These Are The Dumbest Mistakes You’ve Made In Your Cars

“Just graduated high school, older friends just got back from college, and one of them had a parent who let us drink in the garage. Drove home that night when I absolutely should not have. Despite being drunk, I still vividly remember the paranoia the whole way, thinking I’d go to jail if anything happened. Had to pull over halfway to throw up on the side of the road, not sure if that was from the nerves or the Keystone Light.

“Thankfully, nothing bad happened and I made it home. Afterwards, that made it an easy decision to either walk however far I had to or sleep in the back of the car instead driving after a party again. I think five-miles was the longest walk I did to get home one night.

“Eventually just made the rule of 1 beer max per two hours out and two beers max per outing if I’ll have to drive. I generally just stick to the one beer now. As much as Uber/Lyft have garbage executives, being able to just summon a taxi to almost anywhere from my cell phone is a terrific social benefit.”

Good to hear that you learned from your mistake, well done.

Suggested by: engineerthefuture

“As a teenager I gave my first car a sponge bath in my parents’ garage with some sort of kitchen countertop cleaner, and used the scouring side of the sponge to get out the tough stuff.

“The paint correction estimate that followed was more than the car was worth. If Reddit existed at the time I’m pretty sure it would’ve wound up on r/justrolledintotheshop.”

Admit it, who else has got a paint job worth more than the rest of their car?

Suggested by: turbolence1988

“Dumbest mistake I’ve ever made in my car?

“Nine-months later, we named him Kyle.”

I take it you didn’t name your mistake after the place it was made?

Suggested by: dustynnguyendood

“Sometime in 2019, I ran my 2012 Smart Fortwo low on oil and took too long to correct it. I took it off-roading and bumped the oil pan into something, causing a very slow seep, but one still worth looking at.

“I saw my oil pressure light flicker twice on the way home and I knew exactly what was going on, but for whatever inexplicable reason I did nothing about it until a few hundred miles later when I got home. The engine survived the ordeal, but the excessive wear metals in my oil and what I think is a tone change in the engine note suggests it did not get through the other side totally unharmed. Ugh, so dumb.

“Thankfully, it’s no longer a daily driver, so it’s an issue I may never actually have to deal with, but still.”

Check. Your. Oil.

Suggested by: smart

“Buying a SECOND Fiero 2M4.

“Boom, close the comment section, I just won the internet today!

“Oh, need me to run up the score?

“My dad got a ‘63 Corvair when I was about 13. It was a 300-yard car that sort of ran, but had no floorboards and the fenders were solid Bondo. We decided to restore it. We found a ‘64 that had been in a massive fire and decided to use it as a parts car. We found eventually that the warped ‘64 appeared to have less rust, so we switched to that. Only to find that it had just as much as the ‘63.

“So, to get around, I got an ‘86 Fiero 2M4. Made sense to carry parts in a Fiero... NOT. Like all Fieros it had issues. Between spending all my money on Bondo (I gave up trying to weld rust to rust) and fixes for the Fiero, I decided to get a newer, better car.

“An ‘88 Fiero 2M4.. with a salvage title and no history of oil changes.

“This went exactly as you would expect.”

What’s that saying about doing something again but expecting a different outcome?

Suggested by: yeardley68

“Removing an aftermarket crank pulley from my BRZ prior to returning the lease, I did a stupid and read only part of the instruction on loosening the belt. The instructions called for using a breaker bar to turn one of the pulley bolts clockwise (tightening direction) briefly to get slack into the belt.

“Clever me, I pulled the breaker bar like my life depended on it... Past the point of introducing slack to the belt, and all the way until I introduced SNAP at the pulley bolt head. Sheared it right off.

“I decided to do it myself because I didn’t want to pay the garage for “such an easy task.”

“Ended up sending the car to the mechanic anyway... Only instead of $80 to remove the pulley, now I paid $130 for them to get the bolt out and remove the pulley. And had the pulley spin off on the drive to the mechanic, killing power steering and the alternator, so that I needed to be towed (thank God for CAA roadside).

“Honestly, I got off easy there.

“Side note, I quite liked the steering feel without the EPS engaged. Just that losing everything else was... Not ideal.”

A lot of our greatest mistakes start with not wanting to pay someone else do to a job.

Suggested by: dhj1

“I tried driving my 1990 Range Rover Great Divide Edition over the toe of an avalanche that was blocking a road outside of Girdwood, Alaska. Nothing stops a Range Rover except the toe of an avalanche apparently. It took a couple of hours to dig it out with (appropriately enough) my avalanche shovel I carried for snowboarding rescues.

“Actually, now that I think about it, that wasn’t the stupidest thing I did with that Rover because I could have just walked back Girdwood. What was really stupid was driving across a river near Valdez, Alaska, parking the Rover and going snowboarding. After earning my turns I went to re-cross the river now flowing two or three times greater than earlier due to snowmelt. I sent it. Water came over the hood, but I made it. That could have ended badly.”

At least you always had a shovel handy to get your Range Rover out of a pickle.

Suggested by: theblightofgrey

“On a camping trip with my girlfriend at the time, my roommate, and his girlfriend in my long-travel 2006 Tacoma. We were off-roading about 35o miles from home and found a fun little mud hole to blast through. It turns out...a truck that is great for high-speed desert runs may not be great for bogging. I found this out on the 3rd pass when I stopped dead in the middle of the bog.

“I sucked up water into the engine and hydro-locked the whole thing. To my pleasant surprise, insurance covered a replacement engine as I was technically driving on a named road, but it meant we had to get a rental car to haul all of our stuff home for work on Monday.

“Lesson learned.”

Love it when a technicality comes to your rescue.

Suggested by: santacruzin6

“I lent a car to a person I barely knew.

“Back in the late ‘80s, my cousin Bill and I pooled $150 each to buy a beater - a 1976 Chevy Nova with a 250ci straight-six, three-speed manual and power nothing; essentially the most basic transportation there was.

“Another $100 each for some new rear tires and some misc. parts, and a weekend of wrenching later, and we had our ‘spare’ car - a vehicle we kept in reserve in case either of our DDs broke down.

“Over the next year our so, our Nova was put in service several times, thus paying for itself by saving us from having to rent a car.

“One day, Bill called me and asked if I would be okay lending the Nova to HIS cousin Walter, who was related to Bill on Bill’s father’s side, and thus no relation to me.

“I had met Walter once at a family picnic, he seemed like a nice kid, and Bill said he only needed the car ‘a week or two’ so I agreed.

“Several months later...

“My POS Ford Escort broke its timing belt and stranded me in the Poconos; I had it towed off the highway, took public transportation home, and mailed the title to the towing company.

“I called Bill and asked him to start prepping the Nova for me to use (supposedly it was parked in his yard) when he informed me that Walter still had the car. I told Bill to tell Walter that I needed the car and that he needed to bring it back.

“An hour later, Bill calls - Walt still needs the Nova, he hasn’t had time to fix his car, Walt was laid off and just got a new job, blah, blah, blah....

““Sounds like a personal problem...” I remember telling Bill, “Tell Walt I want the car back by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow comes, and no Nova. I resort to bumming rides from a co-worker to get to work and taking Patco and NJ Transit for everything else.

“A few days later, Bill tells me the Nova is back at his house. I jump on the train and walk the mile-and-half from the train station to Bill’s house.

“The car is a mess. The windows are stained brown and every interior surface is sticky with nicotine. The 78 series tires have been replaced with a mis-matched set of 70-series. And the odometer is reading 11K miles higher than it had when we lent the car to Walt - nearly a year’s worth of driving in 4-5 months.

“And for some reason, there are ‘SS’ badges affixed to the grille, front fenders and trunk lid of the car.

“I take the car around the block and find the rear brakes are squealing and the low-profile tires made the car ride like a boxcar. I ask Bill if he knows the last time the oil was changed, to which he just shrugs. Bill tells me he will hit up Walter for some cash for the oil change, brake shoes, and whatever else the car needs and we will work on it the following weekend.

“The following day, Bill calls to tell me Walt has taken the car back. I call Walt, in a rage, and get his mother. The conversation went something like this:

“Me: I need the car!

“Aunt Susan: Walt needs the car!

“Me: The car doesn’t belong to Walt, it belongs to Bill and me!

“Aunt Susan: Bill told Walt he could have the car (a total lie, BTW..) and besides possession is 9/10ths of the law!

“I hang up, figuring that any further discussion was useless. I am steaming and trying to figure out my next move when Walt’s uncle/Bill’s father calls and offers me $300 to ‘buy out’ my half of the car. I agree to this since I don’t see any easy way to get the Nova back, and I want to keep peace in the family.

“I used the $300 toward the purchase of an ‘82 Fox body Mercury Capri that serves me for almost six years. Walt drives the Nova until the engine quits somewhere in Connecticut and the car is abandoned along the side of the road.

“The next time I saw Walter was at Bill’s funeral in 2012; he looked away when he realized who I was and wouldn’t speak to me, let alone shake my hand.

“Total dick.....”

Is the mistake here buying the car, being friends with Bill or loaning the car to Walter? I’m so confused.

Suggested by: earthbound-misfit-i

“Pulled over to pee on a dark wooded road in the night. I took one step into the woods and slid down a ravine that I didn’t see. My buddy with me took the car to Walmart and got rope to pull me out. I was lucky and got away with just a few scratches.”

Take a torch next time?

Suggested by: exgavalonnj

“Driving back to college at night in January, doing 70mph on I-80 in a massive snowstorm in a RWD, land-yacht 88 Olds. Watched two other drivers slide directly into snowbanks, still didn’t slow down, because I was young and therefore bulletproof. Only a damn miracle that I made it with all car parts attached, and now age and wisdom has convinced me about just what a dipshit I was that day.”

Imagine if we all still had the confidence of our 17-year-old selves, that would be absolute madness.

Suggested by: sprake

“I was driving home from work in a hurricane (well, the outer bits); lots of rain, lots of wind. I got off the highway and headed in the front drive (I lived on a farm at the time) and found a big tree down across the farm road. Okay, fine, I’ll go around to the back drive...another tree, this one on the county road—couldn’t even get to the back drive that way. Dagnabbit. Okay, plan C: backtrack a bit, go through the village and get home that way.

“The railroad tracks crossed the road just where the houses began on a sort of giant speed bump, and upon getting my car (a bare-bones 1984 Saab 900) to the top I saw a not-inconsiderable expanse of water. I could have (and should have) turned around and gone back to the highway and used another, less flood-prone route (Plan D), but I really wanted to Be Home Right Now, so I plunged my car into the water, figuring the high air intake on pre-GM Saabs would save me from the perils of hydrolocking (it did). It wasn’t a swollen watercourse, just an enormous puddle, so current wasn’t an issue.

“I don’t think the car actually floated, but the surface was uncomfortably close to my windows and there was water coming through one or two places in the firewall. I maintained forward momentum with a little extra throttle and came out the other side unscathed, observing to myself that I had just been remarkably stupid and was very lucky indeed to have gotten away with it.”

It’s amazing how many of these stories ended up being a success thanks to a dash of luck.

Suggested by: affenschmidt

“Solo 4x4 trip to a local mountain. At night. In the spring, with snow and ice still on the ground. Ina ‘76 F-150. I got up the major climb, which in dry conditions could be a challenge. This night, it was slick with ice, snow, and water. But I did it. Got up into the snow, with the packed trads from others before me, feeling pretty good about myself. Until I veered slightly into the unpacked, and then I was done for. But didn’t realize it. Figured I could just power back out. I mean, I employed that logic to get up there, and that worked, right? So I proceeded to push deeper and deeper into the unpacked, until I was up to the axels. With no winch, no shovel, no extra tools with me at all, except for the modified CB radio. I had just enough juice to reach someone in a town about 5-10 miles away (straight line, easily 30 miles by the back roads). They organized an experienced crew to come get me, some of whom got to that first climb and said, “There is no way I can make it up that!”

“In the end, I did get out of the snow, and back down the mountain. Without that CB, it would have been, at best, a rather cold night in the truck, a LONG walk down the mountain to get anywhere else, or I might not be here to relate the idiocy of Younger Me.”

Always tell someone when you’re heading off piste, kids.

Suggested by: phydeaux

“Just the little stuff, like spending all day paint correcting and detailing the car, then the next morning dinging and and scratching it while getting the lawnmower out of the garage. I swear we’re all our own worst enemies.”

This is so gosh darn annoying, I feel for you.

Suggested by: floridaman2020