13 Shocking Car DIY Confessions

1. Wow, this sure is taking a lot of oil - me

I’m going to kick this list off with my very own car DIY disaster confession. As a teenager, I owned a Peugeot 306 1.6 XS (a whole 90 horses on tap!), and I decided that I’d try an oil change myself for the first time - with the help of my brother. It seemed to be going great, we got the sump plug out OK, safely drained out the old oil, replaced the filter, and set about refilling it.

“Wow,” I remarked. “This sure is taking in quite a lot of oil.” It was then we both realised we’d forgotten to refit the sump plug, and to our horror, all of the oil we’d just put in was busy overflowing the drain pan under the car, spilling both new and old oil onto the driveway. Oh, and it wasn’t even my driveway, it belonged to my brother’s father-in-law. He was a bit miffed.

2. No, that's definitely the plug you want to pull - Linnea the Kid

The first time I did an oil change on my car, my dad helped me. He is fairly experienced because he used to work as a mechanic. We drained the transmission fluid instead of the oil.

3. You're sitting on the answer - Gtouring

I was replacing my car’s gearbox, all went well and we had no issues whatsoever. Only when I came to start the car, it wouldn’t fire. I spent hours looking for the fault, only to give up and I went to sit down on the car battery… Took me a bit of time but I clicked eventually!

4. A disastrous assumption - Clement Persyn

Last Saturday’s fail: A friend and I were changing his Fiat front dampers. I arrived late with the spring compressor so he started without me and managed to get the spring out of the old damper. After 30 minutes of battling with the spring to get it compressed enough to bolt (not tightened yet) the top mount back on we took a few minutes break.

After that break, i took the air gun to tighten the bolt. I didn’t pay attention but my friend had already took the spring compressor off. Silly me didn’t check the air gun. It was in reverse. As soon as i started to press the trigger, the bolt came off and the spring sent the top mount, the air gun and my hand flying… The top mount hit me in the shoulder (that hurt A LOT), but I managed not to drop the air gun so the only thing that was damaged was my confidence working with springs!

5. This is why they invented drain pans - llXxNataliexXll

First time I tried an oil change on any car ever. Didn’t have a washing up bowl or anything to put the old oil in, so used a flowerpot (with a hole in the bottom, which I didn’t realise). Undid the sump bolt, started to let it drain, and went inside to get a drink. Came back out to find that 1: the flowerpot wasn’t big enough, and 2: it had a hole in the bottom. Spent the entire afternoon hosing down, and bleaching the driveway.

6. Imobiliser going haywire - stealthed

Installed an immobilizer on my car, however the previous owner had done some work on the loom so finding the right cables was a pain. After much work I went out on a test drive, the sun was low so I decided to switch the lights on. After a while I somehow decided to switch the lights off again and the engine lost power. Switched the light back on again and the engine got power again. It turned out I patched into the switch for the lights by accident so every time I switched the lights off, the immobilizer turned off the fuel pump. Hilarity ensued and I corrected the problem with the help of my dad afterwards (he is better with electrical systems).

7. I haven't wet myself, honest - Timmy Trepanier

Last summer I was replacing the clutch on my R32 skyline with the front of the car on a jack stand. Everything went well until it was time to pull out the tranny. I was laying under it and with my hands and leg I was slowly getting it, thing is I forgot to drain out the oil and it started leaking from the driveshaft right on my pants, I could not do anything until I dropped it to my side. Almost two litres of transmission oil between my legs. Worst part is I needed to go to Canadian Tire to get new oil and other stuff before it closed, smelling of gear oil and pants wet like I’d wet myself!

8. An unhelpful garage assistant - Martin Bernath

I lost the engine oil dipstick. A week later I found out that my dog destroyed it.

9. Kitchen foil FTW - Gabz

I don’t even know where to start.. while these are not strictly fails they are the result of extreme stupidity (or creativity?)

Left: While changing the oil on my S2K (RIP) I found that the oil sump plug was completely seized. We only had tools with 10-inch leverage max. After trying everything in the book, me and my brother decided to try to jack the car up via the oil sump plug so the weight of the car would loosen the bolt. It worked.

Centre: After realising that my “cold air intake” sat right above my exhaust headers, I decided to make a heat shield from cardboard and kitchen foil. It actually worked pretty well and intake temperatures drastically dropped.

Right: Speaks for itself.. If it’s stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid.

10. The innovation is real - Jman

When a locking wheel nut seized and then turned to cheese, me and my mate came up with this to stop the socket slipping off the nut.

11. Job well done, apart from one crucial detail... - Michael Newman

Cam Belt change on a Mk4 VW Golf. They’re a bit of a job to do due to the packaging of the engine, but after putting the last few bolts back in we congratulated each other on a job well done. Then someone spotted the new one still sitting on the bench. We’d taken off the old one and then refitted it.

12. So many feels - Andy Williamson

I went to work on my car two weeks ago, walked out to the garage; remembered I didn’t have a car. Or a garage :’(.

13. Some things are best left to the professionals - Domen Rozman

My buddy needed to respray the hood on his titanium silver BMW E46. He went to a local garage where he was quoted $150 and that was too much for him so he decided to do it himself. He purchased a spray gun, primer, some custom-mixed titanium silver BMW paint, and 2K lacquer. Paid around $100 for all the material and a spray gun. Than he called me and asked for help. I said OK, lets do it.

We took the hood off and prepared the garage. All went okay until we started with sanding the primer. He was disturbed by some tiny bubbles and decided to sand them with a grinder. Do I need to say that left big marks that were impossible to cover with primer? We were sanding kit with rotary so long that the rotary broke. He went to a local hardware store and bought another one for $160. After two days the hood was finaly ready for base coat. I applied several coats and than a few coats of 2K lacquer. Did I mention we forgot about breathing protection and used gas masks? It was like painting at Chernobyl. Despite that, everything went better than expected and we were happy with the results so far. Than we headed out because somebody in the family had a birthday and we were in charge for barbecue. Meanwhile, friend sneaked into garage to see how is the hood. He came back and said a disaster happened. Turns out the idiot wanted to check if the paint is dry, touched it and screwed it up. Angrily I agreed to help with a new respray.

Two days later hood was prepared for base coat and he bought new paint (spent another $50) plus a better spray gun which sprayed wider and was another $100 give or take. Again I managed to spray it almost flawlessly and was at last coat when I ran out of paint. Told my friend to fill up my spray gun so he took the paint, but the paint slipped from his hands, hit the floor and poured all over hood, my friend and my shoes. I rushed into cleaning my shoes, he rushed into wiping the hood only to make it worse. I said “e-F” it, I am done with it so we just sprayed two more layers of silver followed with several layers of clear and called it a day.

Oh, and he had silver paint on his hair so I had to cut him almost bald. At the end while he could have his hood painted professionaly at shop for $150, he paid over $400 for crappy paintjob. And a bald head. And he ruined my shoes. Damn.

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