Nightmare mechanic stories?

[Bring Bak Damphousse]

So about a year and a half ago I bought a new vehicle and the dealership offered a handful of free oil changes ( I hate taking it anywhere to have it done but a free synthetic oil change is a free synthetic oil change). Anyway wife took it today and when she backed up I had a decent sized oil stain in the garage, put it up on my ramps and found the oil filter was finger tight. It still had about a full turn before it was tight. Not the end of the world, tech may have just spun it on and forgot to snug it up, but got me thinking anyone got a good story of an incompetent garage/mechanic?

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[JMCx4]

Wish I had another quart of oil for every time an "instant oil change" place didn't tighten the drain plug on my wife's series of cars over the years.

 

[guinness]

My local dealer wasn't much better, but they forgot to put the cap back on the top after my last oil change. Only when I got about 100 miles south of town and enough oil sloshed out and caused that oil smell to waft though the vents that I noticed.

Lucky for Saturday hours, and they made right, but I was rightly pissed. I honestly doubt I buy a actual car through them though, as it's not like an oil change is hard to do. Honestly makes me cautious of anything more serious, if that's a difficulty for them.

 

[Winger98]

I think the worse I had was a mechanic not putting the radiator cap back on. Got lucky that nothing serious came of it outside of the inconvenience of being towed back to the same mechanic twenty minutes after leaving.

Have had someone throw so much oil around during an oil change that I had oily smoke coming out of my heater vents for a day or so.

When I had a fuel pump fail on me while traveling, the mechanic couldn't get the part for a few days so I was stuck in a hotel and I got royally screwed on the bill. A few days later my car wouldn't run again. While replacing the fuel pump they managed to knock so much extra crap into my fuel tank that it clogged the filter.

I also had a mechanic refuse to replace a radiator because it took too much time. Serious. The guy they assigned to it just pissed and moaned to his boss for twenty minutes about how involved it was to replace the radiator and I think the guy just got tired of listening to him whine. Another shop got my business.

 

[HansonBro]

I seem to recall my '86 Firebird literally teetering on the hoist. I quickly pointed it out and nothing really came of it. But it could have been worse if it fell.

Ive been mostly fortunate at shops the odd time I go

 

[Baby Punisher]

In 1978 My parents lost a motor on a new to us 1975 Dodge Dart after the mechanic didn't tighten the oil pan nut. We got a new Motor out of it but the car was never the same.

 

[Chubbinz]

I had a tire place round off the majority of lug nuts on the passenger side of my truck a few years ago. That was a fun discovery a couple months later when I came out of the grocery store to notice a flat.

 

[TheAngryHank]

A fun little prank to pull on a friend is put a lond zip tie around the driveshaft , it will slap when the car is moving and stop when not moving. Text them later and fill them in.

 

[JMCx4]

A fun little prank to pull on a friend is put a lond zip tie around the driveshaft , it will slap when the car is moving and stop when not moving. Text them later and fill them in.

So **YOU** are the "Nightmare mechanic" that the OP was referring to?!

 

[Bring Bak Damphousse]

I had a tire place round off the majority of lug nuts on the passenger side of my truck a few years ago. That was a fun discovery a couple months later when I came out of the grocery store to notice a flat.

How does that even happen? Imagine doing tires every day all day and not having the common sense to use the right socket.
I took my truck to a fountain tire to mount and balance some new tires, and a few months later I almost had to stand on my johnson bar to get them off. I can just picture the guy checking his watch while his impact gun hammers away lol. I couldn’t believe I didnt break a stud taking them off.

 

[Chubbinz]

How does that even happen? Imagine doing tires every day all day and not having the common sense to use the right socket.
I took my truck to a fountain tire to mount and balance some new tires, and a few months later I almost had to stand on my johnson bar to get them off. I can just picture the guy checking his watch while his impact gun hammers away lol. I couldn’t believe I didnt break a stud taking them off.

I didn't watch them do the work so I don't have a clue what might have caused it. They were an absolute terror to break loose with a breaker bar and lug nut extractor so maybe they watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy while cranking them down.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

I once took my car (A 2005 Dodge Stratus) in to the local Dodge dealership. I was young at the time so my step-dad was handling most of the correspondence. I can't remember what we brought it in for, but it was in the shop at the end of the inspection validity. They would NOT release the car back to us, claiming that it was illegal for them to let a car drive off the lot if it was out of inspection, but that they needed to do various work on it before it COULD pass inspection.

They were very vague about what was wrong with the car, and changed their story a couple of times. In the midst of the entire situation, the Lead Technician on my case actually ended up being fired for screwing customers around, including myself. The dealership ended up sorting out the situation, but I still had to pay WAY more than what I should have and was without my car for a long time.

Luckily since then I've had a good friend from high school open up a mechanic shop, so I take my car to him EXCLUSIVELY. Actually heading there today for an inspection in about an hour.

Never again will I take my car to a chain-shop or especially a dealership. (Also never again will I buy a Dodge).