Schoolboy errors with cars

[swisstony]

A post on the B7 forum reminded me about the amount of times I have either done schoolboy errors when working on cars or just not had my head screwed on and later you just have to shake your head and accept that you get " **** of the day award "

I shall start .

Many years ago decided to do some work on my impreza on the driveway. We have a fairly steep driveway and I had parked the car facing upwards to the house. Cant recall what I was doing but it involved the exhaust ( probably centre section) and I had jacked the car up from the front, handbrake on of course. Did the work at the front and then moved around the back where luckily on a four wheel drive car you can simply jack the car up from the rear diff. Superb I thought, saves me having to jack each side one at a time. So merrily start jacking it up on the rear diff and wondered why all of a sudden as the rear wheels left the ground, the whole car started sliding towards me at some alarming rate !!!

Now a sane person would have dropped the jack immediately but oh no, not me. I just rushed to the bumper and held it wondering why the hell the car was moving. then struggling to understand I now was in a position where I was stuck at the back of the car, desperately trying to stop it moving but couldnt quite reach my phone to call for help from anyone in the house ! No-one was passing by so I was stuck. Just then my 7 year old son came wandering out the house to see how Daddy was doing. Fantastic... yes thats a great idea just use him to hold the car whilst I grab the jack
Realising that was a bad idea I shouted to him to run inside and get my wife.. off he trotted to get help. He was gone for ages and my arms were starting to hurt. Where the hell was he !!!

Turns out he had gone inside, got distracted by the TV and it wasnt til about 10 mins later my wife said " hows Daddy doing outside ?"
" oh he is stuck trying to hold the car back from rolling away "

Luckily she came to my rescue. and to add insult to injury she then explained to me my schoolboy error and how a handbrake works

Lets hear yours

 

[Charlie Farley]

I’ve made a fair few over the years .

That said I still overlook the obvious sometimes and fail to engage brain. Lol

 

[jdp1962]

Back in the eighties, I decided to fit some extra speakers into the front door cards of a Mk 1 Astra. I cut the holes using the template, secured the speakers into place and screwed the covers onto the speakers, then tried to close the doors. Ooops! I hadn’t checked there was enough clearance for the hinges to slide in behind the speakers. I had to remove the speakers and screw the covers into the door cards to cover the holes.

 

[swisstony]

Another one I did...god I am a numpty sometimes. Car was all clean and freshly detailed so decided to take it to a nice spot right at the top of a nearby hill for some beauty shots. This was in my scoob. Parked up and was merrily taking photos, had left my bag, phone etc all in the car. Now one of the oddities of the car and its security was if the ignition was turned on ( engine not running ) after a short time the doors would autolock. A bit like the system that many cars have where the doors lock after a certain speed. So I wanted to take some photos with the headlights on so turned the ignition on , closed the door and started taking more photos. Heard a click and went to open the door and bam realised what I had done.

So there I was on the top of a hill, car is locked with my bag and phone inside, music is blaring away and I cant get in. So had to walk a mile down the hill to a shop , ask them if they could call me a taxi to get home ( luckily I had my wallet on me ) , stop off on the way to get some cash out, find the house emergency key to get in and find my spare car keys, then get the taxi back up the hill. I was so embarrased that I asked the taxi driver to drop me off a 100 yards from the top and then walked the rest , fully expecting my car to be gone ( as it has been a few hours by now ) but oh no it was still there, lights and music blaring away !! Thankfully the battery was still good and I got in and drove away thinking dont tell anyone I know what has happened. Utter muppet

 

[jdp1962]

Another one I did...god I am a numpty sometimes. Car was all clean and freshly detailed so decided to take it to a nice spot right at the top of a nearby hill for some beauty shots. This was in my scoob. Parked up and was merrily taking photos, had left my bag, phone etc all in the car. Now one of the oddities of the car and its security was if the ignition was turned on ( engine not running ) after a short time the doors would autolock. A bit like the system that many cars have where the doors lock after a certain speed. So I wanted to take some photos with the headlights on so turned the ignition on , closed the door and started taking more photos. Heard a click and went to open the door and bam realised what I had done.

So there I was on the top of a hill, car is locked with my bag and phone inside, music is blaring away and I cant get in. So had to walk a mile down the hill to a shop , ask them if they could call me a taxi to get home ( luckily I had my wallet on me ) , stop off on the way to get some cash out, find the house emergency key to get in and find my spare car keys, then get the taxi back up the hill. I was so embarrased that I asked the taxi driver to drop me off a 100 yards from the top and then walked the rest , fully expecting my car to be gone ( as it has been a few hours by now ) but oh no it was still there, lights and music blaring away !! Thankfully the battery was still good and I got in and drove away thinking dont tell anyone I know what has happened. Utter muppet

I seem to recall Clarkson doing something similar after he'd driven that Land Rover Discovery to the top of a Scottish mountain, so you're in good company.

 

[swisstony]

I seem to recall Clarkson doing something similar after he'd driven that Land Rover Discovery to the top of a Scottish mountain, so you're in good company.

only difference is he had a whole camera crew who could help him

 

[enc]

Another one I did...god I am a numpty sometimes. Car was all clean and freshly detailed so decided to take it to a nice spot right at the top of a nearby hill for some beauty shots. This was in my scoob. Parked up and was merrily taking photos, had left my bag, phone etc all in the car. Now one of the oddities of the car and its security was if the ignition was turned on ( engine not running ) after a short time the doors would autolock. A bit like the system that many cars have where the doors lock after a certain speed. So I wanted to take some photos with the headlights on so turned the ignition on , closed the door and started taking more photos. Heard a click and went to open the door and bam realised what I had done.

So there I was on the top of a hill, car is locked with my bag and phone inside, music is blaring away and I cant get in. So had to walk a mile down the hill to a shop , ask them if they could call me a taxi to get home ( luckily I had my wallet on me ) , stop off on the way to get some cash out, find the house emergency key to get in and find my spare car keys, then get the taxi back up the hill. I was so embarrased that I asked the taxi driver to drop me off a 100 yards from the top and then walked the rest , fully expecting my car to be gone ( as it has been a few hours by now ) but oh no it was still there, lights and music blaring away !! Thankfully the battery was still good and I got in and drove away thinking dont tell anyone I know what has happened. Utter muppet

that’s brilliant