Tales from the Auto Shop: Customer Pwnage

[peach2play]

That's epic!!

[greek_jester]

TD;DR--some co-workers did it to mess with me. We all laughed about it.

Excellent prank. It's a pity they couldn't hook it up, but even so, an excellent prank

[Nunavut Pants]

Dafuq? C'mon, you can't leave us hanging!

I took the radio out of my first car for some reason that made sense at the time. I quickly realized that I was over my head, so I didn't wind up putting a replacement in, and just left the open hole in the dash. This was an older kinda-janky Accord (1981 model year). I used to joke with my co-workers, "Better lock the door, I wouldn't want someone to break in and install a radio!"

One day, I drove one co-worker out to lunch, and made my then-favorite joke when we got back and parked the car. That evening, when I was driving home after work, I glanced at the dashboard and saw--a radio! One that had definitely not been there that morning! I started laughing hard enough that I almost ran off the road...

I called up my lunch buddy and asked if he had forgotten to lock the car door. His reply: "No, I did not forget to lock the door!" And he hadn't; he had deliberately left it unlocked... He and another co-worker had scrounged up an old car radio and left it in the dash, though they weren't able to hook it up. (Might have been the same problems I had with it?)


TD;DR--some co-workers did it to mess with me. We all laughed about it.

[wordgirl]

I bought a car, that my cousin named "The Brown Turd" for $400.
I should have known from the name what I was in for.

First, no radio. Someone had broken the rear passenger window to break in and steal the radio... while it was unlocked.

Second... NO AC... In TX!! I did NOT know about that.

If my roomate hadn't gone to trade school to be a mechanic it wouldn't have lasted until trade in.

I "inherited" my grandma's 1972 Ford Maverick as my first car. No AC (in Florida). No radio. Abiding, lingering smell of tobacco from the thousands of cigarettes she smoked in it. And the driver's door didn't work - I had to get in through the passenger side every time.

The worst thing about it? Car wouldn't die. I was still living at home and commuting to college, so my dad made sure it was maintained. And he kept saying "when it goes, we'll give you Mom's car and she'll get a new one." Well, my younger sister got Mom's car (AC, radio, and four doors!) while I was waiting for mine to die. I hit a few things with it, and it was still moving.

Finally my Dad wised up that I was desperate and got me a new one. We sold the Mav to someone in the back of our neighborhood and it was still on the road for at least 10 years more. That car was just too mean to die.

[peach2play]

Install a radio?!? Story please!

[dendawg]

Someone once broke into my car to install a radio...

Dafuq? C'mon, you can't leave us hanging!

[Nunavut Pants]

Someone once broke into my car to install a radio...

[Akasa]

I bought a car, that my cousin named "The Brown Turd" for $400.
I should have known from the name what I was in for.

First, no radio. Someone had broken the rear passenger window to break in and steal the radio... while it was unlocked.

Second... NO AC... In TX!! I did NOT know about that.

If my roomate hadn't gone to trade school to be a mechanic it wouldn't have lasted until trade in.

[Valentinian]

Sounds like the thieves were smart - strip the car of everything worth stealing, and abandon it. Given the quality of the car, only the gas was worth stealing.

Pretty much!

Ha, you've reminded me. A few years before Friend 1 had his string of awful cars, we had another friend who owned an utterly terrible car that he barely kept going. Friend 2 was always turning up late to things because of car trouble, having to have things fixed etc, and he couldn't afford to get it fixed right, so it basically staggered from one dodgy patch to another.

Then it got stolen. A few days later it was recovered... and it ran better. It was a running joke for a while that it had been a reverse crime a la Terry Pratchett; instead of being stolen, stripped, and burned, it was stolen, tuned, and polished.

[wolfie]

The third POS car was eventually stolen and the police didn't find it until after the insurance company had paid out and my friend's wife had insisted that he use that as the down payment on a new (as in brand new) car. They can't have been looking for it very hard, since the thieves had just driven it to a mall on the other end of town and left it there after siphoning out the tank, but friend's wife and I weren't going to complain. XD

Sounds like the thieves were smart - strip the car of everything worth stealing, and abandon it. Given the quality of the car, only the gas was worth stealing.

Proving the seller knew it was defective is the trick. I am absolutely certain that the dealer I bought an '05 Grand Cherokee from absolutely had to know that the transmission was throwing codes when I bought it, but it's my word against theirs.

Most vehicles which can store codes track the date and time the code was stored. If it has a bunch of codes dating back to before the purchase, that's a pretty fair indication that the seller knew. Of course, an attempt to cover up the flaw (i.e. the 90 weight oil in the crankcase) proves that they knew. 90 weight in the crankcase doesn't just cover up "loose" internals - it can actually cause engine damage. One of my co-workers filled his "spare oil" jug from the wrong barrel (90 weight gear lube instead of 15W40 motor oil), and this 1 gallon of "make-up" oil (crankcase holds 10) was enough to trash the engine.

[VenomX]

I know people that buy only $500 or less cars. They run them until they just won't go anymore then get the next one.

We have a guy come into my work every day to buy 3 quarts of oil. He leaves a oil trial behind him as he leaves.

[EvilEmpryss]

There's one exception to as is sales and cars. Some states have put in a provision that if you sell a car with a known defect but don't disclose this fact you will be buying back that car. The trick is you need to be found to be hiding the defect. It's only a very small amount of states that allow for this.

Proving the seller knew it was defective is the trick. I am absolutely certain that the dealer I bought an '05 Grand Cherokee from absolutely had to know that the transmission was throwing codes when I bought it, but it's my word against theirs. So even if my state were on the list, they have more money for lawyers than I do.

[skeptic53]

Wouldn't that have been noticeable when you checked the oil level on the dipstick?

The engine had been running, the oil was not so obviously too thick on the dipstick. Also I was not as knowledgeable as I smugly thought I was back then.

[Valentinian]

A friend of mine bought three cars in a row based on recommendations from his stepbrother; I'm pretty sure he didn't get any inspection done, either, apart from said stepbrother telling him they were good deals. They were all incredibly rusty - which is kind of an accomplishment here, since we don't have to deal with road salt etc - all had horrible engine issues, and at least one had bad wiring to the point where all the lights (brake, indicator etc) stopped working about a week after he got it and he had to use hand signals for the rest of its (short) life. Then it died, and he bought the next lemon and left the dead car in the driveway for over a year.

My driveway, I should note, since he and his wife were renting with me at the time. I bugged him about getting rid of it at least once a month, but he was always on the point of selling it to 'some guy at work' who wanted it for parts, but was either imaginary or smart enough to never actually go through with the deal. Eventually the body corporate got on my back about it and threatened to fine me if it stayed, and I told my friend that either he got rid of it Right Now or I was going to call a local scrap yard and keep the $50 they offered for junkers as compensation for my pain and suffering. :P

The third POS car was eventually stolen and the police didn't find it until after the insurance company had paid out and my friend's wife had insisted that he use that as the down payment on a new (as in brand new) car. They can't have been looking for it very hard, since the thieves had just driven it to a mall on the other end of town and left it there after siphoning out the tank, but friend's wife and I weren't going to complain. XD

Now that he's had a decent car for several years I'm fairly sure that my friend won't ever take a car recommendation from his stepbrother again, but if he tries, his wife and I have plenty of stories to use to remind him about why that would be a terrible no good very bad idea. Like the car that had a faulty fuel pump, that didn't work properly if it was going uphill, and would therefore slow down to less than 10 km/h on some inclines...

[peach2play]

Wouldn't that have been noticeable when you checked the oil level on the dipstick?

90 weight looks like a slightly darker motor oil, so checking the dip stick would only show that the oil probably needs to be changed. It does smell differently (like really heavy gear oil) though, so smelling the dip stick would tell my mechanics that the oil in the engine was wrong and raise an eyebrow.