What's the worst damage you've done to your car because of some small mistake?

What's the worst damage you've done to your car because of some small mistake?
I didn't close the hood enough and it didn't latch, just one fo those things, you don't think I should double check the hood to make sure I closed it, you just shut it and get in
Flew open when I was driving, cracked my windshield, hood ruined, embarrassing

Blew the engine

>forgot to put oil in after oil change

Was replacing the parking brake shoes on my old Volvo 240. Got called into work after I got the old shoes out, so I tied the end of the cable up out of the way and put the wheels back on. It wiggled loose on the highway and got caught on the inside of the rim. It ripped off at the arrow and the end of the cable was ricocheting all over the inside of the room, making a hell of a racket.

Ended up snipping the cable and just parking in gear lol. The car was only worth a few hundred dollars.

Inside of the rim*

Put to much oil in a basic af tdi golf
Ended up getting into the turbo
Accelerate up to speed onto a motorway, car lurches forward, revs climb, blanket the lanes in white smoke, cut the engine and coast to the side, stop, rip the key out and walk away, entire thing still revving like crazy and pluming white for a solid 20 seconds after that.
After it was recovered and cleared out it still ran but the entire thing shuddered and struggled to do 40

> pulling gearbox out
>car on stands on highest setting
>my puny bottle jack is too short to reach, so have to put on stone block
> but this is still too tall for the lowest setting on stands
>let the jack down onto a middle setting
>take block out and jack up and pull stand opposite side stand out
>pull out jack side stand
>let jack down
>wheels still in the air
>sill under driverside door is resting on the stand
>huge fucken bend that has opening up some rust colony beneath that had yet to surface

Another time on the same car i was using this bizarre stock jack that winds and slots into holes on the side of the chassis. Only put it through 1 hole and bent the fucken panel up
Beating it out was a bitch
Bizarre jack instructions related

drove around my yard with no brakes
hit a tree
damaged the bumper, bumper brackets, fender, and head light glass


tried to kick the mud off the fender of my truck
dented it bretty gud
fender was thinner sheet metal than i though

carrying a beetle front end in the back of my truck not strapped down
brake hard for a red light
shit slid forward so hard it hit the front of the bed so bad the bed punched the cab
now theres a dent in the bed that touches the cab and always makes a rubbing noise

>fender was thinner sheet metal than i though

Sometimes I even wonder what the purpose of the half latching car hood is. If its a safety catch then why doesnt it hold a hood down at moving speeds?

Please don't require partial protection methods to be fully complete. Because it works at slower city road speeds and not highway speeds. A driver is supposed to hear the rattling unless you have headphones, earbuds, or the stereo cranked super loud (all such actions of which are illegal in my area). Thus, the driver realizes the hood is not completely latched and fix the problem.

>Gf at the time asks to see engine bay
>sticky dumb extending hinge thing
>open hood cuz it was just open
>crack corner of windshield
>spreads across whole windscreen within 2 weeks.

Car never got inspected again.

Should have plugged the intake asap

I changed a ball joint in an emergency, and didnt use a breaker bar to tighten them when i got home. One day going around a fast sweeper a bolt opped off and my tire (front) just tucked into the wheel well and i did a 360.

Looking under the car one of two bolts were undone allowing the steering knuckle to rotate somewhat independently of the tie rod. I was lucky both didnt become undone. I was blesses by the fact i limped the car to a vatozone after setting the knucle back onto the little dowels in the ball joint

Btw the damage was a flatspotted as fuck front tire.

> physically feel and hear accessory belts snap
> eh this is fine i can drive home without an alternator


> water pump is belt driven

I've never fucked anything up on my own car.
Once I laid my phone on my rear bumper while I was skating, forgot about it until I got home and it was still there.

>gf calls me from yurop
>has rental car
>tell her careful filling up
>some yuroshit cars look normal but might use diesel
>calls me the next day
>loloops
>filled up with wrong fuel type
>stranded on the side of autobahn
>laugh at her for 5 minutes
>hang up phone
>chicken tendies n jo

She got stuck with a $300 deductible.

>Out partying with friends in HS
>We decide we're going to take my car through the fire lanes / truck trails
>Having an absolute blast
>Hit a water hole and the motor instantly stops
>Fuuuuuu
>Get the truck and pull the car out
>Pulled all 4 plugs and cranked it over till it was emptied out
>Put plugs back in
>Wouldn't fire
>Changed out the ignition coil and she fired right up
>Ended up tearing a CV axle boot somehow that night and drove with a broken boot for ~7 months
>Eventually replaced it during the winter months as it started clunking

Didn't cause damage but I adjusted my ride height on my coilovers suspension then drive the car 25 miles to a city over to have a friend redo my speaker wiring. Hit a gnarly pothole on the way out there but didn't bottom out. Drove back.

Felt really weird about halfway back home and really bumpy coming off my exit. Thankfully I live about a half mile straight off the exit.

When I pulled into my driveway I noticed that my front left wheel only had 2 lug bolts instead of 5. I drove a minimum of 18 miles with a while with super bad camber and toe because it was crooked as fuck hanging on by two lug bolts.

I forgot to tighten them all the way when I dropped the car off the stands.... Niggers

I didn't tighten the drain plug on a rear end and it fell out. The diff seized without any warning, didn't howl for miles or anything, just went from sounding fine one second to roaring for a few then locking up solid sending me skidding down my lane. Luckily it happened while I was going straight.

>parking brake shoes
You mean your drum brakes retard?

>didn't use a breaker bar to tighten
>breaker bar
>a tool to break torque on fasteners
You don't use those to tighten shit. Holy fuck

>new head on my 850R
>suddenly in a hurry don't remember why
>didn't notice intake cam 180 out
>slap on the belt and button it up
>try to fire it up
>instant valve on piston violence

Had the wipers pulled upright while detailing the car and opened the hood to clean the engine bay.

This gouged the paint on the trailing edge of the hood where it met the two wiper blade stalks. Feels bad man

My block heater bolt rusted and the heater fell out along with a all my coolant. The engine temp was maxed out but I didn't trust my shitty GM digital digital dash and I wasn't about to open the rad cap. Decided to drive it back ~50kms with no coolant. The engine didn't like that to much and would up scrapping it for dick all later.

Holy shit, are you still picking pieces of the seat from your ass crack to this day? I had the hood open on my '14 Mustang GT checking the oil one morning, drove it on the highway to work and around town a bit afterward. Later that night I got on the interstate for a 2 hour trip to visit family. Nearing the destination it was a little after midnight on a desolate blacktop highway and I decided 'What the hell, let's open her up for a minute'. Punched it and about the time I reached 120 mph the hood jumped up a couple of inches. Evidently it didn't latch properly in the fully down position and the wind at that speed was enough to dislodge it and raise it up till the safety catch grabbed and held it there. Scared the absolute shit out of me. Pulled off on the shoulder to put it back down and sat there for a minute going 'Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuuuuck.'

...

>had a 06 impala with a ATF leak, regularly checked level and topped it off....while it was off.
>ran like that for a weeks until the shift solenoids gave out.
>replaced them myself in three days ( transverse FF)
>ran like that another month until the torque converter ate itself and only slips now.

also, this was last saturday. fml

I replaced my transmission motor mount and apparently didn't tighten the bolt that holds the transmission to the mount tight enough (even used a torque wrench). Was driving, bolt came out , motor comes down, breaks my axel, rear motor mount, and transmission mount.

...

...

thats funny, my honda requires the engine off to check transmission fluid level.

Oil pressure sensor cracked in my '80 Malibu wagon. Drove about five miles, at highway speeds, with no oil. Dumped five quarts in it the next day to get to work. It dumped at least three back out warming up in my driveway.

>driving this shitty of a car in 2016

I'm replacing the RMM on my genpoo tomorrow.

Thanks for scaring me into quadruple checking all the torque specs

rear motor mount is fine. mines a gen poo too.

just dont do the transmission mount. not worth it.

Theres a big ass bolt that attaches the transmission to the mount (the one I didnt apparently tighten enough). The bolt is about 8 inches long or so and it is very easy to snap/strip. Just not worth it.

Just stick with the RMM and you'll be good to go.

OP has a vehicle with a rear brake set-up like this.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt and he meant torque wrench but he occasionally abuses it like a breaker bar