War Stories

[TNcarguy]

I thought since the Remember When thread was going so well, it would be fun to start one called War Stories. Everybody thatís worked on cars has had some interesting things happen. One of my favorites was when I was working my way through school at a local service station. This was about 1972. We had a little old lady that came in regularly. She drove a 64 Dodge Polaris with a big V8. Problem was she only drove it about a mile total, 2 or 3 times a week. We kept the car serviced and tuned up, but about every 2 months it would start really running bad. I donít think she ever had the car over 20 MPH and after a couple months, the carbon would build up so much it would almost stop running. Of course, the cure for that was to take the car out to the four lane and wring it out. It was my turn to blow the Dodge out, so I took it out, got to an open stretch of road and wound it up. That big ole V8 coughed and belched and blew black soot out the exhaust for a minute, then it just hunkered down and started running sweet. Wanting to do a through job for the lady, I wound it up to about 85. About that time, I topped a little hill and there was a highway patrolman backed up into the weeds on my right.
Now in the 1964 Dodge, power brakes were in the early stages of development. They hadnít yet perfected the pedal pressure required to stop the car in an acceptable manner. You could breathe heavy on the break pedal and lock the tires up, which is exactly what I did. So, here I go, driving this old ladyís big Dodge, 85 miles an hour, with all four tires locked up, sliding past a highway patrol car. Actually, I think I must have surprised the cop as much as he surprised me. He didnít pull out, so I let off the brakes, punched the second gear button on the dash and hung a hard left. I took a couple back roads to the service station, gave the lady her car back and told her it was running fine now. I figured if the cop got the tag number and pulled her over, he would know she wasnít driving like a wild man.

[thecarguy]

Well we had a guy com in that needed plugs, well he had just drivin in from brubank...about a 30-35 mile drive and i was pretty much burned to a crisp from these hot headers and everything else. That really sucked. And later that week he came back and I got the wonderful job of replacing upper and lower radiator hoses. That also sucked.

[speedwobble]

At the dealership I work at, about 9 years ago our trim guy was working on a new Lebaron convertable. The complaint was excessive wind noise. So he was doing all the right test to make sure that all the weather strips were sealing properly. Then the salesman came out to the shop to see how he was doing with his demonstrator just to see how he was making out. So he told the salesman all the tests he was doing, how the seals between the door glass and 1/4 glas was sealing good, how the weatherstrips on the top were sealing on the door glass and 1/4 glass.
Then the salesman said that the car had wind noise with the top down.

[theyoungs97]

That was a good one, Speedwobble! Got any more?

[QtrHrsmn]

I also work at a dealership, and my first of many humorous war stories is:

A new salesman came back to Service with a complaint about a van that had been sitting a while (4-5 hours) with the radio on. (Chrysler vehicles have a feature that even if you turn the key off, the radio will stay on until you open the driver's door) Seems the last customer to test drive it, had exited with the kids through the back door. Anyway, the complaint was that he couldn't get the van open, the remote wouldn't open the door. I walked back up to the lot with him, asked for the keys, and then opened the door with them. That was several months ago. I will never let that idiot live it down.

[chevyman]

i had been restoring an 81 monte carlo, put rebuilt 305 and had the original tranny serviced out of the car(it was still in good working order) brought it back home and put it in, fired the car up and let it run for a while, checked the timing and all the usual stuff you should after you drop an engine into a car. so i let it warm up and take her out for a test drive, she doesnt want to shift gears(this was an auto tranny) so i have to shift it down into low and get her back home. go over everything(so i think) and take it back out for another run, same thing happens. so now im at a loss so i take it up the road to a shop and have it looked at, they look over all the same things i did and took it for a test drive, same thing happens. so they put it up on the lift and what did we find?????i wraped the vacum line throught the tranny support so it would be out of the way while i was bolting everything up and never hooked it up. i felt about 10 inches tall

[89s10]

boy you should have been in the tv repair if you want to see some real nuts

[rapideo]

chevymans transsion problem reminds of my 84 dodge d100 I bought new. It would upshift very quickly, be in drive before I could cross an intersection. When doing maybe second or third oil change. I found a lever on the tranny with nothing on it.Looking some more I found the link from the throttle hanging on the housing. It fit the lever and cured the quick shifting. New from the factory. Dont they check these things!

[speedwobble]

I guess the mechanic did not do a very goog PDI on your truck. That reminds me of another dealer I worked at in the 80's. There was one guy that would do his road test by lifting the car on a hoist just high enough to get the wheels safely off the ground, then he would run the car with the cruise on at 40 miles per hour to do the road test while he reads the paper. I hope there isn't people who still do that today.

[thecarguy]

ive ran a car in gear with the wheels off the ground and when I went to put it in park I shlt my pants. To this day I havent done it ever again, but thought about putting the e-brake on then shifting into park.

[TNcarguy]

Anybody ever seen this with a 67 Fairlane? The automatic with the shifter on the steering column had a nasty habit of droping from park into reverse while the car was running. This usually didn't happen until they had high mileage. I remember taking the service truck to start this 67 Fairlane one winter morning. Bout a foot of snow on the ground. Finally got the car started and as I was unhooking the jumper cables, it slipped into reverse. It was heading right for the customers house, so I reached up and snatched the coil wire to shut the car off. I did it quick, trying not to get shocked. It worked, but in the process, I threw the coil wire behind me. Took about 20 minutes of digging through the snow to find the coil wire after that.
By the way, the car did hit the concrete steps of the house. It hurt the steps more than it hurt the car.

[rapideo]

That was a common problem on Ford products,injured quite a few people

[towtrucks]

THIS IS A TRUE STORY.....

Several years ago, I worked at an AMC/Jeep dealership. AMC sold a car called a Concord. Very nice mid size car.
One day, a gentleman that bought the car came driving in complaining about the vehicle leaning. The front end alignment man took the vehicle, put it on the alignment machine and checked everything out. No problem found, all is O.K.
A few days later, here comes the Concord and again, still leaning.
This time, the front end mechanic did some more looking and checking, road test, and once again, all is O.K.
Well, here is comes AGAIN, and this time, the gentleman is somewhat upset anc cannot understand why the problem can't be fixed. The service manager gets involved and he and the front end mechanic measures the distance from the bumper to the ground on about 4 or 5 Concords, all which measure about the same.
The service manager asked the customer when does the car seem to be leaning? The customer replies when he and his wife are just riding down the road. The service manager then tells the customer that the next time he feels the car leaning, just drive it in THEN.

I was standing in the service lane when the leaning Concord pulled in. And buddy, it was leaning.

I don't care how hard you try, it is impossible to explain to the customer that his wife is just too big for the car !!!!!

[raceman6135]

This is another true story.

I was working as a service writer at a Canadian Tire store here in Calgary a few years ago. It's common practice to bring customer's vehicles inside at night as there was no secure lot onsite.

One morning, my manager and I arrive to open shop at about 6:30 a.m. As we walked through the shop area to get to the office, the very distinctive smell of gasoline is detected. There was an early '70s Chevrolet van in for service and we were convinced that either its tank was leaking, or maybe the carburetor had leaked it's fuel into the engine over night.

I went and sniffed around the van to see if I could pinpoint which end was giving off the odour.

As I'm sniffing, my manager says "Hey DJ, I found out where the smell is coming from."

I start walking toward where he's standing and I notice a grim look on his face.

There, laying on its side, is a 1993 4-door Ford Taurus.

During the night, something in the controls of the single post lift that the car was parked over failed, and the lift did just that: lift.

The car wasn't centred on the hoist because the mechanics the night before just pulled it into the spot. That's also why the arms of the lift where pushed in together: the car was only going to be parked there overnight, so there was no need to line up the arms with the proper lift points underneath the car.

After the initial shock subsided, I joked to the manager "Well, we can call the customer and tell him his car is off the hoist now!" He didn't think it was funny either.

DJS

[jmedved]

Back in the early 60's, I was "stationed" at the Phila. Naval Hosp. as a patient, and "home"was in western Pa, I could usually hitch a ride west with another patient, well, one of my rides (a '55 Chevy convertible) blew-up on the return trip on the Pa. Turnpike. He got all the information from the tow truck operator, and we all went on our merry way. Two weeks later, the guy picked up his convertible with a used engine installed...nice little 283..4bbl, supposedly out of a wrecked Corvette. We could always smell something burning, or cooking, but couldn't find the source of the smell. Aww, it's probably just the new engine smell or something.. On the very next trip westward, in the middle of one of the longest tunnels "Sidling Hill", wouldn't ya know the **** engine just died.. The Caddy behind us just pulled into the oncoming lane, and passed us. The next vehicle, a pick-up truck pushed us thru the tunnel, and to the shoulder of the road. We then learned just what was cooking...the positive battery cable had been routed against the hot exhaust when they installed the engine, and waited until there was just NO place to go to short-circuit, and kill the 12 volts to the engine. I remember that incident every time I travel the Turnpike...still scares me.

[fotw]

My war story is one as old as cars them self. Through out my restoration of my car my uncle who is helping me is always busting my balls (is that allowed) about having a Ford. Being the chevy man that he is he thought that it was funny has hel|, anyways it lead to VERY long nights working on it

[Trader Ray]

My war story, cold war that is
On a very cold day in January, I was at work, a salvage yard in Detroit, I worked with one other person that was always saying " I did my half" or something like that all the time, it was probally about 5 degree's outside. Well a customer came in with this raggedy 4 door Ford Granada, doors were real rusty and that is common there on older cars, Well someone had broke all of his windows on all 4 doors and he wanted a price break since he was buying 4 windows, I don't remember exactly the price I quoted him, somthing like $35 for each glass and we did not allow customers in the yard, so we had to pull the glass, if you know ford, they have so many window configerations dealing with mirrors and vents or w/o vents, well I offered him a deal better than the $35 that the glass would cost and offered him the whole doors, glass and all for $50 apeice and convinced him how much trouble it would save him by just changing the doors and the doors we had were really better than what he had anyway. He took it!! Now on to my co-worker, man we were cold and he said You get two off and I get two off, I said alright, get the front off and I'll get the rear, ok he says. On the front the bolts are tough to reach and you also have to take the kick panels off as one bolt on each hinge goes out and the other two go in, he whinned and whinned and a hour later he comes in and throws down his gloves and sits by the little heater and say's " I got mine" So I go out and get the impact and zip, zip, zip, the doors are off in less than 5 minutes, when you open the front doors the rear hinge's are right there in the open, I loved it. The look on his face was almost as hatefull as the words coming out of his mouth. I worked there for quite a few years and have many stories to bore you with...

[Trader Ray]

I once had a person tell me I could have this car if I came and got it that day, it was buried in snow 3 foot deep. I pulled it out with the winch and towed it back to the yard. The guy said that it cranked and all but it would not start, I put gas in the carb and she fired right up, I changed the filter on the carb, no luck. I check to make sure the fuel pump is putting out and it was not, well I put a used one on that I knew worked, no luck. I took the advice of a customer and used the air hose to blow back into the tank from the fuel line from before the fuel pump, I took the gas cap of to do this and it worked, it was a clogged fuel pickup screen. I drove that car the rest of the winter. I sold it to a guy who owned a restarant and needed a clunker to haul potatoes in. Save the use on his Lincoln..

[Crossbow]

We had a family owned garage that I grew up in and we had plenty of elderly customers. One day an old woman calls and says her Cadillac needs jumped. My dad and I jump in the truck and head down the street. when we get there she has the hood open, we hook up and I reach through the window and hit the key. It starts and I jump in to drive back to the shop. I take a breath and vomit on the floor. She had stored a bag of potatos and 3 heads of cabbage in the trunk. 3 weeks before. IN JULY!

[Odawg]

We had a family owned garage that I grew up in and we had plenty of elderly customers. One day an old woman calls and says her Cadillac needs jumped. My dad and I jump in the truck and head down the street. when we get there she has the hood open, we hook up and I reach through the window and hit the key. It starts and I jump in to drive back to the shop. I take a breath and vomit on the floor. She had stored a bag of potatos and 3 heads of cabbage in the trunk. 3 weeks before. IN JULY!

First, welcome to the forum!

Second, in Korea it's called kimchee. :D

[Daniel Wood]

At the dealership I work at, about 9 years ago our trim guy was working on a new Lebaron convertable. The complaint was excessive wind noise. So he was doing all the right test to make sure that all the weather strips were sealing properly. Then the salesman came out to the shop to see how he was doing with his demonstrator just to see how he was making out. So he told the salesman all the tests he was doing, how the seals between the door glass and 1/4 glas was sealing good, how the weatherstrips on the top were sealing on the door glass and 1/4 glass.
Then the salesman said that the car had wind noise with the top down.

I would've shot him with every gun I had and then laughed later. Finding water or air leaks is tough enough as it is.

[Crossbow]

My father started as a bodyman in the 1950's and worked in many dealerships over the years. It always seemed that the old time body men were all big drinkers. One day a friend of my Dad's was given a new Cadillac to get rid of a rattle noise. He takes it for a road check and comes back to the shop an hour & half later. He walks into the shop forman's office. Shop Forman, "Where the hell have you been?" Mac, "I been finding your God **** rattle!" "Well, did you fix it?" "Yeah, that bottle of ****** in the glove box was rattling, so I drank it and threw it out the window. sounds good now. I'm Going home."