Every car owner doesn’t need to be a grease monkey but should educate themselves on the basics of owning and operating a vehicle. If they don’t, a simple trip to the auto shop for routine maintenance can quickly become an expensive ordeal and an embarrassing display of incompetence that leaves mechanics’ heads spinning. In this article, mechanics recount the times they encountered clueless customers that should have never been handed the keys.
All content has been edited for clarity.
That Doesn’t Sound Right
“On time we had a 96 Dodge Dakota brought into our shop. The driver explains that the vehicle was running rough. I popped the hood and listened carefully. It definitely did not sound right.
I pulled the oil dipstick and what followed looked something like axle grease. I then noticed that oil was running out of the valve cover cap. It was misfiring left and right. The oil pressure gauge had been maxed out. The car’s condition was one of the worst I had seen in quite some time.
I interviewed the driver about it, and he said he thought it was low on oil, so he kept topping it off. He kept filling it to the point that it was all the way to the top of the valve covers. I was able to dig into it and retrieved the oil pan. The oil was varnished so badly that it held the shape of the oil pan after being dumped out. To this day, I still don’t know how this man’s truck was still running.
The entire engine had to be torn down and rebuilt. After a tune-up, the car ran beautifully. It wasn’t even three weeks later that the company decided to get rid of the truck for a newer model. I was tempted to extend an offer to them considering all the work I put into it going straight down the drain.”
Outta Gas
“I used to work at a Nissan dealership.
I remember this time a lady bought a car and asked the salesman what all she needed to do to keep it in good condition. The salesman explained to her that nothing needed to be done to the car for the next five thousand miles. He then instructed her to bring the car back to the dealership for scheduled maintenance. The lady seemed to comprehend this well at the time. She thanked him and left.
A couple of hundred miles later, here comes her new car being towed into our lot. The car wouldn’t start and we were puzzled as to what could have gone so wrong within this short a time span. After checking over everything we suspected, we had one last resort. After putting gas in the tank and turning the keys, the car started right up.
After this, we gave the lady a call and explained to her that her car was simply out of gas. She gives us an attitude and then says, ‘I’ll be right there.’
It didn’t take her long to come storming into the dealership. She demands to speak with the salesman who helped her just those few days before, and of course, she also demands a manager. They both come front and center while she begins to have a full-on temper tantrum about the salesman informing her that she didn’t have to do anything to the car for five thousand miles. ‘Now your mechanics tell me I have to put gas in it!’ She continues to rant nonstop.
I wish I could tell you that I was joking. I was hoping there was some kind of hidden camera, or perhaps a camera crew waiting to barge in to inform us we had gotten pranked. But no. This lady legitimately thought she didn’t have to do a single thing to her car, including topping it off with gas for five thousand miles.”
Self-Inflicted Damages
“I used to be a service writer for a Dodge dealership a few years back.
On one faithful morning, a fairly new Charger was brought in on a flatbed wrecker. A short while after a customer comes in fuming. He tell me in a not-so-polite way that his car wouldn’t start. He’s yelling and saying the car was brand new yet it won’t start. He then says, ‘I want my car fixed right now and you guys owe me a rental!’
My boss hated the thought of paying for a rental for any customer, so instead, he pulled one of our best mechanics off his current project to cater to this demanding customer.
His diagnosis didn’t take long. The tenured technician walks over to my boss and I with the report. The electrical system, along with many control modules, was shorted out. On top of that, the customer knew why this happened; there were tiny pin-sized holes in the electrical harness near all three modules that were located in the trunk. Someone had been tampering with this in an attempt to locate a suitable power source to install some aftermarket accessories using a test probe.
The tool is quite simple to use if handled properly. Unfortunately, the body of the probe is metal. If you touch it against another exposed wire, or any metal component of the car, you’ll likely cause a short. This can (and did) ruin any electrical component that the wire is attached to, fused or not.
So essentially what this guy did was jam his test probe into every wire in sight until he found one that supplied 12V. In the process, he shorted out three thousand dollars worth of electrical components.
My boss ended up calling the customer on my behalf because of how upsetting the entire ordeal was. He screamed and argued over the phone with my boss, and even tried to take it up the chain of command. There was nothing that could be done. We ended up cutting him some slack on parts and labor, but ultimately he would be responsible for the bill. Eventually, he accepted his mistake and agreed to approve the repairs.”
Not The Right Model, Sir
“One time I had a customer when I worked at a dealership that had a Cutlass Calais with GM’s miserable 2.3L ‘Quad 4’ engine. As usual with these types of engines, it had a blown head gasket.
The owner of the vehicle was an older gentleman. He became upset about the price that he was quoted to make the repairs. He claimed he used to work on cars when he was younger and wasn’t up to doing it on his own anymore thanks to his age. He outright refused to pay the price I quoted and decided that he would do it himself because he knew how to change a head gasket. He drove off that day with billowing white clouds of smoke coming out of his tailpipe trailing behind him.
About a month or so later the car showed back up at the dealership on the back of a flatbed truck. In walks the older gentleman asking what the price would be to ‘finish’ the job. When I went to take a look at the car, I knew I was about to ruin this poor guy’s day. I discovered the cylinder head, intake and exhaust manifolds, and timing chain cover in the trunk of the car. He also had the radiator and cooling fan and a box of mixed hardware and brackets in the back seat. When I delivered the news that the new quote would be double the amount we advised a month ago, I thought I’d have to call an ambulance for the old man. He complained that it should not have cost as much as he was quoted because he already did ‘half’ the work.
What he didn’t realize, was that his car was not a 1957 Chevy. The customer skipped over several steps when taking his car apart. For example, the cylinder head needed to be de-torqued in a specific sequence during disassembly to prevent warping. He did not take this precaution, so now we were looking at a horribly disfigured cylinder head that needed to be replaced entirely.
He broke the timing chain guides and the tensioner pin was bent so badly that they needed to be replaced as well. He also managed to break a few head bolts off in the cylinder block because he didn’t de-torque the head so I now had to extract the broken bolts and repair the threads in the deck of the block. In addition to this, I also had to sort out all the brackets and bolts and miscellaneous hardware and figure out where they all went because he didn’t organize anything when he took it apart.
The worst part is the dealership I was working at was actually a very reputable place and the price he was quoted for the job was quite fair. I wouldn’t say we were the cheapest at the time, but we were certainly not the most expensive.
He basically tried to apply 1950s engine-building techniques to a late 90s engine with a very complex design for its time and ended up paying the price for it. With all the misplaced hardware scattered to and fro, it was not exactly a walk in the park getting the car back together and running again.”
A Sticky Situation
“A number of years ago, I was working for a company that imported Suzuki cars into Germany. I was responsible for technical after-sales at that time.
A young lady brought her fairly new car to the workshop and reported that the seat belt lock was not working anymore on the right rear seat. The latch was impossible to be inserted into the lock mechanism. The dealer inquired if they were allowed to replace it under warranty. Because it was a safety-related item, I confirmed that it was covered and asked him to send the malfunctioning belt lock to me for investigation. To add, defects in crucial parts like a seatbelt were extremely rare.
Two weeks later, the same dealer called the shop to report the same issue again. It made me scratch my head no doubt but again I decided, that he should replace the lock a second time. Again, I had him send in the defective seatbelt. I had not looked into the first seatbelt lock yet, but now my curiosity was piqued. Was it really possible that the same rare condition had occurred again on the same car in the hands of the same customer?
The housing of the belt lock was made of hard plastic and contained no serviceable parts, so disassembling it would not be an easy task. Instead, I used brute force to crack it open. What I found inside blew my mind.
I could not believe it. The lock for the seatbelt had been stuffed with gummy bears. Sweet, sticky, and colorful gummy bears. Once the second seatbelt was delivered, I broke it opened and found the same issue.
I called the dealer mechanic again and asked him to question the young customer. Turns out, she had a young child which she placed every now and then in the backseat. The child detested being buckled up at all, so he secretly opened the lock while his mother was driving and started stuffing the gummy bears into the lock housing, then reported to his mother that the lock ‘wasn’t working’.
The lady was not aware of this and was convinced that the malfunction of the seat belt lock was a manufacturing issue.
Strange things happen on this planet.”
A Long Drive
“About twenty years ago, an elderly lady had her Pontiac Sunbird towed in because it wouldn’t start.
After a quick check, it was determined that the starter was no good. This wasn’t a major issue, well actually it was because it had the turbo 2.0lt, and the starter placement was designed by someone truly evil.
Another thing to mention is that this had been the fourth starter in four months. The starter was covered under warranty. After it had been fixed, we parked the car in front of the shop by the front counter so that the elderly woman could get to it easier.
Once she got in the car, she started it right away. She was good to go but the next thing she did completely baffled us. She turned the key, again, and again, and again. The car was steadily running but she was not letting off the key. We went out to ask her why she was excessively turning her key in the ignition. Her response?
‘Well, I’m on my way to Newmarket and it’s a long drive. I want to make sure it will have enough to make it there.’
They Are Watching
“I had a woman come into our shop with her car. She was upset because her check-engine light was on and she only had the car for a few weeks. Naturally, I assured her it was under warranty and escalated her ticket so she would be assisted immediately.
After my technician pulled the vehicle in, he ran tests before popping the hood. He had to do a double-take when he saw what was underneath. He immediately noticed that she had wrapped all of the hoses, wire assemblies, and most everything under the hood in aluminum foil.
The whole shop got a kick out of it, but we became extremely curious as to why she would do such a thing. When the service writer questioned her about it, she said she did it because new cars have ‘computers that can be tracked’ and she didn’t want the government tracking her movements.”
What’s That Awful Smell?
“A woman brought her car in and complained to me about ‘peculiar’ smells wafting through her car when she turns on the heater.
Before investigating, I sat in her car for a while. She wasn’t kidding. The smell absolutely reeked. I wasn’t sure what it could have been.
I turned the heater on and after waiting for it to warm up the smell grew to be 100 times worse. I also heard a strange knocking sound coming from under the glove compartment where the heater fan would have been.
I ended up taking the glove compartment out and then had to take most of the underside of the dashboard apart to get to the heater fan.
The horrible smell was growing in intensity.
I then stuck my hand into the heater fan. Deep inside the crevice, my hand met with something that almost made me jump out of my skin.
It felt like fur. I pulled out to retrieve a pair of gloves before I reached in again and pulled something out.
What I saw in my hand I couldn’t believe!
It was a dead and rotting rat with an eight-inch long tail.
When I asked the woman how long she had been smelling the odor, she told me one full month.
To this day, there have been two things I have failed to put my finger on:
How could she drive around for a month with the smell of a rotting corpse in her car without getting it checked out!?
How on earth did that huge rat get inside her narrow heating fan?
All in all, that is one of the craziest and most disgusting things I have ever found in a car.”
A Year Without an Oil Change
“When I was in high school, I worked at a Union 76 station. It was one of those stereotypical 1950s places where when you pulled into the pumps the bell “dinged” and several guys in uniforms came trotting out to pump your gas, check your oil, wash your windshield, and other things.
We also had a car maintenance shop attached to the front end where we’d do minor repairs, and oil, and tire changes. One day this lady came and complained about her “check oil” light being on. When I asked her how long it had been since the last oil change she tells me, ‘oh, at least a year. I just couldn’t take it anymore and decided to get it looked at.’
After a few more questions, we had the startling revelation that the woman hadn’t gotten her oil changed since she first purchased the vehicle new. The vehicle already had thirty thousand miles on it. All it took was one look at the charred dipstick and the smell of her crankcase to immediately turn her away. There was simply nothing we could do. We ended up referring her to our main repair shop.
Later we were told she had to get an entirely new engine. She completely ruined it.”
That Sir, Is An Air Deflector
“I wasn’t going to answer this at first but one particular customer came to mind.
I was having a pretty normal day before a dispatcher gave me a repair order. The customer had complained that his sunroof screen was not opening all the way. I found his vehicle and haul it into the shop to see what was going on with it.
I don’t remember exactly what kind of vehicle it was but it was a Ford. I got it into the shop and immediately did a preliminary vehicle check. Once I ran through my usual checklist, I started tinkering with the sunroof, but couldn’t find any problems with it. Everything seemed to be working completely fine.
I grabbed a computer and checked for any Diagnostic Trouble Codes that may have been set, but this was in vain. I had absolutely nothing to go on to try to find the customer’s concern. I even went on the Fords Oasis website for the vehicle to search for technical service bullets but still came up short.
There hadn’t been any similar complaints to the customer’s claims either. At this point, I grabbed a flashlight and performed a very thorough inspection of the sunroof and shade. I still for the life of me could not find anything wrong with the vehicle.
Per Ford’s recommendations, I had explain to the customer that there was no problem found. However, we always try to verify the problem, so I left a note with the service advisor requesting the customer come in to show us exactly where the issue was.
I then began to work on another ticket. Within a couple of hours, I got a call from the front desk letting me know the customer with the sunroof ticket was waiting for me. I was excited to be able to get down to the bottom of things and quickly met him upfront. Together we walked to his car and I politely asked him to show me where he was having issues with his sunroof.
He proceeded to point to the front end of the sunroof and said, ‘The bug screen isn’t opening all the way to cover the sunroof.’
That was when I realized his mistake.
I easily explained to him that the ‘bug screen’ was actually called an air deflector, and its purpose was to redirect airflow to prevent wind noises while driving. The older man immediately understood and thanked me for my help.
Once I was back in the shop, I couldn’t help but laugh. I didn’t mean to laugh at the customer, but the odd idea he had come up with was impossible not to react to. The air deflector did resemble an insect net, but I’m always happy to educate others.”
D.I.Y. Disaster
“One time this customer came in wanting to have his brakes checked. He was adamant that he didn’t want any work performed. He simply wanted them checked because they weren’t working very well since he attempted to fix them on his own.
I didn’t want to even move the vehicle with it running, because I knew there was a possibility of brake failure. We ended up pushing the car into the shop by hand. When I got the vehicle up on the lift, I could see where the owner had ‘FIXED’ the brakes. It was one of the worst ‘do-it-yourself’ jobs I had ever seen. He had used a vacuum hose, and hose clamps to replace the flexible lines on his vehicle.
Before I could even compose an answer to this person’s litany of questions, he paused briefly, and said, ‘I don’t need new brake lines, I just replaced them all, and it cost a fortune in hose clamps.’
I explained with my heart and soul how a hydraulic brake system worked but it did not impress or inspire him. He suspected me of trying to cheat him and drove off in visibly upset. I ended up calling the California Highway Patrol and gave them the scoop.
Unfortunately, they said that they couldn’t help me, which is their normal answer in cases of defective vehicles on the road. As always, I announced to her that she actually did manage to help me. When the emergency dispatcher asked how, I explained that my communications with her were being recorded, and a permanent record of the conversation would be on record.
If there were problems with this customer in the future, or if any accidents were to occur, the entire event was now on record. He was provided with an adequate warning to prevent a disaster. She thanked me for my call and said I had definitely done my due diligence.
I usually ignored things like this and allowed things to happen as they did. However, this was far too severe to ignore, as I had to share the same road with this imbecile.”
“The Check Engine Light Means Nothing”
“This one time I had a customer come to the shop with a 2009 Mustang with a rod knocking.
I checked the oil but found none, so I put four quarts in. The rod was still knocking, so I told her she would need a new engine and quoted her a price which she agreed to. A year and a half later she called and said her car broke down about 400 miles away from the shop.
She then told us that we needed to get it towed back and fix it because it was on us. I informed the customer she was out of the warranty period. Instead of going to a shop in the area where she was, she had it towed 400 miles to our shop. Upon opening the hood we notice the lower radiator hose is completely busted.
According to the customer, her friend was driving it and told her the car was steaming and the check engine light had come on. She then said that the check engine light doesn’t mean anything and to keep driving.
They ended up driving the car till it completely locked up. The engine got so hot it melted one of the heat tabs off. When I told her that she would need to have the entire engine replaced again, she went ballistic. She cursed at me and screamed something fierce.
The customer then filed a lawsuit against my shop for the tow, labor, and cost of another engine. We presented the records from her last visits as evidence. The judge made one glance at the documents and told her to get lost. This lady then proceeds to curse out the judge and ended up doing time for it. The judge also tells the lady that any prudent person would have stopped driving the car and gone to a local shop for help.
Sometimes she drives by the shop and screams at us from her window.”
