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[Lazydocker]

Oh jesus, where do I start?

Removed a knackered old alarm from a car, didn't check it over properly which meant a couple of bare wires shorted and it caught fire.

Trying to get the back bumper off a MGB, which required a ring spanner and a lump hammer.  One big belt and the spanner flew off and through the main bay window of the house.

Forgotten to tighten wheel nuts so many times it's silly. 

Did an oil change on my Saab and didn't put the filler cap back on.  The engine bay was given the best rust protection via a coat of Duckhams you could imagine.

Replaced a worn out piece of hose used on the fuel line on my SD1, started it up and saw this fountain shooting up between the vee.  yes, I'd managed to find a bit of hose that was more perished than the one I'd thrown away.

Didn't watch was I was dong and used WD-40 instead of brake cleaner to wipe down some discs.  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Took the wheel off a Rolls Silver Spirit using the car's jack to look at a bulge in the inside of the tyre.  Car fell off jack. 

Replaced the mirror casings on my old car as the originals were scratched for shiny new painted ones.  Jumped in, flipped the drivers side one out, reversed back down the drive and heard the drainpipe on the side of the house rip the entire mirror assembly off.

I'm sure I can think of a few more! 

Brother in Law managed to knock his Passat off the jack when we were changing a puncture and it landed on my hand Luckily I already had the wheel under the disk so it just pinched (a lot!)

But your list is quite frightening

Did have a customer come in once who had changed his pads and put copperslip all over the friction material

[omegabsw]

Oh jesus, where do I start?

Removed a knackered old alarm from a car, didn't check it over properly which meant a couple of bare wires shorted and it caught fire.

Trying to get the back bumper off a MGB, which required a ring spanner and a lump hammer.  One big belt and the spanner flew off and through the main bay window of the house.

Forgotten to tighten wheel nuts so many times it's silly. 

Did an oil change on my Saab and didn't put the filler cap back on.  The engine bay was given the best rust protection via a coat of Duckhams you could imagine.

Replaced a worn out piece of hose used on the fuel line on my SD1, started it up and saw this fountain shooting up between the vee.  yes, I'd managed to find a bit of hose that was more perished than the one I'd thrown away.

Didn't watch was I was dong and used WD-40 instead of brake cleaner to wipe down some discs.  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Took the wheel off a Rolls Silver Spirit using the car's jack to look at a bulge in the inside of the tyre.  Car fell off jack. 

Replaced the mirror casings on my old car as the originals were scratched for shiny new painted ones.  Jumped in, flipped the drivers side one out, reversed back down the drive and heard the drainpipe on the side of the house rip the entire mirror assembly off.

I'm sure I can think of a few more! 

Brother in Law managed to knock his Passat off the jack when we were changing a puncture and it landed on my hand Luckily I already had the wheel under the disk so it just pinched (a lot!)

But your list is quite frightening

Did have a customer come in once who had changed his pads and put copperslip all over the friction material

I had to stop a mate of mine doing this   

[Lazydocker]

Oh jesus, where do I start?

Removed a knackered old alarm from a car, didn't check it over properly which meant a couple of bare wires shorted and it caught fire.

Trying to get the back bumper off a MGB, which required a ring spanner and a lump hammer.  One big belt and the spanner flew off and through the main bay window of the house.

Forgotten to tighten wheel nuts so many times it's silly. 

Did an oil change on my Saab and didn't put the filler cap back on.  The engine bay was given the best rust protection via a coat of Duckhams you could imagine.

Replaced a worn out piece of hose used on the fuel line on my SD1, started it up and saw this fountain shooting up between the vee.  yes, I'd managed to find a bit of hose that was more perished than the one I'd thrown away.

Didn't watch was I was dong and used WD-40 instead of brake cleaner to wipe down some discs.  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Took the wheel off a Rolls Silver Spirit using the car's jack to look at a bulge in the inside of the tyre.  Car fell off jack. 

Replaced the mirror casings on my old car as the originals were scratched for shiny new painted ones.  Jumped in, flipped the drivers side one out, reversed back down the drive and heard the drainpipe on the side of the house rip the entire mirror assembly off.

I'm sure I can think of a few more! 

Brother in Law managed to knock his Passat off the jack when we were changing a puncture and it landed on my hand Luckily I already had the wheel under the disk so it just pinched (a lot!)

But your list is quite frightening

Did have a customer come in once who had changed his pads and put copperslip all over the friction material

I had to stop a mate of mine doing this   

We did have a laugh over it, although the customer wasn't so amused when we told him the pads were knackered and he'd need another new set

[henryd]

welding a patch on a fiesta sill forgetting that the silly tinkers at Ford stick a wad of foam under the seatbelt mechanism ,the car survived but the seatbelt didn't

[Varche]

I spent an entire bank holiday weekend many years ago taking an engine out of one of my Mini Cooper S's twiceand splitting the gearbox from the engine and "checking I had built the LSD properly" as there was a whine only to discover it was ...........
a front wheel bearing. GRR

[aaronjb]

I've done the oil filler cap thing, too (found it three years later nestling in the space between the arch liner and bumper).

Here's a fun one - helping a friend push his VXR220 out of his garage the other week and somehow managed to push the (back wheel of the) car over my own foot. Wearing trainers.

I'm glad we weren't pushing an Omega!

[omegabsw]

Not a repair as such but still funny......

I used to work for a car/truck hire company and the manager and myself had to pick up a car from the tyre fitters down the road.
We also had to take the car transporter trailer down to have a new tyre fitted so we hitched it up to a hilux and set off.
We were laughing and joking about something as we pulled into the tyre depot (Down hill) when all of a sudden the trailer carried on going past us. 

Now there were 3 things that the trailer could of hit

1. A really large patch or hedges\bushes and small trees
2. The large area where all the scrap tyres were
3. A large brick wall inbeween both of these things




It hit the wall and demolished it 

[Kevin Wood]

Not a repair as such but I was at a kit car show a couple of years back, watching a mobile rolling road. He parked it up in an area of gravel, with his van parked behind the rollers.

First car onto the rollers and it's just warming up. Hear a "tick tick tick" sound and realise the back wheels are full of gravel. Motioned to a couple of guys behind the car to get out of the way, and they realised what was happening and legged it. Rolling road operator seemed oblivious until "tish" there goes the window on his van.

Kevin

[bluey]

Not a repair gone wrong as such, more of a dirty trick. I shoved a stack of Redex down the throat of a carb on a friend's mini once and told him to take it round the block.  I knew what would happen having already done it to mine a few weeks previously, albeit with a far smaller dose. 

Needless to say, the smoke that bellowed out the back of his car as it sped off was pretty spectacular.   

[cem_devecioglu]

fairly some..

the last one was a broken EGR whan I cut the insulating metal a bit thick and hurrying up..

but nothing I did was serious like friend mechanics dropping a friends car from the lift when changing the clutch

as you can guess result was a real mess.. shop had no insurance at that time and the insurance dont cover repair shops.. the mechanics pay all repairs and sold the car..and fired the boy who debase the lift on the wood buttress more than enough

[Olympia5776]

Changing the oil in my van at 5 pm yesterday .
Oil emptied , filter off , new filter out of box , OOps wrong one ..........
Heavy rain starts , van parked in front of garage blocking in two cars , wife at work with her car , nearest motor factor 35 miles away , need van in morning .
Do I just put old filter back in with fresh oil knowing that I could never be happy and would change it again today /tomorrow ............ :-/

Frantic phone calls & a friend ,who runs three similar vans, had a spare correct filter , Well done that man........
9pm all up and running .......Bliss 

[Shallow Al]

I remember having the head off of my dad's Marina, back in the day. I was putting the collets back on the valves on a bench and a roll of insulating tape looked ideal for holding the valves tight into their seats.
Putting it back on the car, all torqued up and feeling very professional about myself, it turned it over by hand to discover that it would not spin all the way round.
After much logical head-scratching I looked down the spark plug holes to see, yes, you guessed it, my roll of insulating tape laughing at me from its perch on top of one of the pistons.
Many years of therapy have since transpired, and I am now happy to relate the sorry tale on an open forum.

[Shallow Al]

Great thread by the way.

[kcl]

When fitting the intake trumpets one bolt dropped below the sandwich plate.. Well, off again and start over... until I dropped the same bolt to the same pit 

Lost the 10mm ring spanner to "somewhere in the engine bay". Never found.

Used the original Omega jack to lift the car. Took the wheel off and it fell off the jack. Really nice one. The jack is really worthless and useless.

Well, the list is endless... 

[cem_devecioglu]

some years ago, when I bought my first polisher, being a newbie tried to a sand and polish a friends newly painted car.. sanding was ok but when I started polishing some strange bubbles pop up (paint) on the bonnet..

nobody told me not to polish a newly painted bonnet (especially if it has some extra wet layers under) under the hot sun

result car back to paint shop :-/