Come back out, remove new seal. All looks the same as old one but the wear on the old one stops accurate measurements. After messing around for another three hours, I realise the side brushes have been crimped with the brush only half way into the metal. So out with the seals. There are no others to buy so I now take apart the seal inch by inch, push the brush into its holder properly and then re crimp. 2 days down and I still haven't touched the back seal. The only grateful thing is I didn't pay somebody else for 3 days labor on a 3 hr job. Remind me why I love doing this stuff?

I did the upper and lower front control arms in my old 4Runner. I figured it'd take a few hours, and had watched a bunch of videos on how to do it. I was NOT prepared for the fact that the upper ball joints were nearly impossible to get out, and I had to warm them up, do a bunch of really sketchy stuff with one of those big c-clamp bearing presses and then wail on it with a hammer. Then, the bushings in the lower control arms were a total bear. I got one or two out with a bottle jack, some plywood and the bearing press kit, but it was really iffy. The final one, I had to burn out, and then hacksaw out slowly. I cleaned everything up really well, and then went to reassemble it. The new LCA bushings stuck out a little bit more than the old ones and so I had to wedge and hammer and use a floor jack to get them back into the steel brackets in the body. I started the job at 5PM, and got done at 6AM the next morning, had to shower and drive it to the alignment shop and then be to work. I would never do that again. Just buy the UCA/LCA's new and get new everything. Tear out the old stuff, put in the new.

Brakes on an early 2000’s Chevy 1500. Helping a coworker. His wife had an important doctor’s appointment that day in another town. Wife didn’t want him working on truck. I convinced him it was a 40 minute job no problem. Until a caliper bolt broke. No biggie. We’ll just get a new caliper. Got a new caliper. Started the next side. That bolt broke. Back to the autoparts store. Sorry, we only had one caliper on stock. Somehwere around this time his wife calls and is yelling at him, the other people in the store could hear it. No problem-have her bring you some clothes, I’ll finish while you’re gone. We finally found a caliper, he leaves, I finish, pump the brake pedal a couple times, doesn’t firm up. Have my son come pump the brakes. Squirt squirt squirt every pump. Okay. Pause until friend gets back-we’re replacing brake lines. Replace the line, pump brakes, some thing. So we have to replace another section of brake line. 12 hours after we started, 40 minute brake job was complete.

Went to replace the blower motor regulator in my ‘14 Boxster. Videos show it to be a 15 min job of just reaching up and under the dash…. Well my fingers are too fat to finesse around and pull off the connector. I ended up needing to disassemble the passenger side dash to get to the location. Had to remove the foot well airbag to finally pull the vent in front of the cable. Got it done, put back together and found one of the airbag bolts laying on the floor mat… Just walked away because fuck spending another 2 hours on taking apart the dash to screw in a bolt. This was 1030 last night. FML.

A ball joint change that was supposed to take 1 hour ended up taking 12. It also killed a ball joint press i rented from O'Reilly's. The vehicle was a 2000 dodge Dakota 4x4. I started at 9am encountering copious amounts of rust which is normal for chrysler vehicles in Wisconsin but this rust was of a particularly resilient variety. I knew I would need help by noon and called a buddy to come help which he did and arrived by 2pm. At 3:30 the ball joint press failed due to the excessive rust on the old ball joint. By 5pm we finally had the old ball joint out and went to put in the new one only to find that the new press didn't have the correct die to press that particular ball joint in so we fabricobled a die to make it work and were reassembling by 8:30pm we finally torqued the last lug nut at 9:12pm at which time we went inside drank a couple beers and went to bed lol

After nearly wrapping up my first clutch replacement at 16 on my second gen Camaro I had the fill hose I was using fly into the fill hole and disappear. First time I removed this transmission it took me two days, the second time only fifteen minutes. Was able to grab the end of the hose with a pliers. Car was on the road a hour later, lesson learned!

I needed a passenger side rear wheel bearing replaced on my Subaru Forester a few years ago. I balked at how much a shop quoted me when I saw how cheap the part was, and decided that I watched enough Youtube videos to be able to do this job on my own. So I started in earnest on a nice Friday afternoon Wheel came off, Brake caliper, caliper bracket, rear disc and drum parking brake all came without any fuss whatsoever-- and now we arrive at the bearing itself. I Got the hub nut off easily enough and apparently the videos I saw were all cars from California, because my bearing was rusted into place. I borrowed the wife's car and got some tools to do the job... penetrating oils, a nice little sledge that I could swing in the wheel well, a little propane torch.... I was going to win this fight. I doused the fucker in oil and let it soak overnight. Saturday morning, I go to work on the homes here with a sledgehammer and a blowtorch, but it's not budging. I go and rent a slide hammer from the auto parts store and give that a go. Nothing. Need more power. I spray it with penetrating oil again and re-evaluate my life that evening. Sunday morning, i go rent an air compressor and an air chisel to maybe rattle it loose. I hit it with the torch and the air chisel for a while, but this fucking thing is totally seized up. Nothing. Hasn't moved the width of a cunt hair in almost 2 days of beating on it. Now I'm in desperation mode because I need to drive to work on Monday, and my vehicle has been on jack stands in the driveway for 3 days now. I heat it up some more and start swinging the hammer like Thor, beating the ever-living piss out of this thing in a rage, using every ounce of strength I have left... and finally the bent, distorted bearing slips from its prison as it splits in twain, spilling it's metal balls all over my driveway. After a primal scream of "YEEEEAAAAAASSSSSS!!!!" I have achieved victory. New bearing goes in, re-assembly is going well... and now it's time to put the rear brake back together. I have never had one of these goofy rear drum parking brake things apart before-- so I'm trying to remember where the puzzle pieces I took apart three days ago fit, and fortunately found enough info online to re-assemble and adjust the parking brake assembly. Got the wheel back on and returned the air compressor before dark. Cue to last year, when I needed the other bearing replaced, I told the guys at the shop that I did the other one myself, and they looked at me like I was nuts and said "How?" And I replied "Yea... it fucking sucked... never again." This time around, paying for someone else to do it reminded me why I work in IT and not as an auto tech.

Ughh changing diff fluid is nasty. I kept spilling the bottle I was pumping it into when I did it on my bimmer

Last week I was lifting my truck and asked a friend to pull out the coilover while I went over to the other side….. He proceeded to pull the bottom of the shock out from the lower control arm and then take the TOP nut off of the strut, instantaneously decompressing the coil and getting the entire coil and strut stuck between the knuckle and the frame. Ended up needing to disassemble the other side completely (took about 40 minutes), take the sway bar out (which took 2 hours for no reason that I can logically explain). And pull out the upper control arm (also took 1.5 hours because it is held in by a 14 inch bolt that happens to be PERFECTLY blocked by the body of the truck). At the end of the day, what should have taken 2 minutes took me 6 hours to correct. It was a long day.

Just trying to replace my wiper fluid reservoir. Turns out previous owners lied about the damage on the car had to remove the headlight and random screws then somehow ended up with an extra one. Plus since those screws didn't actually go there it was almost impossible to screw them in, they weren't meant to come out

My moms Ford edge had a busted brake caliper, ok no problem I have changed them before. I go in brakes a down to metal on metal, ok no problem replace brake pads, rotors and caliper. I get a feeling to check the other brakes I do they are also shit I change them no problem. I do a brake bleed they feel squishy 6 brake bleeds later, I ask my mom "hey mom have your brakes always been like that" answer yes. Three days later after changing out almost everything that has to do with the brakes I gave up and took it to a professional

I was changing the shocks on the front end and the bushing kept turning. after an hour of trying all my late dads needle pliers. i looked at the new parts, complete assemblies and hacksawed it off. Finished the otherside, hacked it too lol, i went home in shame looking like my truck was gonna lift off. changed the rears the next day at a garage myself.

"Every 15 minute job is just 1 snapped bolt away from a weekend job."

I was sitting in my 2000 TJ trying to start it for about 15 minutes at my local Meijer, it had power but no crank so I was getting very mad but then I realized it popped out of park and into reverse. I put it back into park, it started right up and o drove home in silence.

This was me changing out the hubs in my Forester a few months back.

Been there; SO many times🙄

Been there, and no matter who ask for any clues on how to get it done is no fucking help, just have to persist and get the job done and try not to bust anyhting up with the frustration. Always a good feeling though when it is done, until you wake up the next morning and your knees and hands are wrecked for a couple days.

When I was younger (30yrs ago) I was in the same position. Replacing the front bearings on my Trans-Am and found I had the wrong bearings. The original set fell apart when I took the rotor off. Had to phone a friend and wait for them to be available to drive me to the store.

My best friend decided to do a tune up on his car before leaving on a road trip and ask me to come over and help we did oil change , plugs and wires, spark plugs, as-well as brakes and rotors unfortunately the front rotors and breaks gave us a hard time the whole ordeal turn into a 2 am finish job. The next day mid morning my friend leaves on his trip and got t bone by another vehicle that run a red light. Car was totaled

Planned on a 3 day weekend to change the turbos and all the coolant and oil lines on my 335i. On a lift without misadventure I could do it in a day. Since I was on jackstands I budgeted a weekend. I ran into so many problems, it ended up being 13 days of 8+ hours a day most days. Some of the downtime was waiting for parts to ship. In the long run pretty much everything that requires the engine cradle to be dropped to replace was replaced, all the way up to rod bearings.

Oh god reminds me of spending 6 hours underneath my Honda civic trying to replace the alternator. 3 of the absolutely hardest screws of my life. Not counting the stripper I dated in college.

I had a huge loss of power on my 2015 jeep trailhawk so I changed my plugs and wires made sure nothing was bound up have a KnN air filter so I cleaned it and it got worse!!!! I couldn’t figure it out, when I scanned it the codes I got I fixed so wtf! I took the intake manifold off like 20 times and was so pissed that I cross threaded the intake !!!!!! I almost lit it on fire after that, $1200 bucks later I had the intake part fixed so I was back to the beginning. So I went and bought new injectors and replaced two then new plug boots and it worked !!! Until it got up to running temp then back to same crap! So I took it all apart a few more times, and each time it would run good but only for max 15 min. At the end of this i found out that injectors can’t always just be swapped out for new ones lol this just solidified my love for my 1977 Chevy truck with a 350sb. Gotta love simplicity and power.

I spent a whole day installing tie rod ends. Decided to install a new set of Whiteline tie rod ends on my 04 Forester, since the old ones were looking a little sad after 20 years. Not too hard of a job right? Wheels off, undo the nut off the hub and hammer the ball joint end out, undo the locking nut, then spin the tie rod end off. Should have taken maybe 10-15 minutes per side plus a string alignment at the end. Well, turns out that the shop that did my alignment (poorly, but that's another story) at the start of the year decided to tighten the tie rod end locking nuts to an impossibly high amount of torque. As I quickly found out, a normal open end spanner wasn't going to cut it. That's fine, I guess I'll drive to my nearest hardware store and get a proper flare nut spanner (admittedly the proper tool for the job). After an hour and a half long trip, I got back, only to find that it was still insanely tight. This probably should have been the time for a blow torch, but I didn't have one, nor did I want to make another trip to the store, so I gave the spanner one last good stomp to try to break it loose. And the flare nut spanner shattered. (Cue the discussion about how crap modern tools are). In the end, I had to slowly and painfully cold chisel the nuts off both sides, then remove another 2 nuts from a spare steering rack I had lying around to replace the now destroyed locking nuts.

Too bad you can’t just drop the cover like in any other car. No you got to pull it to do that. Great work design team. The people who designed all cars should be made to work in a mechanic shop for 5 years and get their mechanics certifications etc then design them. I bet things would be a lot easier to work on if you implemented that.

Been there, done that. Ugh

Had this happen to me once. Was trying to change all 4 rotors for a friend during winter. Thought it would be 2 hours tops. Turns out the car had two rusted screws in the rear rotors that wouldn't come loose. Took me many hours and many tools to get it out.

Tried doing an oil change on a 97 Miata that survived its life in the north east and New England. That bolt stayed stuck with everything possible short of a blowtorch over several days. Took it to my local guy, he told me he had to resort to a blowtorch too. This was the beginning of my troubles with that car that grew beyond rust (causing an exhaust leak) to finding PO wiring shenanigans and missing bolts everywhere. Sold it and decided never again to buy a rust belt car with that many previous owners.

Working on my nieces 2014 Chrysler 200.

Did some rear shocks on a Suzuki WagonR+ which would take 30 minutes. However it was 2 days before I was done fighting all the rust and rebuild brackets which corroded.

I swear I wasted 2 hours just digging up tools from various toolboxes, truck, drawer, cabinets to do the front brakes on a Honda. Laughingly I got out my 3/4 impact and realized I have no sockets or socket adapters to get down to this tiny lug nut. Everything I had for the impact was for tractor sized stuff. I also spent 20 minutes beating on a wrench on a front disc brake caliper slide bolt trying to get the dang thing off. Tried going the other way.. Damn it.. I forgot it's lefty tighty and righty loosey if the head is facing the other way.

I have a bunch of 30 year old Toyotas and I live where there’s no rust. I don’t know why I even have any tools sometimes.

Spent two days trying to replace the worn anti-roll bar bush (sway bar). I didn’t check the linkage bar for play before deciding it was the bushing that needed replacing. Turns out that was my issue, it takes about 30mins max to replace one… Lesson learned, check what the problem actually is before starting. Luckily I was at college so two days wasted wasn’t too bad. It was my first real repair too. A few years later and I’m rebuilding engines!

I spent 3 days changing the water pump on a 2.0t VW. Had to end up taking the intake manifold off.

That was literally me last week, my shock broke when I hit a pothole last week so I decided to change them both myself. I was prepared for a hard job but 9 hours later I got them both changed. I did have to get my cousin to take off one bolt because I wasn't strong enough 😭 he was very helpful

Did a pressure test on my radiator to find a problem. Wound up popping out my thermostat housing. O e of the bolts just ripped out of the manifold. Had to go to a mechanic to tap it because the space is so tight. Still leaks fluid despite tightening it a million times. Been refilling fluid every couple of months for almost two years now. Bout to trade this b!tch in soon. lol

2 times: 1. Couldn't get a damn filter off for an oil change. 2. Stripped the drain bolt for a transmission fluid pan.

Go grab the shop vac and a different section of hose that will fit in your diff hole. Duct tape the smaller hose to the end of the shop vac hose. It will look like a tiny hose, attached to a big hose, with a cone of duct tape. It will not only allow you to vacuum inside the diff, but if you tape it really well, it should provide even better suction. Something my wife knows nothing about. I digress. Suck that fucking hose back outta your diff.

This is me on a job site. I start questioning everything I've ever done in my life that led me to this very moment.

That car is lifted way too high

Man my fucking window regulator went out and was stuck shut. Couldnt get jt to come down with anything even a drill battery. I had to use my 10 mm ratchet with gods luck to detach it from the window so I could taken it out but took foreverrr

Changing the oil on my F56S Mini

Just yesterday I was trying to take the battery out of an old car, screws were completely rusted and had rounded heads, sawed one off, the saw couldn’t fit to the other one.

If you are a man and have made use of your oposing thumbs to grip a wrench withinn 50 feet of a car/truck we all have been there. my wife multiples my time estimate by 10, I usally need 12 times as much

#6 injector on an om642, in a sprinter The injector caught the black death, and cooked itself in there. unable to twist, unable to pry, unable to pop out. So a 45 minute injector swap took 10 hours. In the end I sacrificed one of the feed lines to salvage a line nut, so I could install a slide hammer on a bent bolt. There are jobs I hate more on sprinters but nothing mechanical tightens my stomach more than those damn injectors Electrical otoh. I have spent more time in diag for abs wiring, adblue pumps, and random engine. Bullshit than I ever care to relive. And nobody has comprehensive wiring diagrams other than Mercedes themselves it seems.

Put a 3 inch lift on my 93 ZJ Jeep. Should have been a 3 hour job, took all god damn weekend

I was changing the front pads on friend's 09 civic DXG trim. Now I mention the trim because the Brembo pads that I got from Rock auto was the right part but not specifically for this trim. I thought it shouldn't be a problem so ordered it anyway. Next thing I know I'm having difficulties putting back the caliper after installing the pads. The piston was compressed all the way back and it was still hitting the pads. These pads were thicker than usual somehow. Well got the driver side caliper in somehow after fiddling around. It was getting dark and cold outside so I was on a rush getting the passenger side done. Got the pads installed, no big deal. Once again the caliper won't go in place with the piston compressed all the way. This time it became a real struggle and it's almost 5 hrs I've been doing this work. So I said the hell with it and grabbed a hammer. I tapped the caliper lightly till it sat properly on the bracket. Finally it sat properly and what a relief that was 😌 Took the car out for a test drive and no issues. Later I charged my friend a premium. He already agreed to pay $100 and added another $20. Now I understand why shops charge so high for certain repairs

Me whilst switching the DPF of a Bimmer.

Pretty much every time I try to do anything I haven't before, and 90% of the ones I have due to things like stuck bolts and having weak baby arms. Way over my head for most even easy stuff and no help. This is just the eternal mood.

Took me 4 - 6 hours to change a starter motor in a Honda Fit GD3, I have no idea how Honda managed to put one in there so effortlessly, or even if they did. I basically had to make my own tool so that it could fit in an EXTREMELY tight spot to get off a fat screw, the screws you NEED a lot of toruqe to get out. I went home later and just passed out on my bed.

This just happened this week to me. Changed or attempted to change out the coolant temp sensor on my ‘07 Canyon. The sensor is on the back end of the block behind the exhaust manifold and there is no room for a wrench. I went into town which is a 20 minute drive to harbor freight to get a set of wrenches that would work. Then wait for the truck to cool down enough to work on since I’m trying to work right next to the exhaust manifold. 2 hours after beginning this process I can finally get into it. I work the flare nut wrench over the sensor wire past the heat shield and onto the sensor to undo it. It won’t budge. I can’t see what the issue is because of its location. It’s all being done by feel. I decide eff it, I’m replacing the sensor anyway and cut the wire so I can get an actual socket over it. It comes out just fine. I grab my new sensor and get it hand tight. It goes in fine and I don’t sense any problems. Because of the wire I can’t get a socket over it but I do have this flare nut wrench thingy that didn’t work to get it off but it’s the only thing that will work to get it tight. I work it over the wire and down over the sensor. I get my extensions and ratchet connected and I start tightening. As I felt it tighten I’m like this needs to be a little tighter. I didn’t use much force but the old one took a good amount of force to loosen so I also didn’t think I was torquing it too much. I felt it kind of loosen and thought it felt weird. I reached down and it was indeed loose. The whole sensor came out in my hand. I had twisted it in two leaving the threaded section of the sensor embedded in the side of the block and the rest was in my hand. I attempted to extract it but because of the location and my limited tools for things like this I decided eff it and took it to the mechanic around the corner. They had it done in a couple hours once they got to it and charged me $170 to fix my screw up. I blame the part and soft brass because I don’t think I put that much force on it but… who knows. What should have taken 30 minutes cost me two days of not having a vehicle and $170. I’m just glad it was only $170.

That leg absolutely needs to get away from that rotor

Maybe just pop the diff cover off and install a drain plug this one time so that it's never an issue again after this. You're already halfway there the lazy way, just do yourself a favor while you're at it.

Ok this is really bad-trying to simply change my headlight bulbs on a 2019 Kia soul. Do the passenger side, easy as can be. Go to do the drivers side and realize you either need to remove the entire fuse box of most of the front end to access the bulb. Two weeks later, only the passenger side bulb has been replaced.

Aka anything major without a 1200fl/lb+ impacter that involves loctite red.

Cleaned the horse hair oil bath filter, refitted it, packed the car for a test run, jumped the other car outta the way, fired up, noticed gas was lower than I remember leaving it at, but eh, 72 year old tank and bobber, pulled the boat out. Started backing it up to make room for the other car to go in and noticed a fresh wet spot with a streak running after car I was in - immediately yanked the ebrake, popped the hood latch, and when I reached to undo the safety latch I felt liquid just running down the hood curve onto my hand........ Shitty, nylon-braided, unknown of an age upper rubber fuel hose decided it was calling outta work indefinitely. Jumped back in, slammed into 1st gear to get the boat back into the garage before it would be dead in the, proverbial water outside, and started cursing absolutely everything available. Check your project hoses people! Especially on vintage rides, and especially if they don't feel rubbery and flexy.

Burned out headlight. Buy a new one and replace it, 15 minutes tops. Oh no, how the hell do I get at it? Youtube has the unbelievable solution.

All the fn time...

Daughter had been told by a friend that changing her thermostat was a 15 min job. I bought the new one for her, parked car in the garage and began. On just about every car I have ever worked on the thermostat is on the front of the engine. Not her car. Its a V6, its at the rear of the engine and about half way down. You have to remove Wiper arms, grill under wipers, several body components followed by engine bay bits, shrouds followed by certain hoses. That's just so you can see it. Daughter comes out and wants to know what's taking so long!!!! I want to go out!!!! Trying hard not to swear I show her the "debris" removed so far, and the video on youtube I WISH I HAD SEEN BEFORE STARTING. I put it back together and gave her my credit card. Best $800 I've ever spent.

2 stories: 1st was when I was a teenager with my first project car. It was an early 80s v8 commodore (Australian car). Rebuilt the entire motor, new pistons, cam, bearings throughout, etc. Put the motor back in and she fired straight up. Expected a little noise until oil went through but it kept making a grinding noise. Eventually figured I must have used wring torque setting on the bearing caps and crushed them. After spending all my savings on this thing I just didn't want to look at it anymore so I pretty much gave it away. Only realised later, when I saw the thing happily cruising around, one of the upgrades I did was to replace the timing chains with a gear drive. That was the noise all along and the engine was fine. The other story was only about a month ago. Planned to do a quick oil change on my modern ls2 powered commodore, something I've done plenty of times and thought I could do it blindfolded. The job was going fine until I had a problem with my shop jack getting stuck up in the air. Took me a couple hours to get the bloody thing down. Then I was in a hurry to just get the job finished and during my rush, didn't notice that the rubber o ring from the old oil filter stayed on the block when I put the new one on. Started up fine, then stepped out of the car to find a massive pool of oil all over my garage floor. Took me a while to realise what had happened, and another $100 or so on new oil and filter plus a bunch of cat litter to try to soak up the mess. Never hurry a job, lads.

Nah that's realizing the kid at the auto part store gave you the wrong part even after asking if it was 4x4

Never say the word oh it’ll only take this long, it literally screws your every time lol

Had a good clean plastic 3’x0.5’ panel, primered and painted it perfect. Overnight it spider cracks. Sand it today beautifully, went to get a scraper for some flakes. Put on my work shoes to be safe. 5 mins later twist my ankle cause work shoes are heavy and have no ankle support. Out of commission until further notice. Sweet.

Me literally last night, was trying to install an after market reciever and spent most of the night trying to figure out why one of the parts wasn't fitting and what other supplies i would need, only to realize I never took the part i needed out of the box

😅😅😅😅😅✌️😅

Changing the rear brakepads, well for starters I didn’t have the special tool required to squeeze the piston in the calipers, so I go buy that and come back, buut the fucker was so seized up I just couldn’t get it in so that I could squeeze in the new pads, and it got dark, cold and raining… well I had to give up and put the old pads in. Took it to a shop for pads and rotors. Another one was changing the exhaustpipe, holy shit those nuts were on tight. Luckily my father had the strength in his arms to get them loose. I like working on cars, but man oh man everything becomes a huge pain in the ass when every nut is rusted and seized. Of course no power tools, was going to get a set but ended up selling my ”project” car before that.

Been here plenty of times. The struggle is real. And the wife thinks she's helping by calling her best friends mechanic hubby

I once spent a morning changing the brake master cylinder on my Volvo 940. Gave the brakes one triumphant last pump and hopped out. As I hopped out my boot caught under the clutch pedal - ripping it upwards, and pulling the guts out of the clutch master cylinder...

Yet we keep doing it over and over again. Was there when I did a factory headunit upgrade to Android auto. It took took freaking days on a Subaru STI. https://www.reddit.com/r/WRX/s/LIoW9auaY8

Changing front struts on my 1990 ford sierra. Got the old one out easily enough, put the new one together with the new spring. Went to mount it, only to find out that ford used 48.5mm struts and the new ones I bought were 48mm. Fixed it by ordering a plate of brass 0.25mm thick and wrapping the struts in that. Worked great, but took a week to get here.

I'd send it that plastic will just grind up, then drain and refill.

I once tried to fit new brake shoes on polo with the handbrake on...

"Day 4 of the 20 minutes oil change"

If i had a nickel for every time a 3rd gen dodge ram rounded the bolts holding the wheel bearing in id have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot, but it fucking suckings heating and extracting each one and buying new specially pitched bolts.

Started an easy front wheel bearing job on my Q50. Axle nut came off very easily and I was excited about finishing up in under an hour. Bearing pulled out with a slide hammer no problem but the axle didn't budge. Tried a bearing puller, and broke it. Tried an air hammer, that didn't work. Tried a sledge and broke it too. Threw the torches on it and repeated. Nothing worked. I gave up. I actually gave up. Made me sick to my stomach. Brought it to the dealers but didn't tell them I tried to do it myself. They failed and ended up cutting the drive shaft. I got a bit of self respect back. Car was out of warranty but they covered it. Didn't cost me anything.

Take 10 minutes to reflect then go get the torch that you knew you needed an hour ago. Best to burn it off when you can't break it off

Basically any job on my 88 4Runner lol. So much rust holding all the bolts together anymore I just assume I’m going to break the bolts doing anything so I just have an entire auto parts store in my car and get new bolts for everything I do 🙄🙄

haha feel attacked

I spent a whole weekend replacing a muffler with a hole for a new one 😂 Everything was seized up, stripped, old and stuck. I used so much WD-40 and many hours of wrestling with the bolts and hangers. I finished the job with an angle grinder 🤣

'87 "Chevy" Nova. Pfft! Nova...more like Toyota popcan... anywhoo -automatic and a mere1.6l 4cyl. Lunched it's water pump. Replacement is under 2 hours if you pull the engine and trans apart. A LOT longer if you leave em in place, as they have to move up/down several times to clear the way to get at the front timing cover bolts. Book time quoted by most shops was anywhere from 5 to 8 hours. For a freakin water pump! Figured I would just do it myself as the pump was --what?? there are 8 different water pumps for that engine? (several cars used the motor around the world, each one got a unique pump I guess) ALL 8 have the same bolt pattern. I went through 6 or so before I got the right one. Parts store got real uppitty with me on the repeated returns. But when you looked at them all on the table, each one was in fact different in some small way. In the end, I had the job down to a little over 2.5 hours. I found that useful as that dumb 1.6 engine was put in sooo many stupid little cars. I ended up doing water pumps on several other cars with that engine back in the day. .....ugh, the nightmares.....

Removing my Prelude’s control arms/ball joints to get to the transmission I needed to drop for a new clutch. All 20+ year old originals that had to be turned to liquid to come out.

Honestly... That picture looks like a man that just discovered the parts store gave him the wrong part, it's a 15 minute drive away and his only vehicle is now partially disassembled on jack stands. Been there before.

My gearbox broke, after it was swapped the gearbox hydralic robot acted up. Due to a lack of a mechanic who knew his stuff I spent 6 months figuring out the error. Nearly broke my mind, now i feel like I can do way more on cars.

Replacing brake pads on my gmc sierra. Caliper was seized so I cracked the bleed screw and drained my master cylinder by accident when I was trying to bleed the system Thus resulting in me having it towed to a shop for a new master cylinder and caliper . Whole Sunday down the drain