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.

[Daniel Wood]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

[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