Stupid People! (Or don't offer to "fix" cars if you don't know what you're doing)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I liked the toilet paper wrapper red taillight myself.

[protege]

As tires age they can develop sidewall bulges as a reinforcing cord breaks, or, a natural defect in the tire just becomes a weak spot.

That could be one reason. Another, is that the rubber eventually dry-rots. Over time, the tire starts cracking. Sooner or later, the rubber will start to fail, leading to bulges in the sidewalls. Pretty dangerous, since it can (and most likely will) let go at the worst possible time. With that said, those tires should have been replaced a *long* time ago.

I should mention that up until a few years ago, my project car, had a set of Michelin XZX radials on it. They still had decent tread, and so did the Dunlop on the spare. Didn't think much about them, since they seemed to be fine. A little grubby perhaps, but I was shocked at what I found when I came home one afternoon. Nearly all of them had some bulging I parked the car immediately, and ordered a new set.

With the new boots on the way, I thought I'd clean up the rims. After I shifted a fair amount of mud and grime, the manufacture date was visible. The tires that I thought dated from 1998 or 2000? Turns out they were from 1978 They'd been installed before my dad bought the car in 1980! More troubling, was that the Dunlop (which had turned solid, and required a hammer to get it off) on the spare was possibly an original item.

I was DAMN lucky that one (or more) of those tires didn't fail on me, and possibly sending the car into a tree.

[Kit-Ginevra]

The scary bit is when one of those clods is on the highway and the thing falls to bits,it's likely to take some poor innocent sap driving past them when it happens with it.

[XCashier]

Ok beyond how to check oil levels, etc... I know next to nothing about a car. I mean complete and totally clueless.. but even I can see the issues with several of those.

Oh, yeah. That bulging tire and the brake worn all the way down to the metal made me cringe. Major crash in 3...2...1...

[wolfie]

What causes "blisters" on tires is a combination of delamination of the outer rubber from the cord body and a leak in the inner airtight layer. The air gets between the cord body and the outer layer, pushing the outer layer into a blister. This is BAD - the outer layer isn't meant to be strong in tension, so it can break at any time. The inner layer doesn't stretch under air pressure because the air is forcing it against, rather than away from, the cord body.

I once had a "blister" about the size of a mouse - saw it when making a delivery (paper load, so VERY heavy). What did I do? Drove empty to the truck stop where I was planning to overnight (pickup of backhaul was scheduled for the next day). It was around 20 miles, empty trailer meant that if the "blister" let loose the "partner" tire wouldn't be overloaded, and the truck stop had a full-service garage (where I got the tire replaced).

As for the other tires, one is worn completely bald, and even down to the cords in a number of places. The one with (almost) full tread (one rib ripped away) looks like it might have had something dragging on it - compound heats up from the friction, and the rib separates.

The brake disc is from a long-neglected brake assembly, probably with a seized caliper. What you see is a vented rotor, except that the friction surface on one side of the vent area is completely worn away. With a good caliper, both sides would be worn evenly, so at this level of wear the rotor would be completely chewed away. With a seized caliper (i.e. not sliding on its pins), the pad the piston pushes on does all the work, while the one attached to the caliper body doesn't do anything (body seized to pins, so it doesn't get pulled against the other side of the rotor). This pad has worn completely through one side of the rotor, down to the vents in the middle.

Can't bring it up here (looked at thread on another computer), but if #19 is the one I think it is (tool boxes and white vehicle), the vehicle was driven in too far and HIT the tool box in the background.

Hard to believe some people's "logic". For instance, the one where the customer complained about the sunroof leaking - but only when it's open. What did they expect to happen when they park the car in the rain with a hole in the roof? One of the other photos shows clearly that the headlight fluid is getting low.

[mathnerd]

Wolfie, I think that's the picture we're talking about. I looked at the link on my phone, so the picture was too small to see that.

[Jester]

It is no secret that I am, mechanically speaking, an idiot. And even I was stunned by the stupidity in a lot of those pictures, and also the stupidity in Mathnerd's case. Whoever worked on that car before was beyond idiotic.

My abilities with a car, beyond driving it, including the ability to replace headlights and taillights, change a tire, and change the oil, although after a while I decided it was worth it to me to just pay someone else to change the oil for me. Anything beyond those, however, I'm pretty much clueless, and I know it. My most important and valued mechanical tool is my phone, with which I call my mechanic, who knows what the hell he's doing.

But even my idiotic self knows how to correctly tighten lug nuts. When mathnerd told me about that one on the phone, I laughed my ass off. That is a whole new level of stupid.

As for the picture of that tire.....What. The. Fuck? Seriously, after even the first one appeared, I'd be too scared to drive it....I'd replace that mofo in a heartbeat. Not just because it is obviously unsafe, but because I have experience with having a tire blow out on me while I was driving. On the freeway. At 80.

Yes, that was just as fun as it sounded. Luckily for me, it was a rear tire on a front wheel drive car. Had it been a front tire, I would not be a member of this discussion. As it was, when the rear tire blew, it cause the car to bounce up and down in the back, with the front as a pivot point, repeatedly. Again, this was at 80. And that's mph, not kph. Also luckily for me, this was on the freeway between Phoenix and Los Angeles, so it did no happen in traffic. Unluckily for me, the tread from the tire that blew whipped around and sliced into the other rear tire. Very luckily for me and my passengers, my driving skill is closer to my skill in the kitchen than to my skill as a mechanic (I am fantastic in the kitchen), and I managed to keep control of the vehicle and get it to the side of the road, where I then changed the blown tire out for the spare donut, and limped 15 miles in that car to the nearest place we could get new tires. (The sliced tire didn't blow, but it did have to be replaced.)

Once the car was in the hands of the professionals, my two passengers and myself crossed the road to the bar that was there, and all three of us had a much-needed beer to calm ourselves. Without question, those three beers were medicinal. Because that was one of the scariest things I've been involved in.

I honestly think that to reach that level of .. lets call it weird for censors sake.. I would have to put a bucket over my head and run as hard as I could head first into a brick wall...

I think you're overestimating the people who did these things. Because I think to reach their level, you'd have to eliminate the bucket.

[sstabeler]

actually, while #22 potentially reveals some driver stupidity ( if she was the driver, she was playing a game on her phone while driving) it does have a legitimate issue ( I'm pretty sure cars aren't supposed to make so much noise as to drown out a mobile phone)

but yeah, some of those pictures are ridiculous.

[protege]

it does have a legitimate issue ( I'm pretty sure cars aren't supposed to make so much noise as to drown out a mobile phone)

Of course, this woman could be like my mother. That is, it's always "too loud." When I still lived there, she was constantly bitching about my music at night. I'd be messing around on my computer, but I'd have the radio on too. I'm sitting right next to the radio, with the volume so low, that *I* can't hear it. Yet, she could hear it her bedroom--30 feet away--and I have my door closed

[sstabeler]

oh lord, arguments over volume of things. I remember, whne we were on a car trip, my little sister would insist the volume of whatever I was watching ( with headphones) was too loud until I couldn't hear it. And hers was always too quiet unless I could hear hers even with both wearing headphones or earphones. (nowadays, if I know about the trip long enough in advance that it's less than 25 quid each way, I get train tickets instead. Funnily enough, the rest of the family always arrive tired and stressed out, while I arrive relaxed, and fresh as a daisy.)