10 Shocking Mechanic Stories As Told By CT Readers

1. Trust me, I know what I'm doing - CSL Motorsport

My cousin is a Porsche mechanic here in Belgium and they hired a mechanic with over 20 years experience at Audi. A Cayenne diesel came in with engine problems and the newly hired mechanic got to do his first job alone. He started disassembling the entire engine to find the problem.

After having found the issue, he wanted to put the engine back together but then he found out he didn’t know how to do that. As a mechanic of 20 years he was too shy to ask for help, so instead decided to make really deep scratches in the cylinder heads and he said that a piece of metal went around in the engine ruining the entire block.

He had bad luck because apparently it was the first engine of that type to have problems in Europe so Porsche asked for the garage to send the engine. They discovered what happened. In total the costs were €40,000 which the garage had to pay. They fired him obviously.

2. Where the hell did I put my lunch? - Alex1234

After the annual checkup with our mechanic we noticed that our car smelt funny. The interior was spotless and we couldn’t find anything until my mother opened up the hood to refill the washer fluid, and found a large sandwich lodged between the motor and the splash guard.

3. A service with a freebie - cragster101

My mother had her Ford Focus serviced a few years back. while the service went fine, she opened the bonnet a few months afterwards to find an adjustable wrench at least 18 inches long left in the engine bay.

4. A happier mechanic story - Stefan Rial López

It was a nice Friday evening and I thought I could go home after finishing my work. But then my boss came across really nervous, he forgot to put an assignment in the ‘work to do’ list, and it was for one of our most valuable customers. An older RS3 needed a full programme service: oil change, spark plugs, brake fluid change Haldex clutch oil change, four new summer tires, etc. First I was mad because he would come at 4:45pm and it was 4:30pm and I knew I would not be able to make the car alone.

Thankfully four of my co-workers had also finished work and we started to make the service at full speed, checking the car for other damage (everything was ok), two worked at two tyre machines, my co-worker and me were changing the fluids, and the other one was taking care of the Offboard Diagnosis and cleaning the car from inside.

We were half way through but the customer arrived and first he was angry because the car wasn’t ready, even after my boss apologised. But then he saw how five people were working hard and he was impressed that we cared so much for him. So we were done 15 minutes later including cleaning the car.

I was ready to hear the customer swear on me because the car wasn’t ready, but instead he gave us each 20 bucks, because he was impressed how fast we worked!

And after taking a shower, my co-workers and me went for a nice cold beer.

5. When a clutch replacement wrecks a car - Matt F

I bought this car as a project, and the previous owner had taken it to a branch of a national garage chain for a new clutch. They’d convinced him the entire gearbox was shot. He paid for the whole thing to be reconditioned - £800. Couple of months later, the car made a groaning noise when setting off. He took it back and they said the gearbox mount needed replacing and quoted several hundred pounds to sort it. The guy was obviously sick of spending so much on the car so sold it for spares/repair in the paper.

I knew several hundred pounds was way excessive for a gearbox mount - I could get the part myself for about £20 so I thought I was on to a winner, so I bought it.

Got it home and then found this complete bodge. Looks like whoever refitted the gearbox cross-threaded the bolt for the gearbox mount. They’d then cut out the mounting point on the subframe and bodged it with a plate poorly welded in place with a threaded hole it in (using the wrong diameter bolt too I might add!). This wasn’t treated and consequently two months later, the rust on the poor splattering of a weld had got so far that the groaning noise we were hearing when setting off was in fact this plate bending and trying to break away from the subframe. Also found barely any oil in the gearbox due to a very slow leak caused by a hairline crack where the drain plug had been overtightened.

Got a front subframe for £50 from a rear-ended car and a smear of sealant managed to stop the oil leak for the rest of the cars lifetime, so all in all a good result for me!

6. We need a new apprentice - nico V

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….

7. What the hell is that noise? - Sam Newey

My dad had just bought a project TR4 and when it was running, we noticed a rattling coming from the clutch bell housing. We already knew that the flywheel had missing teeth so decided to investigate.

After taking off the gearbox, a huge spring and a nut fall out onto the floor. We spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out what had happened before I realised that the previous owner had blown up a previous starter motor, sending the retention spring flying off into the bell housing. He then proceeded to fit a new starter motor whilst leaving the bits of the broken one still in the clutch housing!

(Pic is of the old spring we found spinning round the clutch plate, and the right is the one attached to the starter)

8. The bodge is strong with this one - Clutch63

I got a car in May last year, I hit a pothole but nothing happened. No noise, no loss of braking, nothing. SoI thought nothing of it. Fast forward to last February and I hit another pothole and my right-front brake was completely out.

So I head to a branch of a garage chain in Anderson, Indiana to get it fixed. Turns out my brake had been collapsed the whole time (doubtful since it didn’t look too worn) so they needed to do a full brake job. $900 was the original amount. I got it down to $800. Through the whole process I was scolded multiple times about how s****y I am for driving it for so long and how bad it was. Three months later by right-front brakes go out again. So I take it to a local branch of the same chain.

They took a look at it for free (warranty was still good) and when the guy came back in he looked annoyed. Turns out the guy who did my brake job put the hose somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be and put the whole thing together with - wait for it - ZIPTIES! My brakes were put together with ZIPTIES! Needless to say I got my labour money refunded and he got fired.

9. You'd also want a gun if you drove a Fiat Multipla for 200km

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…

10. You forgot something - Ivan Kutyrev

My old auto tech teacher told me he once went to get an oil change on his truck, which had maybe around 50k on the engine. Everything goes fine, he’s driving around a parking lot later that week and his engine stalls. He looks under the engine and notices that the filter wrench (I guess one of the strap-style ones) was still on his NEW oil filter, and this had caught on something and caused the filter to unthread partially and drain his engine of oil. Sends a picture of the filter to the shop that did this, and he got a brand new engine installed at no cost.

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