Top 10 Most Ridiculous Mechanic Garage Botched Jobs

Camaro Jack!

This one comes from The Garage, and reveals that your car might be doing a bit more than just getting repaired while in the shop:

I had taken my then new 1996 Z28 convertible. The first new car I had ever bought in to have the rear bumper fixed.

Two days later as I’m driving around in my piece of crap rental car I look over while at a light and there’s my car. With one of the autobody repair guys in it and some woman. It’s about 8pm and I’m pretty confused as to why they would need to be driving my car around AT ALL let alone at night with passengers.

So I start honking madly and finally after several miles of this get the guy to pull over. Turns out he was on a date, and had put 67 miles on it, “testing it for squeaks or rattles”, oh and the NEW rear tires were almost gone.

Joyriding Gangster Mechanic

Another Car Throttle gem, and quite a shocker too:

My grandparents left their Fiat Multipla at the garage to fix a brake problem When they got the car back they found out that the mechanic had taken it for a 200km ride, and two weeks after, my grandmother found a gun under the passenger seat…

Tow Fail

This one’s from the Reddit forums, and shows how even a mechanic-recommended tow truck can have an incompetent driver:

My car was towed bc I needed my battery replaced. While The operator of the tow truck loaded my car the tow hooks underneath punctured my oil pan. By the time my car made it to the mechanic’s shop all of the oil had leaked out. After the battery was replace he tried to start my car. In the process bending the cylinder heads. I know it’s not his fault but after taking it the the volvo dealership I ended up having to pay 7000 for parts and labor. 🙁

Russia!

This story comes from ‘old busted hotness’ on the opposite lock forum:

Not my direct experience, but I used to work at a shop that hired a Russian immigrant as a mechanic. This was in the early 90’s. That guy was the worst hack I’d ever seen.

We thought we’d start him out on oil changes, how hard can that be, right? Soon learned that we had to keep Heli-Coils in stock for all the oil pans he stripped out.

Soon he left to start his own used car lot, with his brother. I stopped in there one day and he showed me a V6 Camry they had up on the lift. Bought at auction, rod knocking.

Now you’d think a hack repair for that would be to put a new bearing shell in and maybe hit the journal with an emery cloth or something, right? Ha. This guy cut the rod in half with a torch, hose-clamped the bearing shell to the crank and siliconed the piston in the bore, then cut off the fuel injector lead. “Runs goot. Maybe leetle shake.”

Oil Can Knows All

Car Throttle user Nico V tells a silly story of the worst mechanics apprentice on the planet:

A friend of mine told me a story about two days ago; he’s a tractor mechanic. Two weeks ago an apprentice came to work with them. He was working alone for a while and my friend could see him running to a bottle of oil, loosening and tightening again, going back to the engine and continuing.

A minute later walking to the can again, loosening and tightening the cap. My friend went looking for what was going on.

The apprentice didn’t know the difference between tightening and loosening, and kept going to the bottle for an example….

Smog Fail

Another Reddit user and another shocking mechanic experience:

I took my SUV to a smog shop. I took it to a shop around the corner, because I figured hey, it’s a smog, I don’t need anyone special to do that. Oh, was I wrong.

I sat down in the lobby while the mechanic took my keys and brought the car around, and not 2 minutes later while I’m grabbing some water, I hear this huge BANG. I go around the corner and look out of the window to see the mechanic jumping out of my car and looking underneath.

Long story short, he did not disable the AWD on my car, which meant that while he had the back two wheels on the dyno rollers, the other two wheels on the garage floor, and not moving.

This caused the transfer case to essentially explode once he hit a certain speed. After many trips back and forth he finally admitted guilt and paid for a shop to take care of the $1900 repair bill.

Tired

This classic comes from Notalwaysworking.com:

(I am at a mechanic’s to get an oil change. I have been going to this place for a few years, but this is the first time I have seen this employee.)

Employee: “I need to go to your car to get the mileage and VIN number.”

(When we reach my car, he starts to check out the tires.)

Employee: “You’re going to need all your tires replaced. Where did you get them?!”

Me: “From you guys, about six months ago! What kind of s*** did you sell me?”

Double Rear End

Mechanics 101, don’t fix a car and then cause exactly the same damage it came in for:

(My friend’s car gets rear ended and he brings it into a shop to get fixed. The day he’s suppose to pick up his car, he gets a phone call and this exchange occurs.)

Mechanic: “Hello, [my friend’s name]. This is [name] from the shop, and unfortunately your car’s going to take another week to be repaired.””

My Friend: “But you just called me an hour ago saying I could pick it up today. May I ask why?”

Mechanic: “You are never going to believe what happened. We had just completely fixed up your car when one of our guys pulled out of his parking spot and rear ended your car.”

My Friend: “So, my car was rear ended again?”

Mechanic: *sheepishly* “Yes. The repairs will be covered by us, sorry!”

Robbery!

I had a 1998 Eclipse Spyder. Roughly 68k miles on the clock. First I’ll give a bit of its history in its final days. Engine blew once at about 45k miles, didn’t think it was going to be covered under warranty, so I took it to a shop.

The next day the shop got broken into, my car got stripped. Wheels, tires, radio, top was cut, side skirts crushed by cinder blocks, bumper damaged, etc, etc, etc.

Shop’s insurance ended up covering it, all is well. A local dealer said yeah, engine is under warranty we’ll even tow it from the current shop. Fast forward 13k miles. NYE…road trip to visit my GF. Driving along the interstate in January and the car suddenly overheats.

I pull off, and she’s done for. Iron block/aluminum head. Insurance would only pay to have the car towed to the closest dealer. I figured, ok car was just fixed 13k miles ago by another dealer, this dealer should be able to work with me as well.

Wrong…

I get a call a couple of days later saying the head gasket blew because I sucked water into the engine. I scratched my head and asked, “How can I suck water into the engine, at 80 mph, on an interstate highway, in January, in Indiana?” The reply was “well we found liquid in the cylinders and it will be $3,000 to replace the head or $600 for you to come to pick it up.”

I said I’ll just come to pick it up, I can’t afford $3k. On the way to pick it up, the service techs took several items off of the car. Taillights (replaced with cracked ones), speakers, valve cover, and a few other things. And said, “there’s six of us here and one of you, we’ll produce evidence that will show you did it if you try to claim our involvement.”

The dealer went out of business about 5 years later after they finally got caught doing other customers the same way.