Shitty Mechanic/Wrenching Stories Thread

Has Veeky Forums ever seen a nice car get shitbox'd because of incompetence

I have fucking automotive PTSD now because of shit like this:
>parents get me a used college car a couple years back
>08 WRX with 80k miles
>couldn't be happier, name it and am super attached
>few weeks back the clutch slips really hard and glazes over in an intersection, have to limp home
>instead of taking it to the guys we know in town (nice, love cars, and they have a 2-3 day turnover on most things) dad wants to save money and take it to the dealership, hoping for a discount
>car sits at dealership for a week and they don't even touch it
>dad takes it home and orders a clutch, we're going to do it ourselves
>i love wrenching, but am apprehensive because dad rebuilt an old foxbody and it's a pile of shit because he never uses proper tools and tries to go off of "intuition"
>his intuition is shit
>we jack up the car and pull it apart
>he skips taking out the half-shafts and the driveshaft and the exhaust so we have to work around them
>shift linkage wont get out of the way so he unbolts and disassembles the entire shifter assembly and yanks it out of the interior, getting grease and sweat fucking all over the seats, dents the paneling
>transmission won't decouple from the engine block so he tries using a winch, a crowbar, a sledgehammer, and a screwdriver
>bends and dents several mounting brackets, leaves nuts and bolts all over the ground, has no idea where any of them are going to go back in
>finally sledges the tranny off of the engine block but he breaks a chunk of metal off of the tranny block
>it took 5 hours to decouple the tranny because he couldn't be assed to take the 20 minutes needed to remove the parts we were having to work around or get the proper tools
>get sick of seeing him fuck everything up and go inside feeling bad for the poor car
>i won't object or complain because i didn't buy the car

Could've been done in 3 days but it's been 2 weeks and he's fucking shit up

This is exactly why most people should never touch their own car

>"we'll save so much money!"
>proceeds to break and warp essential mounting brackets at several points throughout the powertrain
>breaks a chunk of metal off of the fucking transmission block
>destroys interior of a $15,000 car
>all over a fucking $500 clutch job

KILL

Had a guy come into my shop after almost killing himself over a brake pad change. He broke the caliper bolt and thought she'll be right m8. Drove along and the caliper flipped up and locked his wheel making him careen off the road into a ditch

>$500 clutch job
>on a Subaru

>try to save money over simple thing
>fuck everything up

Sounds like an awfully familiar situation.

>tfw my transmission will probably grenade and send me spinning out of control off of the highway after this clutchjob
>tfw i might die over someone trying to save money on a car

The dealership was gonna charge us $1800 but the guys in town were gonna charge us $1000. We bought a shitty generic clutch online for like $500.

It's a $500 clutchjob if our time is worthless.

bump for interest

I am curious about the shitboxification process
What is the threshold for being a shitbox?
How much do you have to fuck up mechanically to shitbox a car?

Please share stories

>pic related, shitbox'd by peer crushing

>using shitbox as a verb

Son, think of it as a favor. At least it will end your isery.

holy shit... that fucking cross over....

>wheel turned more than 100degrees

a shitbox is mechanically sound enough to function as a vehicle that can get you around without major failures or putting you in danger, even if you have to drive it in a particular way (ie. double clutching on trashed synchros, having to pump the brakes every time you use them, etc.), but beyond that absolutely nothing else is necessarily expected to be in working order.

also, shitboxing is a natural process which occurs by aging and ghetto-rigging of broken components. It cannot be done intentionally.

a brand new hyundai is a shitbox

OP, never let someone try to have your car fixed 'cheap'
>Be in high school, crappy job bussing tables once a week
>Save up money, find a cheap-ass Merc and jump on it
>Lose job, can barely pay for gas
>Get in an accident, rear wheel gets busted, axle probably fucked
>Poorfag family, can't/won't pay to fix it
>Mother gets a 'friend' from her job to take the car so he can fix it
>Months go by, he keeps putting it off with excuses like having to order and import parts
>The one time I see the car during this time it's full of garbage because he's been driving it around with the wheel and axle still fucked
>He gets into an accident one day, wheel fell off
>Only find out about it weeks later when a towing company sends us a bill to come get the car
>Can't pay the impound fees, have to let them auction it off
>'Friend' breaks all contact and we can't get a hold of him anywhere
And that's how I lost my first car. Niggers, not even once

Guess it's more of a story of my incompetence but here it goes.

>head gasket blows
>take to mechanic
>2000$ for gaskets
>"but most likely more"
>fuck that noise
>I'll do it myself
>get pretty deep into it
>things going well
>start the assembly
>things going great
>begin tightening cam shaft to head
>bolt patterns
>torque wrench
>get to the last bolt and begin to torque down
>oh shit why isn't it stopping
>fuck fuck fuck
>panic for 2 hours
>decide to put it back together regardless
>finish job
>car runs

It still bothers me wondering what might happen because of that bolt stripping. So far it's gone 7 thousand miles without incident.

My car had a cracked air filter housing because somefag(first owner) over torqued the shit out of it.

Need to replace headlight.
Literally can't get the fucking thing out
>Dad how the fuck do I do this?
He fumbles around and pulls on it
>snaps the headlight housing out of the car
well I guess that works.

ohh shit where do i begin with my customers

>"my brakedisc was glowing red hot so i thought pouring water over it would fix that, but it ended up exploding"

>"i changed my pads myself!"
He put the grease on the friction material

>i fitted my own battery i bought at the grocery store and now nothing is working anymore
>wrong ampere count and reversed + and -

i had to get my roof replaced because some fatso jumped on it and the body shop did a pretty bad job

one of the seat belts in the back and the driver's sun shade fell out and the windsheild wipers were put on backwards

>i love wrenching
yet you dont know how to change a clutch

just tell him to fuck off and do it yourself next time if you dont like the way he does things. its really that easy.

Pretty much this. If you have the ability, you should always try and take car of the problem yourself. All you really need is some common sense, of course you'll fuck some stuff up, but chalk that up to gaining experience. The more you do, the easier it becomes; you'll save money and most importantly you'll have the pride of fixing things. No one is going to care that the job is done right more than you.