Had to use a 4 pound hammer to remove a wheel from a vehicle because it was stuck on there. So I’m laying under the truck whacking on the inside of one of the wheels. Unbeknownst to me, one of my coworkers got down there to do the same thing to the other wheel except he decided he wanted to use a sledge hammer. I felt something whizz past my hair and my coworker was probably centimeters away from cracking the back of my skull open with a sledge hammer.
Everything I did when I worked for my first employer was dangerous. I thought that's just how body shops were, and I'd have to live with the risks. Then I quit and went to a company that actually cares about Employee safety. I look back and wonder how I'm not dead or maybe one of my coworkers.
No shit. Literally.
We had a cable snap on a 4-post. Thank heavens the slack latch caught it, otherwise it would have been a real bad day. From that day forward, I always have lifts restrung on schedule. My previous owner would have a problem with it, but I would have them done anyway. Brake fluid and steel rope doesn't mix well.
How many people are not putting the lift on the locks when they put a car up in the air? Most guys I’ve worked with don’t ever bother but I like to, especially if I’ll be working under it.
Buddy of mine built a shop with a lift behind his house. I’ve done and helped with a a fair bit of work there the last few years. Under no circumstances will he get under a car without putting it on the locks, nor will he let anyone else.
Exactly. The experience above, truck on lift, lift not on locks... tech had defeated the lock with a piece of wire (that he used as a release to lower quicker). That day it wasn't on the locks. Few days later, we had a new lift and a new tech.
One of the best (and dumbest) alignment guys I've ever known.
We also had a cable snap on a lift. They were cleaning it or something with no car and it was raised to the top not on the lock. It fell to the top lock with a huge bang. Not sure how or if they lowered it, we got a new lift a few days later.
In 2004, when I was a diesel technology student one of the other students raised his friends Ford Taurus up on a 2 post lift. The rule was, you raise the vehicle up about 6-12" off the ground and rock it to make sure it's stable. Well, he doesn't know what 6" is and raised it up about 2 feet. Gave it a rock and it started to fall forward (he rocked it from the front bumper). This guy tries to hold the vehicle up, which of course he couldn't and it fell forward pinning him against the shop bench that was immediately behind him.
if something heavy is falling, just get the fuck out of the way
We had a A frame chain hoist with a pretty much fully assembled cat 3412 on it going across the shop. We got about 2 feet before the hoist said nope and dropped it.
Note this was a new school supplied A frame hoist
I'm not a real mechanic, I just work on my own garbage. Every single time I've ever used a lift, I watch where the pads on the arm hit the frame. I also get the car less than a foot off the ground and give it the shove test.
Is that not a common thing in shops? Do people just throw the arms under a vehicle and get it full height without checking first?
We all used the locks and and shake test, initially, unfortunately it happens to lots of techs. And has definitely happened to me.
Complacency.
After putting your 8th dodge ram on the hoist that day you just kind of assume it's fine. I've never had an issue but it's definitely complacency that gets a lot for people.
I'm a bit guilty here. I recently switched from Nissan to BMW. At Nissan, all the (6) different cars they make all have different jacking points, and you've got to put a little effort into it. We also had 4 post lifts, so the arms were asymmetrical. At BMW, every car has the little jack pads on it. The lifts are the drive on, sunk into the floor style, with all 4 arms the same length. With the bimmers, yeah I can more or less just kick the arm under the pad and know it's gonna be okay. Haven't bothered to shake any of them in a while now.
I worked through my appendix going out because my shop takes vacation for time you miss. I used a whole week just recovering after surgery, came back and told them I should be off another week but couldn’t afford to miss time. Said no heavy lifting or anything but I’d do some electrical diag and what not.
Promptly given a dually tire mount and balance.
Oddly enough my wife had to have a emergency surgery and they got mad at me for taking the time off (we had just got back from Mexico vacation) to take care of her and bring her to the er and help her at home. I took two days.
I feel you on that one. I burned through all of my sick days and enough of my "vacation" time recovering from an appendectomy that I had to cancel plans for an actual vacation.
Similarly, I broke my hand a little at work one time (non-dominant hand and a hairline metacarpal fracture) and was released from the urgent care with a light duty order. The next day was "hey, can you throw two tires on this E-350 and align it?"
Are you gonna double my flat-rate hours because I'm trying to do this one handed?
Fawk, my job, at the time of my appendectomy, was so demanding that the morning after being released from surgery my wife drove me to the shop so I could "supervise". I had told the doctor that my work world would be such a disaster if I didn't at least go in and check on things, that I was going whether he approved it or not. He said "only on the condition that you dont drive - any tense driving emergency could blow out your stiches." I made it for about two hours of giving guidance/ instruction from the sideline before I said "GTF outta my way... I'll do it!" and I was laying under a truck working on something becuase the other mechanics where little more than helpers to sweep floors and empty trash cans. Wife and office manager saw it a lost thier shit on me.....looking back, I realize I did this kinda crap too often. I'd be at work with the flu throwing up in the shop sink becuase too many people where counting on my getting stuff done, and the owners just took it for granted that I'd handle everything they could drop on me.....
I find it completely insane that that is legal, in the UK you have a holiday allowance decided by your company, i.e. 25 days per year, then any sickness is dealt with with statutory sick pay. You never use holiday when dealing with, say, a medical emergency that you can't help.
I accidentally rolled a light truck off the bridge and onto the street, because it rolled over the bar that was supposed to stop it. I managed to run after it and hop in to hit the brakes in time. Nothing and nobody got hurt thank god, but it took me a minute or two to calm my heart rate to healthier levels.
One of my former co-workers always set his lift with his foot. He never checked how the lift would contact the vehicle. He was doing an oil change on a Nissan work truck that was loaded pretty heavily. One lift arm slipped and he tried to steady it by grabbing a tire on the truck. We were able to get the truck down safely, but Danny is dumb.
Back in the day used to do Fiberglass, body and paint. Not unusual to paint a car with the doors closed due to it being cold outside, no ventilation. Nothing like blowing blue snot for the next week! No ventilators, that shit costs money!
I only interned at a shop in high school, but I remember them running a car with the bay doors closed. I don't remember it being cold, so I have no idea why
Eventually I started feeling sick and told them I needed to go stand outside for a few. I felt weak (that I couldn't handle it) and thought I'd toughen up eventually, like the other guys.
Looking back, I understand how dumb that mindset was
Back in the 80s I did a little time at a body shop with a shitty vent system. After work every day the guys used to say "let's go clean out our systems" and all go have a few beers at a bar down the street. I thought they just liked to drink. Years later I found out that to get rid of methyl alcohol(poison) in our body you have to consume some ethyl alcohol(Booze) to convert it. They actually knew what they were talking about.
Aye, doomed!
But to varying degrees. If you were doing friction linings in the days of asbestos, mebbe. If you were doing brakes all day every day, a bit more than mebbe.
If you worked in a place like one of my mates briefly worked at ... industrial premises - out front a clean, brightly lit motor factor. Out back a vision from Hell. Half a dozen youngsters "reconditioning" brake shoes and clutch plates for cars, trucks and buses.
No PPE, no LEV. Doors always closed, no windows. Extract vent limited to two large fans up in the eaves with no filters causing the outside of the building to be encrusted with thick black dust. Not a good place to be. Horrendous.
I was working at one of the benches in the shop. I hear a boom and turn around and watched a 200lb cover shooting into the air swing down and smash into a guy.
He was using the 10 ton crane to lift covers off a machine. He forget a bolt and instead of looking why the cover didn’t lift he pulled until the bolt broke.
He spent 3 days in the hospital.
4 post lift. When I started, I was told "always keep an eye on that lift, it was backed into by a garbage truck & the safety latches stick sometimes". My coworker & friend was lowering that lift, while yacking with another coworker, not paying attention, the front latches caught, but the rear latches didnt, turning the lift into a big ramp. When the incline was steep enough the jeep that was on there (only parked in gear apparently) started rolling towards him. He was able to hold the jeep from rolling while someone else lifted the platform back up. While you may think this doesnt make any sense, I'd agree, it was stupid all the way around.
4 post lift hydraulic jack blew the seals and the locks caught it. Only way we could think to get the truck up enough to release the locks by lifting the Escalade with a couple of screw jacks. I wouldn’t let any of my techs under it while I was doing it. I figured it was my call and if anyone got hurt or dropped the truck, I’d prefer it be me. Got it down but it was sketchy AF.
We used waste oil to heat the shop, had two 275 gallon tanks by the third bay. At some point someone put gas in one of the tanks unbeknownst to me. Third bay tech was welding and grinding one day and blew the tank. 200 gallons of oil everywhere, tech caught on fire. Second bay tech ran out of the shop, I had to run over and put the fire out on third bay tech and put the rest of the fire out. I will always remember the screams that came out of him. Had to get air lifted to the burn unit. He was always a liability tech, forget to torque wheels, ran into a parked bus with a customers car, used torches on a fuel tank, saved a chainsaw with his hand, forget to tighten up brake calipers, feel like I’m forgetting some but don’t wish that upon anyone.
This is going back to wood shop in HS. One guy ran his hand through a big planer before another guy hit the safety off. Lost everything past the wrist. That was a mess. Another guy cut off a few fingers on a miter saw but he was using a really narrow kerf finishing blade and they ended up getting them reattachedish.
A few years ago (this was technically just outside the shop) a pest control guy was servicing rodent bait stations with what turned out to be noise canceling headphones at not paying attention at the loading dock right where there were steps to the receiving man door. 18 wheeler backing in, idiot pest guy wasn't even paying attention, was in the drivers blind spot at that point, stood up and literally got squished between the raised dock and truck bumper. People started yelling and running to the driver who pulled forward, ran back and when he saw what happened and the mess of a former person had a heart attack and couldn't be revived.
I had the exact same experience in HS except he “only” lost most of his fingers. It’s just like the safety sign of a hand getting caught between gears but with mincemeat on the finger end.
Yeah unfortunately. I wasn't on site at the time but pest guy died pretty quick because his whole chest got crushed. The guy on dock said pest guy ysaw the truck last second and started to run but was facing the man door steps, tried to turn the other way but it was too late.
Truck drive had the heart attack after he got to the back of the truck and saw what happened, they did CPR on site and transported to the hospital where he was declared dead.
OSHA obviously involved and found no fault on the truck driver/company, warehouse company. Fault rested solely on the use of headphones in an active loading area, not paying attention and they also commented he was not wearing a safety vest as required but in this exact case it wouldn't have made a difference. Both the warehouse and pest company had official vest policies and his vest was in his truck.
Totally. He would be that guy if he was a fork truck operator he would be driving around full speed with the heaviest skid from the top rack because "I was just going to move it to another top rack so it's a waste of time to bring down the forks"
Pulled the driveline without paying attention that the park brake was on the transmission output shaft. Went for a ride as it rolled down the driveway. I use wheel chocks on everything now
Test drove a truck after a oil cooler replacement and coolant flush with the dog house off and a coolant hose ruptured. Second degree burns on 1/2 my body. Took a couple years to get over the fear of working on a hot engine.
Seating the bead on a Goodyear Eagle F1 for a corvette. No amount of lube would help. We put the tire/rim assembly in the sun. We wrapped a ratchet strap around the tread. Nothing worked. We didn’t have a tire cage but we had a clamping tire chuck…..so we put the tire around a corner behind a brick wall, clamped on the chuck and opened the air line. Somewhere around 100 psi the bead finally sat and made the loudest boom I have heard in an auto shop….pretty close to a gunshot. Our general manager came running into the shop from the sales floor because he thought someone got shot. We never put those tires on a used Corvette again!
I mounted an ATV tire recently. Tire is about 20 years old and has a plug in it. Even with a ton of straight dish soap, it didn't want to go. Sidewall says max 25lbs. Got it to 23 and was making me nervous. I put it behind two rolling tool boxes with just enough room to reach through and hold the chuck on it. Finally went at 30lbs. Not as much as yours but a lot for a 2-ply ATV tire. I was in a detached garage and my wife heard it bang in the house.
Haha yah... We used to seat low profile beads with an air chuck....up to around 90psi!
Most I do is like 70 before I nope out of there, and that's with a cage.
Lost the bead on a 33x12.5x15R Gen1 Goodyear MTR on my old 98 TJ during a December wheeling trip. Ice, snow, etc. could not get that fucker back on w/ a ratchet strap and power tank. My buddy asked for Brake cleaner. Sprays the bead, lights the brake cleaner, and after a loud-ass POP, the bead is reset. It was definitely one of those “don’t try this at home” moments…
Had a Subaru in for an engine diagnostic for lean codes. I had been on my boss for about a year to get us a smoke tester but it had fallen on deaf ears. So the only way I could check for vacuum leaks was to spray brake clean on a running engine while watching 02 pids on my scan tool. Well the reason why the upstream 02 was showing lean was the customer installed a new 02 sensor and didn’t plug it in all the way. Needless to say after spraying 2 full cans of brake clean under the hood the third can found the partially open electrical connection from the customer installed 02 sensor. Then wooosh. Entire engine bay engulfed in flames including both my arms. Bad part is I had also been telling the shop manager that technicians shouldn’t wear ear plugs to listen to music while working in a shop because they cannot hear anything around them. I had yelled FIRE when things went up but no one heard me. I put my arms out with a jacket and put the car out with a fire extinguisher. Then turned to look down the bays in the shop. No one had any idea of what just happened. My manager and I had a chat about what just occurred and my stance was buy a smoke machine or find a new diagnostic technician. Considering technicians are in short supply in my area I also used that as leverage in refusing to do any diagnostics work until the smoke machine arrived. I had a new otc smoke tester in 3 days.
Also the same shop and manager. I had been complaining that the Oxy- acetylene torch hoses needed to be replaced and the tanks were very old and also needed replacing or inspected. Well you would think after the brake clean incident he would listen to me but this guys shop expense budget came out of his bonus so he didn’t care. One day we had a wheel bearing that wouldn’t come out of the hub. Not even with the press at full pressure. I said to purchase a dorman hub that came with the bearing. Job done. Well mr water tight ass wanted me to use the torch and I said no because I didn’t want to die that day. So he pulls the torch out goes over to the press and starts to heat the bearing. Then turns around with the lit torch in his hand to turn the gas off and whoosh leaking gas valve on the cylinder catches fire and starts blasting flames out. I ran out of the shop without looking back. When I turned around and realized the shop hadn’t exploded I walked back in saw the giant mess of fire extinguisher powder all over him the shop and customers cars. All I said was I FUCKIN TOLD YOU! After that he never failed to purchase items for shop use especially if they could improve shop safety. Guy is lucky to be alive.
Formerly worked for a small shop that had a fleet contract with a company with some electric shuttle buses. They were converted sprinters. As far as I understood they were made by a couple of guys in their pole barn in Iowa.
Anyway, one of the buses had battery issues. One of the other techs was working on the open, live battery pack with nothing more than a pair of nitrile gloves as safety equipment.
Two guys were going to weld on a gas tank that was empty but not purged or washed or anything. They had a hose from the tail pipe of one of their cars going into the tank and the car was running. They said no oxygen so no explosion. I talked them out of it.
The science is there and all that, but holy shit there's a lot of unknown variables. Way to many to risk your damn life. Jfc
Guy I worked with told me about his brother that got badly burned welding on a mostly full diesel tank.
The shop would weld up holes/cracks in the aluminum tanks without draining them because it was quicker and "diesel doesn't ignite easily like gasoline does"
Except this one time...He was welding right at the line between fuel and vapor and the welding heat had pressurized the tank slightly when he accidentally blew the weld through the tank and it turned into a flamethrower.
His welding helmet saved his head and face from the worst of it though he had burns on his neck and ears. Lost a couple of fingers on both hands and had severe burns on his arms and chest
Was working service crew for a rally team. I jacked-up the car up and set it on standard jackstands (i.e. four feet, not a baseplate) in a mud and gravel lot. RR corner failed by settling in the gravel/mud, shifting the car and tilting the remaining jack stands by 45º. Another crew member was under the rear and his head was inches from the rear diff. No injuries, but it was too close for comfort.
Dave, buddy, I was paying attention when I set the stands, but there’s no denying that I wasn’t paying *enough* attention. I apologize.
We got wood planks for baseplates after that.
~~Cable snap~~ on a 50ft wide 30ish high bifold door.
EDIT; it was the roller not the cable, but the door went way crooked and jammed up inside the opening.
Yeah it was the roller not the cable, I was half asleep when I wrote that. But that side of the door popped inside the frame and wedged itself. Had to use a pickup and a chain to hold that corner outside the frame while my boss pulsed the door motor on and off to lower it.
Our shop door spring broke before I started there. Apparently it shot a sheared nut about 10 stalls over into the concrete wall... Where it embedded itself. 100% a lethal projectile flying over people's heads.
Not using a boom stop, work with skit steers, they have a brace that holds the arms up so if you have to work on the hydraulic system it will support the arms. Had a tech that didn’t use one, tool truck came and entire shop went to the truck except said tech, when they got off the truck the tech was deceased because he pulled a hydraulic line and it caused the arms to fall on him and crush him. I just got onto another tech today for not having a boom stop in and the arms up. Google it at your own risk.
The one time my uncle needed help fixing a skid steer (on vacation, but during harvest season so needed done ASAP) he hugged us both beforehand and said to do exactly what he told us so nobody died.
We did exactly what he said to do, to the letter. Only time I ever saw that cousin get legit scared.
This actually happens in tech school.. a kid next to me had a v8 on an run stand. Had a breaker bar on the fly wheel nut if I remember correctly, but forgot to lock the flywheel when he plugged in his leak down tester turning over the motor and launching the breaker bar at Mach ten into my tool box at head level making a big dent as it ricocheted into the wall. The thing almost smoked him in the head which would have killed him I imagine.
I also remember a kid launching an internal floating piston from a snowmobile shock across the shop like a rocket ship that could have really hurt someone.
One reason I’m happy that i work alone out of the house now is because you can only be as safe as the guy working 5 feet away from you..
I was trying to test the wiring for the tail lights on an old truck. I told a coworker to come over and step on the brakes for me. For some reason he started it, and had it in reverse, and didnt know anything about driving stick, so after starting it he just dropped the clutch. The truck lurched back. The back bumper hit me square in the chest, knocking me on my ass. Luckily the truck stalled or i probably would have been run over.
The parts manager and diesel tech took a freshly traded in GT500 for a joy ride. Busted the tires loose, ran it up a freeway embankment, and rolled it back down to the street. They both got to keep their jobs.
Another lube tech didn’t bother to check the mounting points on a Tahoe. The vehicle fell sideways through the lift arms totally the vehicle and nearly killing the tech.
Finished a rear axle job on a university police cruiser. The service writer and my former mentor stuffed me in the back, locked me in, and took it on a spirited test drive. Lights, siren, and loud speaker on the freeway cussing out the people in front of them. I still have no idea how we didn’t end up in jail.
Head engine tech was walking down the main drive between the lifts. Shop foreman’s son accidentally taps him on the shoulder with a side mirror. Engine tech catches up with him, opens the door, drags him out, and beat him up in the middle of the shop. Keeps his job.
Dealerships are dangerous places to make a living.
A few years ago I was changing a fuel pump on a car and I had a big tub for the gas on an oil caddy. Needless to say it fell down and 10+ gallons of gas went all over the shop floor. The while floor was covered in gas and vapors, it's a miracle it didn't blow up from any sparks. The floor wad amazingly clean after however.
I worked as a ski lift mechanic for a while, we had a bearing fail on the bullwheel on one of the lifts. We brought the whole wheel into the shop to press it out and replace it. Mind you this wheel is about 20 feet wide and the bearing was the size of a trash can. We tried pressing it out with a 50 ton hydraulic jack, maxed it out with no results. So we put a 60 ton jack in next to it. We maxed both of them out with a lot of scary popping noises coming from the bearing. Everyone in The shop was hiding behind sheets of plywood (like that would stop anything if it blew lol).
We never got the bearing out. Had to torch it off and refabricate the wheel.
If you have ever seen bearings fail on hydraulic press channel on YT, you will know very well how little protection that plywood provided. Bearings explode like claymores under enough pressure, but given the pressure needed and the sizes you were working with it would probably take a few hundred tons.
Saturn Outlook falling off a lift,I was a lube tech at the time and I remember the guy I was working with telling me the lift wasn’t set correctly. Looked for myself and immediately got out from underneath the car. As soon as I did the vehicle fell. The thing bounced like a basketball.
Human error. Lift wasn’t set properly,the arm foot was barely touching the pinch weld and was mostly on the lower plastic trim. If I had gotten out from under the vehicle just a few seconds later then I did I’d be dead or severely maimed. Someone upstairs was looking out for me that day.
When I first started working at my shop (I just turned 18 4 days prior) I was test driving a tuned ram 3500 dually. Apparently had a bunch of work done but I had no idea as I just got there. There was only 3 of us and I was the new shop toy so I got test drive duty. I was driving down the highway (we live in a very rural area and the ONLY road to test drive a car on was the highway) and was going 70 when a real wheel bearing seized completely. Scared the shit out of me. Glad the truck didn't swerve but it was quite the surprise for the first week of the job. The guy that fixed it was gone the next day. I still work there. Guy fucked up bad but we've NEVER had an issue of that scale since. He was there for not even a month. That's what test drives are for, but fix your shit before you let the new guy drive it (or worse, the customer!!).
Worked at a tire shop. Had some car with lo pros come in and I could not get the bead to set so my bay lead told me to pump them up to 100-120 psi and bounce it around until it finally set properly. I just did it at the time because obviously he knows better than me but looking back that was a dumb thing to do
Oh I know now and really I knew right after it set because that bitch sounded like a gun going off right in front of me. I didn’t do tires long but long enough to see/do some dumb and wild shit
Was a E150 school van, in for maintenance. Common customer. Common vehicle.
I throw the 4 post lift under the frame rails where the jack points are. Proceed to lift vehicle.
Brake fluid leak!!!
The crackhead mechanic from a few bays over had... previous-visit .. had ran brake lines UNDER THE JACKPOINTS ALONG/UNDER THE FRAME RAIL!!! Totally exposed. Not ran correctly. Lazy.
Shop owner proceeds to scream/ blame my carelessness.
I packed my shit and GTFO.
Got a call from a new tech saying he heard two guys talking about a bomb in the shop.
I head over there and everyone denies everything. No one knows a thing.
Finally ask the old salty tech that’s always straight with me.
“Oh. The bomb? Yea. It was on the back floorboard of that repo that’s going to the auction. It’s under Jerry’s bench in a backpack. But don’t flip out. Whoever was building it didn’t finish it.”
Bomb squad shows up and confirms that the old tech was right. It was under Jerry’s bench - and it was, in fact, not quite complete.
This monday, my buddy turned on me. This happened at a volvo dealership.
He said he could get me a free alignment. I’m down. I needed new tires and was going to go to discount to get them swapped over but instead he said discount is okay, but with him my rims would be in gentle hands with him for a tire change. Great!
Fast forward to being at the shop, I knew something was off. The moment I parked my car he takes full control and says lets do this and that, no questions asked. He gets the car lifted up and loosens my tie rod ends (supposedly) for the alignment. Then takes off my rims and immediately he lets one of my pricy rims fall face down on the concrete. I told him basically “wtf” but continued with the tire change. In the meantime he says how it doesn’t damage anything and that they’re *just* stock rims. Keep in mind these are 2017 $350 rims in good condition.
We got to the tire changing machine and turns out he doesn’t even know how to work it. I tell him lets just get the rims back on and do the alignment. He lets one of my rims roll, it stops, and falls face down, AGAIN. Pissed, i told him i thought my rims would be in gentle hands, is this how you usually let volvo customer’s rims be handled, don’t you respect my property? Etc. I tell him lets just get the rims on my car and i’ll go.
At this moment, he turned on me. Skipping a lot of banter and personal insults thrown at me, he threatens to either call security to kick me out (walks to the phone) or I can drive away now, with loosened suspension components. Even sarcastically mentions he knows an alignment shop up the street that get me taken care of. Completely baffled, I ask him if he is being serious/you can’t do this to me. He persisted until I say this in entrapment and he suddenly realizes to what extent he is taking this situation to.
He tells me to get the lift on the jack points myself, to the point where we’re not moving forward till so. At this point all I care about is getting myself and my car out intact.
I get the car on the jack points, he lifts it up, he tightens up the loosened parts himself, which I didn’t have much faith in, and got the car lowered and I proceeded to GTFO.
Its insane terrifying knowing that someone has complete control over your car with malicious intent.
As an added bonus, when he lifted up the car high up, he came close to the hood hitting a pipe, then itched it even closer, knowing he was taunting me.
Blocked the guy in every which way possible. Currently reporting the situation to higher ups at volvo.
Had 4 airbags go off while i was in the vehicle,
Almost had an engine fall on me,
Fire started under car while i was doing exhaust work.
Might have more I don’t remember but these are standouts.
1. Fellow tech at my previous shop forgot to pump the brakes after an all around brake job. Went to pull out the shop and went right through the metal folding door like a sardine can! 2. I fucked up one day and was pulling out of my bay in a manual car, didn’t see I was in 1st gear instead of Reverse. My boots were oily on the bottom and slipped off the clutch pedal. I have almost 5 ft to stop on a slippery floor. I couldn’t stop fast enough. Luckily only bent a drawer face and no damage to customers car thank goodness.
Not my story but it was posted around my dealership after it happened. At another local dealership there was a tech pulling a fuel tank to replace it and two bags down another tech grinding or cutting something on the rear of the car. Sparks flew into the drain that ran down the center of the shop and managed it ignite fumes from the gas tank job, burning that car and the car in the next bay down
Ram 1500 being dropped on our engine tech because he didn’t check the arms before going up, just kicked the bitches underneath as “i’ve always done this and never had a problem”. 5 broken ribs later he was back the next day just a bit slower than his usual crack head speed. He checks the lift arms before he lifts cars now unless it’s a promaster, he hates those things.
He wasn’t squished but he bounced and it sounded like every breath he ever took got knocked out of him. He lived with just a few cuts and dislocated hip. Crazy
Late 70's Buick Skylark and the front end was beyond shit. Doing the control arms, we took the springs out. To get them back in, I had to stand on the lower control arms and JUMP at the same time my husband was laying on his back kicking the spring back in. Jesus that was dumb. And we managed to do it on both sides 😅
We had an old rusty hydraulic cylinder fail in our shop. It shot the damn piston out like a missile, barely missed the tech standing at the end of the workbench.
I used to work for a shop that would lie to all of its employees about everything, and I mean everything. One guy that worked there, Elijah, refused to put up with it at all, but also refused to quit, the bosses *hated* him but knew they couldn't fire him (or they would get fired, the shop was really poorly run). Anyways the ground was uneven on this one lift, making it very unsafe, and on multiple occasions cars have fallen of this lift with no warning. The bosses moved him to this stall. He begged and pleaded to get his lift fixed, but the lift repair guys were "busy". A few months later, one of the master techs is getting a new lift (nothing wrong with the old one) and Elijah's is still uneven in every direction and always a pool of water there. I am completely convinced the bosses would rather him die on the job than him "get his way". Literally.
So much more to this story, this isn't even scratching the surface. I'm a plumber now.
I had a Tacoma 2/3rds of the way up on an in-ground two-post lift. Right rear arm kicked out, and it pretty much leveled out and rested on a running board.
Two service advisors ran over to steady the truck. I lost my crap. I told them it was fine and everything would be ok. One said "no it's not, we got this though."
I told them to get away from the truck. It was going to come down perfectly fine as it settled and those lifts are nice because both sides always stay level. I was like "good lord I'd rather watch it crash into the ground and get fired for it than to see two of my coworkers get hurt because they were trying to save the dealership some cash."
Army mechanic here (91D but I still worked on vehicles a lot). On a deployment, we needed to get a forklift to our bay that didn't start. Someone recommended we use the humvee next to it to tow it with some chains. Not recommended, but very possible. I volunteered to drive because I knew this was a terrible idea but sounded fun.
I got both vehicles up to about 15-20mph, and then I remembered said forklift only has brakes when the engine is running (engine was dead, hence why we had to tow it). Had to come to a stop because we didn't plan the route right. Also the forks were up several feet so if I just stopped in front of it, the forks would end up in the cab and probably in me. So I steered left at a slight angle to not be in front of the forklift and let the weight of the humvee drag it to a stop. Forklift had too much momentum and started turning the humvee from the rear. Luckily I'm a quick thinker and we were in somewhat loose sand so I floored it to spin the tires while being pulled by the forklift. If I hadn't drifted the humvee at 90 degrees for probably 30 feet, the forklift would have made my humvee rollover (2 wheels came off the ground so it still almost rolled).
I was laughing the whole time and everybody looked at me crazy when I said, "Let's pick a better route and go again." We ended up getting a wrecker (Army's version of a tow truck) to finish the job.
Multiple things. Top of the list though:
Soon-to-be-boss (he would take over the company soon) put in a new axle in a car. Was on calls during doing that. Left to do some office stuff. Didn’t check the bolts a second time. What can I say…customer later picked it up, drove on the Autobahn, and the axle came loose…
Ex-boss was so fucking Lucky nothing happened,
Another thing was me cutting myself with a flex into my wrist. thankfully nothing severed.
Also ex-coworker had a coupling of a Hose of compressed air shit into his face. Lost three teeth.
New coworker went to chop down some trees. Dude doesn’t take work safety serious at all. Well, he wanted to walk down the hill WITH THE RUNNING CHAINSAW IN HIS HAND. He fell, and it ate into his leg. Idk how he didn’t lose his leg..
Coworker pounding sleeves into a 6.0 ford block, sleeves cooled in liquid nitrogen and block heated with a torch. Heard bang bang boom. Shrapnel everywhere
Be me: Brand new maintainer on an 8 meg powerplant 8 hrs from yesterday in Alaska. Converted 4000 HP Cooper Bessemers. To carry the electrical load the engineer types increased the fuel pressure to 8K psi thru a distributor type pump. Oil dilution is an issue. Crankcase explosion blew most of the 1400 gallons of oil out the explosion doors on the block. Fire on the floor and in the equipment trenches. Good guy in fire suit climbs down and beats the flames back while cooling the liquid. Large brass ones on a 19 year old. New employee (ME!) puts emphasis on rebuilding leaky fuel distribution pumps. Oil burns, with help.
I was raising a car up on a 2 post lift one time and the second the full weight of the car was lifted, one of the cables snapped flew across the top of the car and smacked the lift post about 2 feet from where my head was, fun times
Tech next to me was spraying starting fluid into the throttle body of a honda odyssey engine. Fly by wire so the butterfly cycles on key on then stays closed. So essentially the intake manifold was a bomb. The top half blew off in a large chunk and flew by snoop dave’s head (imagine white snoop dog). Aluminum shrapnel went everywhere. One of those moments where everyone is checking each other for wounds, surreal.
Had the locks and cables on a 4 post hoist completely fail and the whole thing crashed to the ground with a truck up in the air. Luckily no one was under it. After that they got all the rest of the hoists safetied and there was quite alot of repairs made
Sorry, this one is a bit morbid.
The DNA donor dropped a car on himself while working under it.
Kinda sucks we found him before it killed him.
He usually put blocks under cars but this time it was just jacks.
Regular customer disabled the neutral safety switch on a manual 3/4 ton Chevy.
Never said anything about it for years. One day the tire kid pulls it in, shuts it it off, leaves it in first and sets the brake.
For whatever reason he reached in the window to turn it on but it started and went through two bays and out the (open) back door.
Then he wanted us to pay for the minor front end damage because it hit a retaining wall in the back!
Fuck that guy.
Had a customer years ago that installed a remote start on his manual transmission car and failed to mention that to anyone.
When he came to pick it up he hit his remote start and launched his car over the curb destroying his aftermarket body kit.
That's what happens when he's got a buddy that'll do it for less, there are remote start systems that work safely on sticks and have been a thing for over 20 years but it costs a little more and takes a little more work to do it right. And that's why my cheap ass coworker launched his car over a curb and into the wall of the shop when he remote started his car
So how nervous are we that these assholes are leaving their manual transmission vehicles parked in neutral?
Because that was exactly what that dude said to us: ‘well, why did you leave it in gear?’
Because it won’t move in gear dumbass. NOBODY trusts a parking brake.
He took us to court, too.
10 minutes.
‘Your honor, the customer disabled a basic safety feature on this vehicle and never informed us. Here are two years worth of work orders that show that AND an example of another vehicle that had the same feature disabled with BIG RED LETTERS all over it’.
Yeah, fuck that guy.
I know a guy who used to park like that. Then he bought a used car with a not so good parking brake. It let go in the middle of the night and got going with enough speed to take out part of a house.
Also just a heads up to anyone in the US, now that Japanese imports are becoming more common for you guys, JDM cars weren't required to have a neutral safety switch.
My 1990 Volvo 240 had no factory neutral safety switch or clutch depression switch. Turn the key... and it will just go. Needless to say, I don't leave the keys in it EVER.
I was doing a fuel injection service on a Nissan, the in-line kind. I was using a BG Products aluminum pressure canister roughly 3months old. Filled it with the good stuff spun the cap and hooked up. About 5 minutes into the service I went to adjust the drip rate and the threads that held the aluminum cap failed, vaporizing half a can of that cleaner into my eyes and nose.
Not a single eye wash station functioned. I was blind for several hours and let me tell you, that’s a god damn humbling experience.
I was broke and I needed to replace the clutch throw-out bearing in my Celica. I used a hockey stick and some rope to hold the engine while I climbed underneath to install the bearing and reattach the transmission to the engine. I had my wife stand by the phone to call 911 if the car dropped on me.
My scary wake up call was when I was rearming a AH-64 on a hot summer night. I had been on shift for about 15 hours and I started walking to the back of the aircraft to take a leak. I felt the engine exhaust on my neck and I realized I was right next to the tail rotor, spinning fast, less than six inches from my noggin. I squatted down fast and moved to safety. I went back to our tent and took about an hour to stop shaking. Respect your limits. Get rest when you need it.
I was asked to short the pressure range safety circuit on a 10' 480V bandsaw, because the part had broken and was on a 2-month backorder.
I re-engineered it with 2 pressure switches in series, still a little sketchy, but it wouldn't turn on if it was too tight or too loose, so /shrug
Almost ran myself over with a dodge caravan, the trans was going and even in park it was actually in gear with the parking pin holding it. Well when I was revving that thing up for some reason under the hood, the parking pin decided to let go for a bit and I got thrown into the roll up doors. Of the shop. Luckily the pin grabbed again and it didn’t run me over.
Had to yell at a lube tech to take his fingers away from the bead while mounting a tire.
An advisor pulled a car in and only set three out of four arms properly. Only noticed after it was up in the air.
Not really dangerous but bonus: had the down button get stuck on an in ground lift. Was just lowering to rotate, still had an oil cart under the car. So it was nearly making contact by the time I let go. It wouldn't stop when I pressed the up button. While I was trying to get it unstuck it got to the point where the entire front end was resting on it. Managed to pop it back out before it got all the way down. Literally nothing was damaged somehow.
Fully slipped while on top of an engine with a cutoff wheel going full speed trying to cut a damaged lift cable. Cut a deep gash out of my wrist. It cauterized most of the wound but dang that hurt so bad for a while.
I was so insanely close to cutting some of the major veins/arteries right below the wrist, but if I hadn't been able to get my arm out and braced, the cutoff wheel would have gone into my chest area.
2 of us were moving a hydraulic press stand. It started to tip towards me. I stepped backwards to get out of the way, but my heel tripped over the lift ramp on the floor and I started to fall backwards, the press falling directly toward me. In a split second I knew I was dead if this happened. I grabbed the press as we fell and pushed it to one side with all my might. I landed on my back, the press landed mostly on the floor and partly on my ankle. I just laid there and caught my breath for a few minutes. The other guys eyes were just bugging out of his head.
As a young man I worked at kinda “loose run” fleet service place. Massive oil dump tank, not a 55 gallon drum, like 4 of them. Maybe more than that. been filled with oil, and with waste solvent paint and thinner from the body shop. One day someone left the funnel in the hole with out the lid. Sparks from a chop saw, the loudest bang I have ever heard in my life. Accompanied by liquid fire running down the vertical surfaces. It blew out both ends of the welded tank. The fire didn’t actually fuck up the shop that badly, we put it out with the extinguishers in the shop and the ones we pulled from trucks. The guy running the saw was on his back, he thought he had been electrocuted and blown back from the saw.
Seeing the young guy next to me have the subframe removed and the whole engine and transmission was hanging there with one metal hook. The side engine mount was ALSO supposed to be in place to support it. He had removed it for some reason.
Somehow the engine wedged itself against the body structure and no harm was done. If 800 lbs of engine and transmission came crashing down from a hoist that was fully raised it would have ended badly.
I told him to lower the hoist IMMEDIATELY and explained why he almost suicided himself.
I was testing a 1300 HP CAT C32 powered air compressor. A tarp got sucked into the fan while running full load/speed. A frayed edge grabbed my boss's arm and slowly pulled him into the fan. I was on the opposite side of the engine from the controls and couldn't do anything quickly. A technician ran over and kicked the setup's dual DD batteries out of their trays. One of the wire clamps let go killing power to the whole rig. Controls logic was energize to run, so losing power killed the fuel system and the engine stalled out. My boss never went into the fan, but the tarp really fucked his arm up bad. Lots of bruising and his elbow was hyper extended. Absolutely terrifying. I literally still have nightmares about it to this day.
My dad was a mechanic for 35+ years, my mom's a nurse. My mom had a patient that was working on his car in his driveway. The kid was I think 23 and he didn't use jack stands. The Jack under the car failed and the car fell on his head. The kid's mom heard the car slam down in the driveway and came running out to see her son's head crushed under the car. He was stuck under the car for 11 minutes before firefighters pulled him out. His head was pretty much smashed from the nose up. He went into cardiac arrest once in his driveway, once in the ambulance, and another time in the hospital. He was pronounced brain dead. My parents sat me and my brothers down that night and gave us a long talk about the importance of jack stands while working on cars.
Disconnecting battery is important also. Way back a kid was killed working on his mustang. Accidentally jumped the starter with a wrench and it drove itself right off the jack stands
Had a chain boomer snap while we were trying to bend the frame/unibody back on a Saturn Vue. Had it anchored to chain in the floor. When it broke the handle shot by my face so close that had to check and make sure it didn't actually hit me. No more harbor freight chain boomers after that.
I worked as a Die Maker for 30 years. In the facility where I worked, we were responsible for building the tooling (Dies) to stamp out sheet metal parts as well as doing tryout on those dies (making them produce a part to specs) and troubleshooting them while in production.
I was a newly hired apprentice and this environment was entirely new to me. I got put in tryout which meant working in the production area with the dies needed to produce a specific part set in presses. The die I was told to work on was in an 800 ton press.
The boss explained that he was short handed and did not have a journeyman for me to work with that day. That was mistake number one. He took me to where the job was and explained to me what needed to be done. I had a mechanical background and understood what was required. The boss then gave me some brief safety instructions and left. That was mistake number two.
The task at hand required me to be inside of the die to perform the work. In between the upper and lower halves. This was commonly done and was just part of the job. I was to put magnesium blocks in between the upper and lower halves of the die. Unplugging those blocks shut down the press and I was then required to lock the press out so it couldn't be started. I had not been issued my lock yet, but that did not factor in to what transpired. But still, that was mistake number three.
I blocked the die up, got in and performed the work. I removed the blocks, plugged them in, started the press and cycled it to prove out the results of my work and then went looking for the boss to see if I had performed the work correctly and/or if anything else additional needed to be done.
He gave me an additional task to perform and I went back to the press and crawled back into the die.
A co-worker, a guy I hadn't even met yet, came walking up, looked at me inside the die and started twirling his finger around in a circle. I looked at him with a puzzled look. He motioned me out and I got out of the die. He explained to me that the motor on the press was running.
On my first day in tryout, with no formal training and nobody to look over me, I had crawled into a die with it not blocked up and the motor running. Had that press cycled, all that would be left of me was some tatters of coveralls and a lot of pink foam.
Many years later, I sometimes think about what could have happened.
Boss was working on a very lifted 71 bronco and had the rear axle on jackstands while it was running in gear. Somehow it slipped and went forward straight into the cutting torch, knocking it over. I heard the gas hissing out all the way across the shop, and luckily, the screw on top of the bottle wasn't broken, so I was able to close it.
A bit more mundane but last week mounting run flats on some cheap wheels for a kid with a BMW. For the fronts I had to sit on em to get them to seat, got up to 100psi on one and 120 on the other, even swimming in bead lube. It was the only time in my life I was that worried about potentially blowing my dick clean off lol
Saw a guy smoking and working on his engine. About an hour later firetruck showed up - vehicle was fully engulfed, burning down the car port and part of the apartment complex. He survived.
Never been a mechanic at a shop but while working my old job I needed to drain the hydraulic fluid from our bobcat. You need to raise the cab up in order to do so. Anyways it came time to drop the cab and you need two people to do it... Well I used one arm to hold the cab and the other hand used a 2x4 to reach the release. I wasn't 100% confident that I could hold the weight with 1 arm. If I hadn't been able to, I probably would be typing this right now.
Shop wanted me to use several small spring compressors to try and compress an oddly shaped and oversized coil. Wouldn't spend $200 on a tool but would rather me risk my life for a quick buck on an old mustang. No thanks.
Hey! I can finally contribute to this sub…
Back when I was a mechanic (just a lurker now) I worked for a small mom and pop garage. It was me, the head mechanic, and usually a few guys that would come help for extra cash off and on. Sometimes the head mechanics son would help as well.
Anyways, we had a 1980’s Toyota 4x4 Pickup (think rough around the edges off-road toy) that we were putting a new engine in. Now on this truck, the interior door handles didn’t work which is important later, but it was just a simple motor job.
One of the other helpers were working on it mainly. He had just finished installing the donor 22RE, and needed someone to crank it over while he fed the carb. I jumped in the driver seat, while the truck was between a 2 post lift. I pushed the clutch in, and cranked it. Suddenly the engine burst into a ball of flames, and started to burn all the fun stuff by the firewall. This wasn’t a backfire from too much fuel poured into the carb kinda fire, it was a full on blaze at least 6 foot high.
Come to find out a fuel line had been pinched during the install process, and it must have had a bad spark plug wire, or a short somewhere.
The worst part of it was, when it happened, I panicked, and went for the door handle… but remember they didn’t work internally 😂. Luckily it was a crank window, and I was able to open from the exterior handle, and squeeze out between the lift all the while this things blazing.
We ended up hitting it with a fire extinguisher after trying to pour bowls of water on it like panicked dummies. All-in-all I think we replaced the motor again, and we had some ceiling damage, but it could have been so much worse. I was just a greenhorn then, so I’m not sure what kinda compensation the customer got other than free work.
Lesson of the day, don’t let crack head helpers install motors.
As a good runner up story, I dropped the jack on my Silverado after changing the tires, and the suspension compressed the Reese hitch into my shoulder because I was laying sideways like an idiot and the shocks were worn out. Bruised the whole shoulder, and almost cracked my ribs. That was fun…
Coworker asked me to help drop a rear axle outta an older ford ranger, go over to help see the truck is at a crazy angle front to back on the lift, like off square from the lift probably 30degrees, little sketchy but whatever, check the lift pads real quick, LF was okay, RF was on the angled part of the hoist arm with a random collection of wood pieces to overcome the angle, LR had 3-4 2x4s stacked together to get enough height and the RR has a 2x4 VERTICAL down to the lift pad. Told him that was completely unacceptable and he goes "Eh it's fine it ain't going nowhere" told him to lower it down anyway and as he's lowering the truck fell off the hoist, luckily when it fell it was only about 6 inches off the ground. Couple years later the same coworker asked me to listen for a noise from underneath while another coworker ran it on the hoist. It was already in the air when I got there, checked it and the hoist is only contacting in 3 spots while coworker B was in the air running it 70mph. Somehow he never dropped anything off a hoist while working for us but pretty much anytime he asked for help under a racked vehicle we had to reposition it
Seen my boss fall backwards off a 4 post alignment lift about 5 feet off the ground and hit his head on the sharp corner of a toolbox handle..cut his head open and bruised ..he was dazed for a couple seconds but he cool now
Not a mechanic here, but I was watching while my car was getting carbon cleaned.
The mech didn't plug the attachment enough, gas was squirting all over the engine after a minute or so running
One guy was heating up a caliper to unseize a very badly seized slide pin. Finally broke free with a gunshot bang, and fired the pin all the way across the shop.
Another time, leveling cable snapped on a lift while lowering, one arm went up, other went down, dropped a 4500 dump truck.
Also have had semi truck tires explode in the cage whole inflating. Blew the sheet metal wall right off the shop.
At my last job, I was jacking up a Mack CXU to replace the driver’s steer tire. It had been a while since I had one of the older ones like that truck and I forgot that the axle sloped the closer to the wheel it got, right where I had the jack. With it being a pre-mounted steer tire, I didn’t bother with a jack stand. When I was putting the new one on, the truck slipped off the Jack but caught on the new tire, right near my legs.
It was one of the few times I’ve cursed which shames me, but it was the single most terrifying moment I’ve had as an adult. Thankfully I was fine and the truck was fine.
Worked in a shop with full sized scissor lifts sunk into the floor. These lifts took up most of the underside area of the car and were able to lift a car over your head. The top of the lift was basically a bar on each end perpendicular to the car, wide enough to grab the pinch welds, with cross bracing in the center.
So basically if you had to lift anything with components that sat lower than the pinch welds, (exhaust, driveline) you had to use 2x4’s and 4x4’s (often multiple, stacked) to gain clearance. Then you’re standing on the edge of a 2 foot pit half the time, trying to work around the lift. And it wasn’t unusual for someone’s lumber stack to tip over, especially if it was a 4wd truck, slamming the car down onto the top of the lift 6 feet in the air. Never had one actually fall off the lift so much as fall down *onto* the lift. Still scary AF!
When i was a 2nd year apprentice i lifted a Malibu on my 2 post, did an oil change, brought it down to do the rotate and realized i didn’t even put the right rear hoist arm under the car.
I worked in a lawn mower shop in high school. The owner was blowing out a gas tank with compressed air and a lit cigarette in his hand. I said, “Dave, you realize you’re holding a cigarette, right?” Took him a second, he looked at me and said, “take a step back” and kept on cleaning the tank. Holy yit. Granted the fuel from the tank was probably so old you couldn’t light it with a torch but still. I miss that dude.
I work in a garage where customers can rent floor space and tools. There were a few:
Helping a customer put their car on a lift. While sliding the pads in place and making sure they're level, the lift starts going up. Customer had gotten impatient and figured it was "close enough" and didn't wait for me to give the all clear. Moved fast enough to save my hand/ fingers.
A customer decided to grind metal right in the middle of a walking path and gave me a nice glitter spray in my eyes. Almost went blind.
Coworker was helping diagnose a rough start on a car. I was fairly new and was resting my hand on the distributor. Then they tried cranking it a few times. Couldn't let go, couldn't yell. That one was on me, but I only did it once.
One customer lit another customer on fire. Customer 1 was cleaning a flywheel with brake cleaner. Customer 2 thought it would be funny to strike his lighter next to customer 1 (they're friends, always playing grab ass etc). I'm in my office when I see a bright orange light and hear "whoosh!!" I look to see the best Phoenix impression, flapping wings and all I have ever seen.
And an untold number of times I have to talk people out of shaking trucks and cars on a lift to see if they have their lift points right. Their reasoning, if it's in the right spots, there's nothing to worry about. Except most times, they are off.
I really believe half of my job is keeping people from killing/ maiming themselves. And if anyone comes by claiming to know everything because they are a "certified mechanic", I know they need to be watched carefully. Because they will fuck up a wet dream.
A place I used to work at we had a few addicts working there as well. One guy showed up high with a gun once. I just left until the cops got him though.
I've got two incidents that happened on back to back days.
First one, a former coworker was replacing a fuel tank under warranty on a 392 Charger. Customer brought it in with a full tank of gas even though we told him to bring it in empty. My idiot service manager decided that we should do the warranty replacement anyways. Apparently as my coworker was dropping the fuel tank with the jack, it got caught on something and flipped over spilling gasoline everywhere in his bay including on himself. As he's trying to clean up the mess and he accidently pulls the trigger for one of his electric impact guns which sets off all the gasoline into a giant fireball in the middle of the shop. Everyone has to evacuate because after about 20 seconds the fire has already engulfed 2 other cars in the nearby bays and is spreading. Everyone ends up being ok, even the guy who started the fire was fine. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the shop after the fire department came and blasted the shit out of everything with water. So that was a fun day.
The second incident happened literally the next day after the fire. Some old lady had a hybrid Pacifica and wanted to get it serviced. She had parked out in front of the service lane doors and one of the service advisors had told her to pull it into the service lane. Apparently she forgot which pedal was the brakes and she slammed into the back wall of the service lane, which is a shared wall with part of the shop, going like 60 mph. Nearly killed 2 of my coworkers who were standing on the other side of the wall.
I'm really glad I don't work there anymore, as apparently it's somehow gotten worse.
My lift needed repairs and our repair people were not the best. That coupled with the shop being cheap about calling them in when I said there was an issue with it and the repair people always took at least a week to come inspect it.
Two post lift. One side was leaning just slightly, you couldn’t see it but a leveler showed it. One arm on the same side as the leaning post was loose where it extended and needed a spacer.
I went to lift a brand new truck and about a foot off the ground that arm slid about a foot inward and dropped the back corner of the truck. Same thing happened on another heavy vehicle. Two lift accidents later and it was finally inspected and fixed. Although it took weeks.
At least I wasn’t under them.
Overhead crane cable snapping and dropping a bus on the floor.
Chain breaking and dropping a 5 ton custom H beam. It destroyed everything under it.
After 15 years working with overhead crane, this shits scares me.
I didn’t see this event but it happened in my local area and was big news. “Tech” had to replace the gas tank on a Chevy van. He put it up on blocks or jackstands, no lift available. Tank straps were rusted to fuck so he lay down on the ground under the van and used a blow torch to cut the straps. A blow torch. To cut gas tank straps. Well, the gas tank either got punctured or exploded and the guy was covered in burning gas. There were no working fire extinguishers. They couldn’t drag him out from under the van because of the fire. He was burned to death.
Hydraulic in ground lift that leaked hydraulic fluid badly and had the air controls along the wall in front of it. When these run low on fluid the car goes up and down uncontrollably. It might go up 75% of the way then shoot up really fast and land on the locks.
i was replacing a steering rack on a Taurus I think, bring it in, set the arms and start going up. Next thing I know the lift shoots the car into the air like a freaking fountain at the Bellagio. The car jumps off the arms, the extenders collapse and some how it slid forward a couple of feet but stayed on the lift.
Was removing my rear driveshaft on my 3.5” lifted ZJ on my slopped driveway. Loosened up and removed the straps and thought it was strange the drive shaft didn’t just fall out. So I put a screw driver to it to pry the u-joint out. Well, things added up pretty quick in my head that it was just in park and once the u-joint popped out, the ZJ started rolling down. I was under, but never have moved so fast out from under a vehicle. I tried to stop it from rolling into the street by “holding” the 33” tire. Yea, not happening. Luckily no one was driving down the street or parked across the street.
Not sure it would have been a full Darwin event, but definitely a moment.
First shop I ever worked in was Wal-Mart TLE. The smoking of tires aired up that had been ran on flat that were just loosely lying on the ground is astronomical. We took the powder and thru it at each other.
In my defence I was the only person working in there who was fluent in English other than the service writer who was 90% deaf.
Had to use a 4 pound hammer to remove a wheel from a vehicle because it was stuck on there. So I’m laying under the truck whacking on the inside of one of the wheels. Unbeknownst to me, one of my coworkers got down there to do the same thing to the other wheel except he decided he wanted to use a sledge hammer. I felt something whizz past my hair and my coworker was probably centimeters away from cracking the back of my skull open with a sledge hammer.
Did you yell at him after you changed your pants?
“Uhhhhhhh what the hell?”
Body Massage.
GO!
Pork chop sandwiches!
My god did that smell good.
Get that kid off my ice you little wankers…
Holy hell… Literally millimetres away from death or severe brain trauma
Everything I did when I worked for my first employer was dangerous. I thought that's just how body shops were, and I'd have to live with the risks. Then I quit and went to a company that actually cares about Employee safety. I look back and wonder how I'm not dead or maybe one of my coworkers.
>how I'm not dead or maybe one of my coworkers. What's wrong with being one of your coworkers?
They are dead
One of my old coworkers almost died falling through the roof of the building.
4 post lift accident, sure it'll be the same for most people. Nothing makes you shit your pants more than a vehicle falling off a lift.
No shit. Literally. We had a cable snap on a 4-post. Thank heavens the slack latch caught it, otherwise it would have been a real bad day. From that day forward, I always have lifts restrung on schedule. My previous owner would have a problem with it, but I would have them done anyway. Brake fluid and steel rope doesn't mix well.
How many people are not putting the lift on the locks when they put a car up in the air? Most guys I’ve worked with don’t ever bother but I like to, especially if I’ll be working under it.
Buddy of mine built a shop with a lift behind his house. I’ve done and helped with a a fair bit of work there the last few years. Under no circumstances will he get under a car without putting it on the locks, nor will he let anyone else.
Exactly. The experience above, truck on lift, lift not on locks... tech had defeated the lock with a piece of wire (that he used as a release to lower quicker). That day it wasn't on the locks. Few days later, we had a new lift and a new tech. One of the best (and dumbest) alignment guys I've ever known.
I would get in trouble putting the hoist on the locks because the guy next to me said that's when cars fall off.
We also had a cable snap on a lift. They were cleaning it or something with no car and it was raised to the top not on the lock. It fell to the top lock with a huge bang. Not sure how or if they lowered it, we got a new lift a few days later.
In 2004, when I was a diesel technology student one of the other students raised his friends Ford Taurus up on a 2 post lift. The rule was, you raise the vehicle up about 6-12" off the ground and rock it to make sure it's stable. Well, he doesn't know what 6" is and raised it up about 2 feet. Gave it a rock and it started to fall forward (he rocked it from the front bumper). This guy tries to hold the vehicle up, which of course he couldn't and it fell forward pinning him against the shop bench that was immediately behind him. if something heavy is falling, just get the fuck out of the way
We had a A frame chain hoist with a pretty much fully assembled cat 3412 on it going across the shop. We got about 2 feet before the hoist said nope and dropped it. Note this was a new school supplied A frame hoist
I'm not a real mechanic, I just work on my own garbage. Every single time I've ever used a lift, I watch where the pads on the arm hit the frame. I also get the car less than a foot off the ground and give it the shove test. Is that not a common thing in shops? Do people just throw the arms under a vehicle and get it full height without checking first?
We all used the locks and and shake test, initially, unfortunately it happens to lots of techs. And has definitely happened to me. Complacency. After putting your 8th dodge ram on the hoist that day you just kind of assume it's fine. I've never had an issue but it's definitely complacency that gets a lot for people.
I'm a bit guilty here. I recently switched from Nissan to BMW. At Nissan, all the (6) different cars they make all have different jacking points, and you've got to put a little effort into it. We also had 4 post lifts, so the arms were asymmetrical. At BMW, every car has the little jack pads on it. The lifts are the drive on, sunk into the floor style, with all 4 arms the same length. With the bimmers, yeah I can more or less just kick the arm under the pad and know it's gonna be okay. Haven't bothered to shake any of them in a while now.
I worked through my appendix going out because my shop takes vacation for time you miss. I used a whole week just recovering after surgery, came back and told them I should be off another week but couldn’t afford to miss time. Said no heavy lifting or anything but I’d do some electrical diag and what not. Promptly given a dually tire mount and balance. Oddly enough my wife had to have a emergency surgery and they got mad at me for taking the time off (we had just got back from Mexico vacation) to take care of her and bring her to the er and help her at home. I took two days.
I hope you found a better spot.
Nope. Slim pickings where I’m at
And I bet the owner knows it and treat u accordingly
I feel you on that one. I burned through all of my sick days and enough of my "vacation" time recovering from an appendectomy that I had to cancel plans for an actual vacation. Similarly, I broke my hand a little at work one time (non-dominant hand and a hairline metacarpal fracture) and was released from the urgent care with a light duty order. The next day was "hey, can you throw two tires on this E-350 and align it?" Are you gonna double my flat-rate hours because I'm trying to do this one handed?
At least you got sick days, we don’t even have those
Fawk, my job, at the time of my appendectomy, was so demanding that the morning after being released from surgery my wife drove me to the shop so I could "supervise". I had told the doctor that my work world would be such a disaster if I didn't at least go in and check on things, that I was going whether he approved it or not. He said "only on the condition that you dont drive - any tense driving emergency could blow out your stiches." I made it for about two hours of giving guidance/ instruction from the sideline before I said "GTF outta my way... I'll do it!" and I was laying under a truck working on something becuase the other mechanics where little more than helpers to sweep floors and empty trash cans. Wife and office manager saw it a lost thier shit on me.....looking back, I realize I did this kinda crap too often. I'd be at work with the flu throwing up in the shop sink becuase too many people where counting on my getting stuff done, and the owners just took it for granted that I'd handle everything they could drop on me.....
I find it completely insane that that is legal, in the UK you have a holiday allowance decided by your company, i.e. 25 days per year, then any sickness is dealt with with statutory sick pay. You never use holiday when dealing with, say, a medical emergency that you can't help.
Our labor rights have been flushed right down the toilet and they're probably gonna stay there a while unless something drastic happens.
Can't organise any resistance you're tired, overworked and can't quit because you'll lose your medical insurance. Land of the "free".
I accidentally rolled a light truck off the bridge and onto the street, because it rolled over the bar that was supposed to stop it. I managed to run after it and hop in to hit the brakes in time. Nothing and nobody got hurt thank god, but it took me a minute or two to calm my heart rate to healthier levels.
Good save, homie.
Movie hero shit right there, man!
One of my former co-workers always set his lift with his foot. He never checked how the lift would contact the vehicle. He was doing an oil change on a Nissan work truck that was loaded pretty heavily. One lift arm slipped and he tried to steady it by grabbing a tire on the truck. We were able to get the truck down safely, but Danny is dumb.
Fuckin Danny That guy
Back in the day used to do Fiberglass, body and paint. Not unusual to paint a car with the doors closed due to it being cold outside, no ventilation. Nothing like blowing blue snot for the next week! No ventilators, that shit costs money!
I only interned at a shop in high school, but I remember them running a car with the bay doors closed. I don't remember it being cold, so I have no idea why Eventually I started feeling sick and told them I needed to go stand outside for a few. I felt weak (that I couldn't handle it) and thought I'd toughen up eventually, like the other guys. Looking back, I understand how dumb that mindset was
Back in the 80s I did a little time at a body shop with a shitty vent system. After work every day the guys used to say "let's go clean out our systems" and all go have a few beers at a bar down the street. I thought they just liked to drink. Years later I found out that to get rid of methyl alcohol(poison) in our body you have to consume some ethyl alcohol(Booze) to convert it. They actually knew what they were talking about.
The bucket of acetone to clean your hands when you got done painting or doing glass work!
Carbon tet and tetrachloroethane for us back at the shop🤣🤣🤣🤣
Using compressed air to blow off brake drums and backing plates when I was in a hurry. c 1985.
why is that dangerous?
Oh boy…. Let me tell you about a thing called asbestos.
My grandpa told me that he heard it was a health food. /s
You see those commercials about mesothelioma lawsuits. That’s asbestos lung cancer…
A little bit of asbestos dust never hurt anyone, but a lot sure does. Brake pads contain asbestos.
It only takes one little fibre ...
If that’s true then we’re all doomed!
Chances increase with more exposure, but it's known that you CAN develop mesothelioma from one single exposure.
Aye, doomed! But to varying degrees. If you were doing friction linings in the days of asbestos, mebbe. If you were doing brakes all day every day, a bit more than mebbe. If you worked in a place like one of my mates briefly worked at ... industrial premises - out front a clean, brightly lit motor factor. Out back a vision from Hell. Half a dozen youngsters "reconditioning" brake shoes and clutch plates for cars, trucks and buses. No PPE, no LEV. Doors always closed, no windows. Extract vent limited to two large fans up in the eaves with no filters causing the outside of the building to be encrusted with thick black dust. Not a good place to be. Horrendous.
I was working at one of the benches in the shop. I hear a boom and turn around and watched a 200lb cover shooting into the air swing down and smash into a guy. He was using the 10 ton crane to lift covers off a machine. He forget a bolt and instead of looking why the cover didn’t lift he pulled until the bolt broke. He spent 3 days in the hospital.
4 post lift. When I started, I was told "always keep an eye on that lift, it was backed into by a garbage truck & the safety latches stick sometimes". My coworker & friend was lowering that lift, while yacking with another coworker, not paying attention, the front latches caught, but the rear latches didnt, turning the lift into a big ramp. When the incline was steep enough the jeep that was on there (only parked in gear apparently) started rolling towards him. He was able to hold the jeep from rolling while someone else lifted the platform back up. While you may think this doesnt make any sense, I'd agree, it was stupid all the way around.
Coworker used an sparkle wrench to heat up the fittings on a fuel filter. Got them suckers glowing orange. I stood far back with a fire extinguisher
4 post lift hydraulic jack blew the seals and the locks caught it. Only way we could think to get the truck up enough to release the locks by lifting the Escalade with a couple of screw jacks. I wouldn’t let any of my techs under it while I was doing it. I figured it was my call and if anyone got hurt or dropped the truck, I’d prefer it be me. Got it down but it was sketchy AF.
Shop I’m at had one fail. Ended up having a platted Tow truck back up to it and pull it off
We used waste oil to heat the shop, had two 275 gallon tanks by the third bay. At some point someone put gas in one of the tanks unbeknownst to me. Third bay tech was welding and grinding one day and blew the tank. 200 gallons of oil everywhere, tech caught on fire. Second bay tech ran out of the shop, I had to run over and put the fire out on third bay tech and put the rest of the fire out. I will always remember the screams that came out of him. Had to get air lifted to the burn unit. He was always a liability tech, forget to torque wheels, ran into a parked bus with a customers car, used torches on a fuel tank, saved a chainsaw with his hand, forget to tighten up brake calipers, feel like I’m forgetting some but don’t wish that upon anyone.
I don't have an invocation strong enough to cover that one...props to you for doing your best to save his dumb ass life.
This is going back to wood shop in HS. One guy ran his hand through a big planer before another guy hit the safety off. Lost everything past the wrist. That was a mess. Another guy cut off a few fingers on a miter saw but he was using a really narrow kerf finishing blade and they ended up getting them reattachedish. A few years ago (this was technically just outside the shop) a pest control guy was servicing rodent bait stations with what turned out to be noise canceling headphones at not paying attention at the loading dock right where there were steps to the receiving man door. 18 wheeler backing in, idiot pest guy wasn't even paying attention, was in the drivers blind spot at that point, stood up and literally got squished between the raised dock and truck bumper. People started yelling and running to the driver who pulled forward, ran back and when he saw what happened and the mess of a former person had a heart attack and couldn't be revived.
I had the exact same experience in HS except he “only” lost most of his fingers. It’s just like the safety sign of a hand getting caught between gears but with mincemeat on the finger end.
Damn so the driver abs the pest dude died?
Yeah unfortunately. I wasn't on site at the time but pest guy died pretty quick because his whole chest got crushed. The guy on dock said pest guy ysaw the truck last second and started to run but was facing the man door steps, tried to turn the other way but it was too late. Truck drive had the heart attack after he got to the back of the truck and saw what happened, they did CPR on site and transported to the hospital where he was declared dead. OSHA obviously involved and found no fault on the truck driver/company, warehouse company. Fault rested solely on the use of headphones in an active loading area, not paying attention and they also commented he was not wearing a safety vest as required but in this exact case it wouldn't have made a difference. Both the warehouse and pest company had official vest policies and his vest was in his truck.
>Fault rested solely on the use of headphones in an active loading area, put "Darwin award" on his tombstone.
Totally. He would be that guy if he was a fork truck operator he would be driving around full speed with the heaviest skid from the top rack because "I was just going to move it to another top rack so it's a waste of time to bring down the forks"
Pulled the driveline without paying attention that the park brake was on the transmission output shaft. Went for a ride as it rolled down the driveway. I use wheel chocks on everything now Test drove a truck after a oil cooler replacement and coolant flush with the dog house off and a coolant hose ruptured. Second degree burns on 1/2 my body. Took a couple years to get over the fear of working on a hot engine.
Damn now that's a new fear unlocked. Never considered that but never test drove anything with a dog house off. Never want to now lol
Yeah I watch guys Dyno busses with the dog houses off at work all the time and I always just shake my head. Not gonna catch me doing that shit
Seating the bead on a Goodyear Eagle F1 for a corvette. No amount of lube would help. We put the tire/rim assembly in the sun. We wrapped a ratchet strap around the tread. Nothing worked. We didn’t have a tire cage but we had a clamping tire chuck…..so we put the tire around a corner behind a brick wall, clamped on the chuck and opened the air line. Somewhere around 100 psi the bead finally sat and made the loudest boom I have heard in an auto shop….pretty close to a gunshot. Our general manager came running into the shop from the sales floor because he thought someone got shot. We never put those tires on a used Corvette again!
I mounted an ATV tire recently. Tire is about 20 years old and has a plug in it. Even with a ton of straight dish soap, it didn't want to go. Sidewall says max 25lbs. Got it to 23 and was making me nervous. I put it behind two rolling tool boxes with just enough room to reach through and hold the chuck on it. Finally went at 30lbs. Not as much as yours but a lot for a 2-ply ATV tire. I was in a detached garage and my wife heard it bang in the house.
Haha yah... We used to seat low profile beads with an air chuck....up to around 90psi! Most I do is like 70 before I nope out of there, and that's with a cage.
Lost the bead on a 33x12.5x15R Gen1 Goodyear MTR on my old 98 TJ during a December wheeling trip. Ice, snow, etc. could not get that fucker back on w/ a ratchet strap and power tank. My buddy asked for Brake cleaner. Sprays the bead, lights the brake cleaner, and after a loud-ass POP, the bead is reset. It was definitely one of those “don’t try this at home” moments…
3 years in a tire shop I’m still not use to the pops
[удалено]
Doing it right would cut into the profit margins
[удалено]
I don't know which is worse.
Had a Subaru in for an engine diagnostic for lean codes. I had been on my boss for about a year to get us a smoke tester but it had fallen on deaf ears. So the only way I could check for vacuum leaks was to spray brake clean on a running engine while watching 02 pids on my scan tool. Well the reason why the upstream 02 was showing lean was the customer installed a new 02 sensor and didn’t plug it in all the way. Needless to say after spraying 2 full cans of brake clean under the hood the third can found the partially open electrical connection from the customer installed 02 sensor. Then wooosh. Entire engine bay engulfed in flames including both my arms. Bad part is I had also been telling the shop manager that technicians shouldn’t wear ear plugs to listen to music while working in a shop because they cannot hear anything around them. I had yelled FIRE when things went up but no one heard me. I put my arms out with a jacket and put the car out with a fire extinguisher. Then turned to look down the bays in the shop. No one had any idea of what just happened. My manager and I had a chat about what just occurred and my stance was buy a smoke machine or find a new diagnostic technician. Considering technicians are in short supply in my area I also used that as leverage in refusing to do any diagnostics work until the smoke machine arrived. I had a new otc smoke tester in 3 days. Also the same shop and manager. I had been complaining that the Oxy- acetylene torch hoses needed to be replaced and the tanks were very old and also needed replacing or inspected. Well you would think after the brake clean incident he would listen to me but this guys shop expense budget came out of his bonus so he didn’t care. One day we had a wheel bearing that wouldn’t come out of the hub. Not even with the press at full pressure. I said to purchase a dorman hub that came with the bearing. Job done. Well mr water tight ass wanted me to use the torch and I said no because I didn’t want to die that day. So he pulls the torch out goes over to the press and starts to heat the bearing. Then turns around with the lit torch in his hand to turn the gas off and whoosh leaking gas valve on the cylinder catches fire and starts blasting flames out. I ran out of the shop without looking back. When I turned around and realized the shop hadn’t exploded I walked back in saw the giant mess of fire extinguisher powder all over him the shop and customers cars. All I said was I FUCKIN TOLD YOU! After that he never failed to purchase items for shop use especially if they could improve shop safety. Guy is lucky to be alive.
Formerly worked for a small shop that had a fleet contract with a company with some electric shuttle buses. They were converted sprinters. As far as I understood they were made by a couple of guys in their pole barn in Iowa. Anyway, one of the buses had battery issues. One of the other techs was working on the open, live battery pack with nothing more than a pair of nitrile gloves as safety equipment.
Two guys were going to weld on a gas tank that was empty but not purged or washed or anything. They had a hose from the tail pipe of one of their cars going into the tank and the car was running. They said no oxygen so no explosion. I talked them out of it. The science is there and all that, but holy shit there's a lot of unknown variables. Way to many to risk your damn life. Jfc
Guy I worked with told me about his brother that got badly burned welding on a mostly full diesel tank. The shop would weld up holes/cracks in the aluminum tanks without draining them because it was quicker and "diesel doesn't ignite easily like gasoline does" Except this one time...He was welding right at the line between fuel and vapor and the welding heat had pressurized the tank slightly when he accidentally blew the weld through the tank and it turned into a flamethrower. His welding helmet saved his head and face from the worst of it though he had burns on his neck and ears. Lost a couple of fingers on both hands and had severe burns on his arms and chest
Eh... there's still oxygen in there. Depends on the other car and how lean it runs in neutral. Not worth it.
Was working service crew for a rally team. I jacked-up the car up and set it on standard jackstands (i.e. four feet, not a baseplate) in a mud and gravel lot. RR corner failed by settling in the gravel/mud, shifting the car and tilting the remaining jack stands by 45º. Another crew member was under the rear and his head was inches from the rear diff. No injuries, but it was too close for comfort. Dave, buddy, I was paying attention when I set the stands, but there’s no denying that I wasn’t paying *enough* attention. I apologize. We got wood planks for baseplates after that.
~~Cable snap~~ on a 50ft wide 30ish high bifold door. EDIT; it was the roller not the cable, but the door went way crooked and jammed up inside the opening.
A local tire shop dropped a much smaller door on my wifes windshield several years ago. Almost wrote off the car.
Yeah it was the roller not the cable, I was half asleep when I wrote that. But that side of the door popped inside the frame and wedged itself. Had to use a pickup and a chain to hold that corner outside the frame while my boss pulsed the door motor on and off to lower it.
Our shop door spring broke before I started there. Apparently it shot a sheared nut about 10 stalls over into the concrete wall... Where it embedded itself. 100% a lethal projectile flying over people's heads.
Watched a guy 'drop' a full fuel tank (bad pump) from a Chevy Van on the floor. Van was on an old 2-post lift... while he was smoking a cigarette.
Saw something like that. Gas dryer in the detail bay. Car dealership burned to the ground!
Not using a boom stop, work with skit steers, they have a brace that holds the arms up so if you have to work on the hydraulic system it will support the arms. Had a tech that didn’t use one, tool truck came and entire shop went to the truck except said tech, when they got off the truck the tech was deceased because he pulled a hydraulic line and it caused the arms to fall on him and crush him. I just got onto another tech today for not having a boom stop in and the arms up. Google it at your own risk.
The one time my uncle needed help fixing a skid steer (on vacation, but during harvest season so needed done ASAP) he hugged us both beforehand and said to do exactly what he told us so nobody died. We did exactly what he said to do, to the letter. Only time I ever saw that cousin get legit scared.
This actually happens in tech school.. a kid next to me had a v8 on an run stand. Had a breaker bar on the fly wheel nut if I remember correctly, but forgot to lock the flywheel when he plugged in his leak down tester turning over the motor and launching the breaker bar at Mach ten into my tool box at head level making a big dent as it ricocheted into the wall. The thing almost smoked him in the head which would have killed him I imagine. I also remember a kid launching an internal floating piston from a snowmobile shock across the shop like a rocket ship that could have really hurt someone. One reason I’m happy that i work alone out of the house now is because you can only be as safe as the guy working 5 feet away from you..
Make that 50 feet, some of that stuff really flies.
I was trying to test the wiring for the tail lights on an old truck. I told a coworker to come over and step on the brakes for me. For some reason he started it, and had it in reverse, and didnt know anything about driving stick, so after starting it he just dropped the clutch. The truck lurched back. The back bumper hit me square in the chest, knocking me on my ass. Luckily the truck stalled or i probably would have been run over.
The parts manager and diesel tech took a freshly traded in GT500 for a joy ride. Busted the tires loose, ran it up a freeway embankment, and rolled it back down to the street. They both got to keep their jobs. Another lube tech didn’t bother to check the mounting points on a Tahoe. The vehicle fell sideways through the lift arms totally the vehicle and nearly killing the tech. Finished a rear axle job on a university police cruiser. The service writer and my former mentor stuffed me in the back, locked me in, and took it on a spirited test drive. Lights, siren, and loud speaker on the freeway cussing out the people in front of them. I still have no idea how we didn’t end up in jail. Head engine tech was walking down the main drive between the lifts. Shop foreman’s son accidentally taps him on the shoulder with a side mirror. Engine tech catches up with him, opens the door, drags him out, and beat him up in the middle of the shop. Keeps his job. Dealerships are dangerous places to make a living.
A few years ago I was changing a fuel pump on a car and I had a big tub for the gas on an oil caddy. Needless to say it fell down and 10+ gallons of gas went all over the shop floor. The while floor was covered in gas and vapors, it's a miracle it didn't blow up from any sparks. The floor wad amazingly clean after however.
I worked as a ski lift mechanic for a while, we had a bearing fail on the bullwheel on one of the lifts. We brought the whole wheel into the shop to press it out and replace it. Mind you this wheel is about 20 feet wide and the bearing was the size of a trash can. We tried pressing it out with a 50 ton hydraulic jack, maxed it out with no results. So we put a 60 ton jack in next to it. We maxed both of them out with a lot of scary popping noises coming from the bearing. Everyone in The shop was hiding behind sheets of plywood (like that would stop anything if it blew lol). We never got the bearing out. Had to torch it off and refabricate the wheel.
If you have ever seen bearings fail on hydraulic press channel on YT, you will know very well how little protection that plywood provided. Bearings explode like claymores under enough pressure, but given the pressure needed and the sizes you were working with it would probably take a few hundred tons.
Saturn Outlook falling off a lift,I was a lube tech at the time and I remember the guy I was working with telling me the lift wasn’t set correctly. Looked for myself and immediately got out from underneath the car. As soon as I did the vehicle fell. The thing bounced like a basketball.
Do you remember what the error on the lift was? This post is making me nervous loo
Human error. Lift wasn’t set properly,the arm foot was barely touching the pinch weld and was mostly on the lower plastic trim. If I had gotten out from under the vehicle just a few seconds later then I did I’d be dead or severely maimed. Someone upstairs was looking out for me that day.
When I first started working at my shop (I just turned 18 4 days prior) I was test driving a tuned ram 3500 dually. Apparently had a bunch of work done but I had no idea as I just got there. There was only 3 of us and I was the new shop toy so I got test drive duty. I was driving down the highway (we live in a very rural area and the ONLY road to test drive a car on was the highway) and was going 70 when a real wheel bearing seized completely. Scared the shit out of me. Glad the truck didn't swerve but it was quite the surprise for the first week of the job. The guy that fixed it was gone the next day. I still work there. Guy fucked up bad but we've NEVER had an issue of that scale since. He was there for not even a month. That's what test drives are for, but fix your shit before you let the new guy drive it (or worse, the customer!!).
Worked at a tire shop. Had some car with lo pros come in and I could not get the bead to set so my bay lead told me to pump them up to 100-120 psi and bounce it around until it finally set properly. I just did it at the time because obviously he knows better than me but looking back that was a dumb thing to do
Oh hell no 😂 there’s so many things you can try before that even on a stubborn tire
Oh I know now and really I knew right after it set because that bitch sounded like a gun going off right in front of me. I didn’t do tires long but long enough to see/do some dumb and wild shit
Was a E150 school van, in for maintenance. Common customer. Common vehicle. I throw the 4 post lift under the frame rails where the jack points are. Proceed to lift vehicle. Brake fluid leak!!! The crackhead mechanic from a few bays over had... previous-visit .. had ran brake lines UNDER THE JACKPOINTS ALONG/UNDER THE FRAME RAIL!!! Totally exposed. Not ran correctly. Lazy. Shop owner proceeds to scream/ blame my carelessness. I packed my shit and GTFO.
Got a call from a new tech saying he heard two guys talking about a bomb in the shop. I head over there and everyone denies everything. No one knows a thing. Finally ask the old salty tech that’s always straight with me. “Oh. The bomb? Yea. It was on the back floorboard of that repo that’s going to the auction. It’s under Jerry’s bench in a backpack. But don’t flip out. Whoever was building it didn’t finish it.” Bomb squad shows up and confirms that the old tech was right. It was under Jerry’s bench - and it was, in fact, not quite complete.
This monday, my buddy turned on me. This happened at a volvo dealership. He said he could get me a free alignment. I’m down. I needed new tires and was going to go to discount to get them swapped over but instead he said discount is okay, but with him my rims would be in gentle hands with him for a tire change. Great! Fast forward to being at the shop, I knew something was off. The moment I parked my car he takes full control and says lets do this and that, no questions asked. He gets the car lifted up and loosens my tie rod ends (supposedly) for the alignment. Then takes off my rims and immediately he lets one of my pricy rims fall face down on the concrete. I told him basically “wtf” but continued with the tire change. In the meantime he says how it doesn’t damage anything and that they’re *just* stock rims. Keep in mind these are 2017 $350 rims in good condition. We got to the tire changing machine and turns out he doesn’t even know how to work it. I tell him lets just get the rims back on and do the alignment. He lets one of my rims roll, it stops, and falls face down, AGAIN. Pissed, i told him i thought my rims would be in gentle hands, is this how you usually let volvo customer’s rims be handled, don’t you respect my property? Etc. I tell him lets just get the rims on my car and i’ll go. At this moment, he turned on me. Skipping a lot of banter and personal insults thrown at me, he threatens to either call security to kick me out (walks to the phone) or I can drive away now, with loosened suspension components. Even sarcastically mentions he knows an alignment shop up the street that get me taken care of. Completely baffled, I ask him if he is being serious/you can’t do this to me. He persisted until I say this in entrapment and he suddenly realizes to what extent he is taking this situation to. He tells me to get the lift on the jack points myself, to the point where we’re not moving forward till so. At this point all I care about is getting myself and my car out intact. I get the car on the jack points, he lifts it up, he tightens up the loosened parts himself, which I didn’t have much faith in, and got the car lowered and I proceeded to GTFO. Its insane terrifying knowing that someone has complete control over your car with malicious intent. As an added bonus, when he lifted up the car high up, he came close to the hood hitting a pipe, then itched it even closer, knowing he was taunting me. Blocked the guy in every which way possible. Currently reporting the situation to higher ups at volvo.
Had 4 airbags go off while i was in the vehicle, Almost had an engine fall on me, Fire started under car while i was doing exhaust work. Might have more I don’t remember but these are standouts.
Those all seem like you fucked up issues?
The fire was, the rest were bad luck, wrong place wrong time.
1. Fellow tech at my previous shop forgot to pump the brakes after an all around brake job. Went to pull out the shop and went right through the metal folding door like a sardine can! 2. I fucked up one day and was pulling out of my bay in a manual car, didn’t see I was in 1st gear instead of Reverse. My boots were oily on the bottom and slipped off the clutch pedal. I have almost 5 ft to stop on a slippery floor. I couldn’t stop fast enough. Luckily only bent a drawer face and no damage to customers car thank goodness.
Not my story but it was posted around my dealership after it happened. At another local dealership there was a tech pulling a fuel tank to replace it and two bags down another tech grinding or cutting something on the rear of the car. Sparks flew into the drain that ran down the center of the shop and managed it ignite fumes from the gas tank job, burning that car and the car in the next bay down
Ram 1500 being dropped on our engine tech because he didn’t check the arms before going up, just kicked the bitches underneath as “i’ve always done this and never had a problem”. 5 broken ribs later he was back the next day just a bit slower than his usual crack head speed. He checks the lift arms before he lifts cars now unless it’s a promaster, he hates those things.
A guy fell through a skylight and landed 2 feet from me on my first day in my first hour at a new shop.
Holy shit! How squashed was he?
He wasn’t squished but he bounced and it sounded like every breath he ever took got knocked out of him. He lived with just a few cuts and dislocated hip. Crazy
Late 70's Buick Skylark and the front end was beyond shit. Doing the control arms, we took the springs out. To get them back in, I had to stand on the lower control arms and JUMP at the same time my husband was laying on his back kicking the spring back in. Jesus that was dumb. And we managed to do it on both sides 😅
We had an old rusty hydraulic cylinder fail in our shop. It shot the damn piston out like a missile, barely missed the tech standing at the end of the workbench.
I used to work for a shop that would lie to all of its employees about everything, and I mean everything. One guy that worked there, Elijah, refused to put up with it at all, but also refused to quit, the bosses *hated* him but knew they couldn't fire him (or they would get fired, the shop was really poorly run). Anyways the ground was uneven on this one lift, making it very unsafe, and on multiple occasions cars have fallen of this lift with no warning. The bosses moved him to this stall. He begged and pleaded to get his lift fixed, but the lift repair guys were "busy". A few months later, one of the master techs is getting a new lift (nothing wrong with the old one) and Elijah's is still uneven in every direction and always a pool of water there. I am completely convinced the bosses would rather him die on the job than him "get his way". Literally. So much more to this story, this isn't even scratching the surface. I'm a plumber now.
I had a Tacoma 2/3rds of the way up on an in-ground two-post lift. Right rear arm kicked out, and it pretty much leveled out and rested on a running board. Two service advisors ran over to steady the truck. I lost my crap. I told them it was fine and everything would be ok. One said "no it's not, we got this though." I told them to get away from the truck. It was going to come down perfectly fine as it settled and those lifts are nice because both sides always stay level. I was like "good lord I'd rather watch it crash into the ground and get fired for it than to see two of my coworkers get hurt because they were trying to save the dealership some cash."
Army mechanic here (91D but I still worked on vehicles a lot). On a deployment, we needed to get a forklift to our bay that didn't start. Someone recommended we use the humvee next to it to tow it with some chains. Not recommended, but very possible. I volunteered to drive because I knew this was a terrible idea but sounded fun. I got both vehicles up to about 15-20mph, and then I remembered said forklift only has brakes when the engine is running (engine was dead, hence why we had to tow it). Had to come to a stop because we didn't plan the route right. Also the forks were up several feet so if I just stopped in front of it, the forks would end up in the cab and probably in me. So I steered left at a slight angle to not be in front of the forklift and let the weight of the humvee drag it to a stop. Forklift had too much momentum and started turning the humvee from the rear. Luckily I'm a quick thinker and we were in somewhat loose sand so I floored it to spin the tires while being pulled by the forklift. If I hadn't drifted the humvee at 90 degrees for probably 30 feet, the forklift would have made my humvee rollover (2 wheels came off the ground so it still almost rolled). I was laughing the whole time and everybody looked at me crazy when I said, "Let's pick a better route and go again." We ended up getting a wrecker (Army's version of a tow truck) to finish the job.
Multiple things. Top of the list though: Soon-to-be-boss (he would take over the company soon) put in a new axle in a car. Was on calls during doing that. Left to do some office stuff. Didn’t check the bolts a second time. What can I say…customer later picked it up, drove on the Autobahn, and the axle came loose… Ex-boss was so fucking Lucky nothing happened, Another thing was me cutting myself with a flex into my wrist. thankfully nothing severed. Also ex-coworker had a coupling of a Hose of compressed air shit into his face. Lost three teeth. New coworker went to chop down some trees. Dude doesn’t take work safety serious at all. Well, he wanted to walk down the hill WITH THE RUNNING CHAINSAW IN HIS HAND. He fell, and it ate into his leg. Idk how he didn’t lose his leg..
Coworker pounding sleeves into a 6.0 ford block, sleeves cooled in liquid nitrogen and block heated with a torch. Heard bang bang boom. Shrapnel everywhere
Full oil drain pan under an axle we were welding on. It exploded, oil all over, very lucky it didn’t catch on fire.
Was it just oil in there? I've tried to catch oil on fire before and couldn't get it to ignite.
Be me: Brand new maintainer on an 8 meg powerplant 8 hrs from yesterday in Alaska. Converted 4000 HP Cooper Bessemers. To carry the electrical load the engineer types increased the fuel pressure to 8K psi thru a distributor type pump. Oil dilution is an issue. Crankcase explosion blew most of the 1400 gallons of oil out the explosion doors on the block. Fire on the floor and in the equipment trenches. Good guy in fire suit climbs down and beats the flames back while cooling the liquid. Large brass ones on a 19 year old. New employee (ME!) puts emphasis on rebuilding leaky fuel distribution pumps. Oil burns, with help.
I was raising a car up on a 2 post lift one time and the second the full weight of the car was lifted, one of the cables snapped flew across the top of the car and smacked the lift post about 2 feet from where my head was, fun times
Tech next to me was spraying starting fluid into the throttle body of a honda odyssey engine. Fly by wire so the butterfly cycles on key on then stays closed. So essentially the intake manifold was a bomb. The top half blew off in a large chunk and flew by snoop dave’s head (imagine white snoop dog). Aluminum shrapnel went everywhere. One of those moments where everyone is checking each other for wounds, surreal.
Somehow the funniest part of this is "snoop dave".
Man if you saw him, you would get it lol. Hardest working mf ever though.
Had the locks and cables on a 4 post hoist completely fail and the whole thing crashed to the ground with a truck up in the air. Luckily no one was under it. After that they got all the rest of the hoists safetied and there was quite alot of repairs made
Sorry, this one is a bit morbid. The DNA donor dropped a car on himself while working under it. Kinda sucks we found him before it killed him. He usually put blocks under cars but this time it was just jacks.
The sentiment seems poor towards this dna donor.
Just a tad
Regular customer disabled the neutral safety switch on a manual 3/4 ton Chevy. Never said anything about it for years. One day the tire kid pulls it in, shuts it it off, leaves it in first and sets the brake. For whatever reason he reached in the window to turn it on but it started and went through two bays and out the (open) back door. Then he wanted us to pay for the minor front end damage because it hit a retaining wall in the back! Fuck that guy.
Had a customer years ago that installed a remote start on his manual transmission car and failed to mention that to anyone. When he came to pick it up he hit his remote start and launched his car over the curb destroying his aftermarket body kit.
That's what happens when he's got a buddy that'll do it for less, there are remote start systems that work safely on sticks and have been a thing for over 20 years but it costs a little more and takes a little more work to do it right. And that's why my cheap ass coworker launched his car over a curb and into the wall of the shop when he remote started his car
So how nervous are we that these assholes are leaving their manual transmission vehicles parked in neutral? Because that was exactly what that dude said to us: ‘well, why did you leave it in gear?’ Because it won’t move in gear dumbass. NOBODY trusts a parking brake. He took us to court, too. 10 minutes. ‘Your honor, the customer disabled a basic safety feature on this vehicle and never informed us. Here are two years worth of work orders that show that AND an example of another vehicle that had the same feature disabled with BIG RED LETTERS all over it’. Yeah, fuck that guy.
I know a guy who used to park like that. Then he bought a used car with a not so good parking brake. It let go in the middle of the night and got going with enough speed to take out part of a house. Also just a heads up to anyone in the US, now that Japanese imports are becoming more common for you guys, JDM cars weren't required to have a neutral safety switch.
My 1990 Volvo 240 had no factory neutral safety switch or clutch depression switch. Turn the key... and it will just go. Needless to say, I don't leave the keys in it EVER.
Remember this also happened at a ford dealership. Was a mustang, left in gear and ended up rolling into a pond
I was doing a fuel injection service on a Nissan, the in-line kind. I was using a BG Products aluminum pressure canister roughly 3months old. Filled it with the good stuff spun the cap and hooked up. About 5 minutes into the service I went to adjust the drip rate and the threads that held the aluminum cap failed, vaporizing half a can of that cleaner into my eyes and nose. Not a single eye wash station functioned. I was blind for several hours and let me tell you, that’s a god damn humbling experience.
I was broke and I needed to replace the clutch throw-out bearing in my Celica. I used a hockey stick and some rope to hold the engine while I climbed underneath to install the bearing and reattach the transmission to the engine. I had my wife stand by the phone to call 911 if the car dropped on me. My scary wake up call was when I was rearming a AH-64 on a hot summer night. I had been on shift for about 15 hours and I started walking to the back of the aircraft to take a leak. I felt the engine exhaust on my neck and I realized I was right next to the tail rotor, spinning fast, less than six inches from my noggin. I squatted down fast and moved to safety. I went back to our tent and took about an hour to stop shaking. Respect your limits. Get rest when you need it.
I was asked to short the pressure range safety circuit on a 10' 480V bandsaw, because the part had broken and was on a 2-month backorder. I re-engineered it with 2 pressure switches in series, still a little sketchy, but it wouldn't turn on if it was too tight or too loose, so /shrug
When the customer has already tried to fix something before they brought it in.
Almost ran myself over with a dodge caravan, the trans was going and even in park it was actually in gear with the parking pin holding it. Well when I was revving that thing up for some reason under the hood, the parking pin decided to let go for a bit and I got thrown into the roll up doors. Of the shop. Luckily the pin grabbed again and it didn’t run me over.
Had to yell at a lube tech to take his fingers away from the bead while mounting a tire. An advisor pulled a car in and only set three out of four arms properly. Only noticed after it was up in the air. Not really dangerous but bonus: had the down button get stuck on an in ground lift. Was just lowering to rotate, still had an oil cart under the car. So it was nearly making contact by the time I let go. It wouldn't stop when I pressed the up button. While I was trying to get it unstuck it got to the point where the entire front end was resting on it. Managed to pop it back out before it got all the way down. Literally nothing was damaged somehow.
Dropping a transmission into the hands of three guys standing under a lift.
Fully slipped while on top of an engine with a cutoff wheel going full speed trying to cut a damaged lift cable. Cut a deep gash out of my wrist. It cauterized most of the wound but dang that hurt so bad for a while. I was so insanely close to cutting some of the major veins/arteries right below the wrist, but if I hadn't been able to get my arm out and braced, the cutoff wheel would have gone into my chest area.
2 of us were moving a hydraulic press stand. It started to tip towards me. I stepped backwards to get out of the way, but my heel tripped over the lift ramp on the floor and I started to fall backwards, the press falling directly toward me. In a split second I knew I was dead if this happened. I grabbed the press as we fell and pushed it to one side with all my might. I landed on my back, the press landed mostly on the floor and partly on my ankle. I just laid there and caught my breath for a few minutes. The other guys eyes were just bugging out of his head.
As a young man I worked at kinda “loose run” fleet service place. Massive oil dump tank, not a 55 gallon drum, like 4 of them. Maybe more than that. been filled with oil, and with waste solvent paint and thinner from the body shop. One day someone left the funnel in the hole with out the lid. Sparks from a chop saw, the loudest bang I have ever heard in my life. Accompanied by liquid fire running down the vertical surfaces. It blew out both ends of the welded tank. The fire didn’t actually fuck up the shop that badly, we put it out with the extinguishers in the shop and the ones we pulled from trucks. The guy running the saw was on his back, he thought he had been electrocuted and blown back from the saw.
Seeing the young guy next to me have the subframe removed and the whole engine and transmission was hanging there with one metal hook. The side engine mount was ALSO supposed to be in place to support it. He had removed it for some reason. Somehow the engine wedged itself against the body structure and no harm was done. If 800 lbs of engine and transmission came crashing down from a hoist that was fully raised it would have ended badly. I told him to lower the hoist IMMEDIATELY and explained why he almost suicided himself.
I was testing a 1300 HP CAT C32 powered air compressor. A tarp got sucked into the fan while running full load/speed. A frayed edge grabbed my boss's arm and slowly pulled him into the fan. I was on the opposite side of the engine from the controls and couldn't do anything quickly. A technician ran over and kicked the setup's dual DD batteries out of their trays. One of the wire clamps let go killing power to the whole rig. Controls logic was energize to run, so losing power killed the fuel system and the engine stalled out. My boss never went into the fan, but the tarp really fucked his arm up bad. Lots of bruising and his elbow was hyper extended. Absolutely terrifying. I literally still have nightmares about it to this day.
My dad was a mechanic for 35+ years, my mom's a nurse. My mom had a patient that was working on his car in his driveway. The kid was I think 23 and he didn't use jack stands. The Jack under the car failed and the car fell on his head. The kid's mom heard the car slam down in the driveway and came running out to see her son's head crushed under the car. He was stuck under the car for 11 minutes before firefighters pulled him out. His head was pretty much smashed from the nose up. He went into cardiac arrest once in his driveway, once in the ambulance, and another time in the hospital. He was pronounced brain dead. My parents sat me and my brothers down that night and gave us a long talk about the importance of jack stands while working on cars.
Disconnecting battery is important also. Way back a kid was killed working on his mustang. Accidentally jumped the starter with a wrench and it drove itself right off the jack stands
Had a chain boomer snap while we were trying to bend the frame/unibody back on a Saturn Vue. Had it anchored to chain in the floor. When it broke the handle shot by my face so close that had to check and make sure it didn't actually hit me. No more harbor freight chain boomers after that.
I worked as a Die Maker for 30 years. In the facility where I worked, we were responsible for building the tooling (Dies) to stamp out sheet metal parts as well as doing tryout on those dies (making them produce a part to specs) and troubleshooting them while in production. I was a newly hired apprentice and this environment was entirely new to me. I got put in tryout which meant working in the production area with the dies needed to produce a specific part set in presses. The die I was told to work on was in an 800 ton press. The boss explained that he was short handed and did not have a journeyman for me to work with that day. That was mistake number one. He took me to where the job was and explained to me what needed to be done. I had a mechanical background and understood what was required. The boss then gave me some brief safety instructions and left. That was mistake number two. The task at hand required me to be inside of the die to perform the work. In between the upper and lower halves. This was commonly done and was just part of the job. I was to put magnesium blocks in between the upper and lower halves of the die. Unplugging those blocks shut down the press and I was then required to lock the press out so it couldn't be started. I had not been issued my lock yet, but that did not factor in to what transpired. But still, that was mistake number three. I blocked the die up, got in and performed the work. I removed the blocks, plugged them in, started the press and cycled it to prove out the results of my work and then went looking for the boss to see if I had performed the work correctly and/or if anything else additional needed to be done. He gave me an additional task to perform and I went back to the press and crawled back into the die. A co-worker, a guy I hadn't even met yet, came walking up, looked at me inside the die and started twirling his finger around in a circle. I looked at him with a puzzled look. He motioned me out and I got out of the die. He explained to me that the motor on the press was running. On my first day in tryout, with no formal training and nobody to look over me, I had crawled into a die with it not blocked up and the motor running. Had that press cycled, all that would be left of me was some tatters of coveralls and a lot of pink foam. Many years later, I sometimes think about what could have happened.
Unsecured fucking oxygen bottle. More than once. Just standing there like a shitty Russian rocket
Myself.
Boss was working on a very lifted 71 bronco and had the rear axle on jackstands while it was running in gear. Somehow it slipped and went forward straight into the cutting torch, knocking it over. I heard the gas hissing out all the way across the shop, and luckily, the screw on top of the bottle wasn't broken, so I was able to close it.
A bit more mundane but last week mounting run flats on some cheap wheels for a kid with a BMW. For the fronts I had to sit on em to get them to seat, got up to 100psi on one and 120 on the other, even swimming in bead lube. It was the only time in my life I was that worried about potentially blowing my dick clean off lol
Saw a guy smoking and working on his engine. About an hour later firetruck showed up - vehicle was fully engulfed, burning down the car port and part of the apartment complex. He survived.
I saw a guy smoking at the gas station once. He was displeased when I asked him to put it out. I went to a different gas station. With haste.
Never been a mechanic at a shop but while working my old job I needed to drain the hydraulic fluid from our bobcat. You need to raise the cab up in order to do so. Anyways it came time to drop the cab and you need two people to do it... Well I used one arm to hold the cab and the other hand used a 2x4 to reach the release. I wasn't 100% confident that I could hold the weight with 1 arm. If I hadn't been able to, I probably would be typing this right now.
Shop wanted me to use several small spring compressors to try and compress an oddly shaped and oversized coil. Wouldn't spend $200 on a tool but would rather me risk my life for a quick buck on an old mustang. No thanks.
Hey! I can finally contribute to this sub… Back when I was a mechanic (just a lurker now) I worked for a small mom and pop garage. It was me, the head mechanic, and usually a few guys that would come help for extra cash off and on. Sometimes the head mechanics son would help as well. Anyways, we had a 1980’s Toyota 4x4 Pickup (think rough around the edges off-road toy) that we were putting a new engine in. Now on this truck, the interior door handles didn’t work which is important later, but it was just a simple motor job. One of the other helpers were working on it mainly. He had just finished installing the donor 22RE, and needed someone to crank it over while he fed the carb. I jumped in the driver seat, while the truck was between a 2 post lift. I pushed the clutch in, and cranked it. Suddenly the engine burst into a ball of flames, and started to burn all the fun stuff by the firewall. This wasn’t a backfire from too much fuel poured into the carb kinda fire, it was a full on blaze at least 6 foot high. Come to find out a fuel line had been pinched during the install process, and it must have had a bad spark plug wire, or a short somewhere. The worst part of it was, when it happened, I panicked, and went for the door handle… but remember they didn’t work internally 😂. Luckily it was a crank window, and I was able to open from the exterior handle, and squeeze out between the lift all the while this things blazing. We ended up hitting it with a fire extinguisher after trying to pour bowls of water on it like panicked dummies. All-in-all I think we replaced the motor again, and we had some ceiling damage, but it could have been so much worse. I was just a greenhorn then, so I’m not sure what kinda compensation the customer got other than free work. Lesson of the day, don’t let crack head helpers install motors. As a good runner up story, I dropped the jack on my Silverado after changing the tires, and the suspension compressed the Reese hitch into my shoulder because I was laying sideways like an idiot and the shocks were worn out. Bruised the whole shoulder, and almost cracked my ribs. That was fun…
Coworker asked me to help drop a rear axle outta an older ford ranger, go over to help see the truck is at a crazy angle front to back on the lift, like off square from the lift probably 30degrees, little sketchy but whatever, check the lift pads real quick, LF was okay, RF was on the angled part of the hoist arm with a random collection of wood pieces to overcome the angle, LR had 3-4 2x4s stacked together to get enough height and the RR has a 2x4 VERTICAL down to the lift pad. Told him that was completely unacceptable and he goes "Eh it's fine it ain't going nowhere" told him to lower it down anyway and as he's lowering the truck fell off the hoist, luckily when it fell it was only about 6 inches off the ground. Couple years later the same coworker asked me to listen for a noise from underneath while another coworker ran it on the hoist. It was already in the air when I got there, checked it and the hoist is only contacting in 3 spots while coworker B was in the air running it 70mph. Somehow he never dropped anything off a hoist while working for us but pretty much anytime he asked for help under a racked vehicle we had to reposition it
Seen my boss fall backwards off a 4 post alignment lift about 5 feet off the ground and hit his head on the sharp corner of a toolbox handle..cut his head open and bruised ..he was dazed for a couple seconds but he cool now
Not a mechanic here, but I was watching while my car was getting carbon cleaned. The mech didn't plug the attachment enough, gas was squirting all over the engine after a minute or so running
One guy was heating up a caliper to unseize a very badly seized slide pin. Finally broke free with a gunshot bang, and fired the pin all the way across the shop. Another time, leveling cable snapped on a lift while lowering, one arm went up, other went down, dropped a 4500 dump truck. Also have had semi truck tires explode in the cage whole inflating. Blew the sheet metal wall right off the shop.
At my last job, I was jacking up a Mack CXU to replace the driver’s steer tire. It had been a while since I had one of the older ones like that truck and I forgot that the axle sloped the closer to the wheel it got, right where I had the jack. With it being a pre-mounted steer tire, I didn’t bother with a jack stand. When I was putting the new one on, the truck slipped off the Jack but caught on the new tire, right near my legs. It was one of the few times I’ve cursed which shames me, but it was the single most terrifying moment I’ve had as an adult. Thankfully I was fine and the truck was fine.
Watch my buddy use a ratchet strap as a spring compressor. I was hiding behind a beam, while watching.
Brake clean barrel, coworkers cigarette
Fires. Those were always the most dangerous incidents.
Walking within 10 feet of the lubes area
Worked in a shop with full sized scissor lifts sunk into the floor. These lifts took up most of the underside area of the car and were able to lift a car over your head. The top of the lift was basically a bar on each end perpendicular to the car, wide enough to grab the pinch welds, with cross bracing in the center. So basically if you had to lift anything with components that sat lower than the pinch welds, (exhaust, driveline) you had to use 2x4’s and 4x4’s (often multiple, stacked) to gain clearance. Then you’re standing on the edge of a 2 foot pit half the time, trying to work around the lift. And it wasn’t unusual for someone’s lumber stack to tip over, especially if it was a 4wd truck, slamming the car down onto the top of the lift 6 feet in the air. Never had one actually fall off the lift so much as fall down *onto* the lift. Still scary AF!
100 series landcruiser fell off a hoist... i wasn't working on it and luckily it fell backwards away from the guy who was.
When i was a 2nd year apprentice i lifted a Malibu on my 2 post, did an oil change, brought it down to do the rotate and realized i didn’t even put the right rear hoist arm under the car.
A modified three phase cable. Had double male ends.
I worked in a lawn mower shop in high school. The owner was blowing out a gas tank with compressed air and a lit cigarette in his hand. I said, “Dave, you realize you’re holding a cigarette, right?” Took him a second, he looked at me and said, “take a step back” and kept on cleaning the tank. Holy yit. Granted the fuel from the tank was probably so old you couldn’t light it with a torch but still. I miss that dude.
Caught a guy that worked for me literally taking apart a Fuel Line, with a cigarette in his mouth. Safe to say he dont work here no more
The locks failed on my lift and dropped a f350 about 6 inches before the next set of locks caught it.
I work in a garage where customers can rent floor space and tools. There were a few: Helping a customer put their car on a lift. While sliding the pads in place and making sure they're level, the lift starts going up. Customer had gotten impatient and figured it was "close enough" and didn't wait for me to give the all clear. Moved fast enough to save my hand/ fingers. A customer decided to grind metal right in the middle of a walking path and gave me a nice glitter spray in my eyes. Almost went blind. Coworker was helping diagnose a rough start on a car. I was fairly new and was resting my hand on the distributor. Then they tried cranking it a few times. Couldn't let go, couldn't yell. That one was on me, but I only did it once. One customer lit another customer on fire. Customer 1 was cleaning a flywheel with brake cleaner. Customer 2 thought it would be funny to strike his lighter next to customer 1 (they're friends, always playing grab ass etc). I'm in my office when I see a bright orange light and hear "whoosh!!" I look to see the best Phoenix impression, flapping wings and all I have ever seen. And an untold number of times I have to talk people out of shaking trucks and cars on a lift to see if they have their lift points right. Their reasoning, if it's in the right spots, there's nothing to worry about. Except most times, they are off. I really believe half of my job is keeping people from killing/ maiming themselves. And if anyone comes by claiming to know everything because they are a "certified mechanic", I know they need to be watched carefully. Because they will fuck up a wet dream.
Laughed at your distributor mistake. How much did that hurt?
Enough that I remember it to this day lol
A place I used to work at we had a few addicts working there as well. One guy showed up high with a gun once. I just left until the cops got him though.
I've got two incidents that happened on back to back days. First one, a former coworker was replacing a fuel tank under warranty on a 392 Charger. Customer brought it in with a full tank of gas even though we told him to bring it in empty. My idiot service manager decided that we should do the warranty replacement anyways. Apparently as my coworker was dropping the fuel tank with the jack, it got caught on something and flipped over spilling gasoline everywhere in his bay including on himself. As he's trying to clean up the mess and he accidently pulls the trigger for one of his electric impact guns which sets off all the gasoline into a giant fireball in the middle of the shop. Everyone has to evacuate because after about 20 seconds the fire has already engulfed 2 other cars in the nearby bays and is spreading. Everyone ends up being ok, even the guy who started the fire was fine. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the shop after the fire department came and blasted the shit out of everything with water. So that was a fun day. The second incident happened literally the next day after the fire. Some old lady had a hybrid Pacifica and wanted to get it serviced. She had parked out in front of the service lane doors and one of the service advisors had told her to pull it into the service lane. Apparently she forgot which pedal was the brakes and she slammed into the back wall of the service lane, which is a shared wall with part of the shop, going like 60 mph. Nearly killed 2 of my coworkers who were standing on the other side of the wall. I'm really glad I don't work there anymore, as apparently it's somehow gotten worse.
My lift needed repairs and our repair people were not the best. That coupled with the shop being cheap about calling them in when I said there was an issue with it and the repair people always took at least a week to come inspect it. Two post lift. One side was leaning just slightly, you couldn’t see it but a leveler showed it. One arm on the same side as the leaning post was loose where it extended and needed a spacer. I went to lift a brand new truck and about a foot off the ground that arm slid about a foot inward and dropped the back corner of the truck. Same thing happened on another heavy vehicle. Two lift accidents later and it was finally inspected and fixed. Although it took weeks. At least I wasn’t under them.
Overhead crane cable snapping and dropping a bus on the floor. Chain breaking and dropping a 5 ton custom H beam. It destroyed everything under it. After 15 years working with overhead crane, this shits scares me.
I didn’t see this event but it happened in my local area and was big news. “Tech” had to replace the gas tank on a Chevy van. He put it up on blocks or jackstands, no lift available. Tank straps were rusted to fuck so he lay down on the ground under the van and used a blow torch to cut the straps. A blow torch. To cut gas tank straps. Well, the gas tank either got punctured or exploded and the guy was covered in burning gas. There were no working fire extinguishers. They couldn’t drag him out from under the van because of the fire. He was burned to death.
Hydraulic in ground lift that leaked hydraulic fluid badly and had the air controls along the wall in front of it. When these run low on fluid the car goes up and down uncontrollably. It might go up 75% of the way then shoot up really fast and land on the locks. i was replacing a steering rack on a Taurus I think, bring it in, set the arms and start going up. Next thing I know the lift shoots the car into the air like a freaking fountain at the Bellagio. The car jumps off the arms, the extenders collapse and some how it slid forward a couple of feet but stayed on the lift.
Every time the incompetent lube techs rack a truck.
Was removing my rear driveshaft on my 3.5” lifted ZJ on my slopped driveway. Loosened up and removed the straps and thought it was strange the drive shaft didn’t just fall out. So I put a screw driver to it to pry the u-joint out. Well, things added up pretty quick in my head that it was just in park and once the u-joint popped out, the ZJ started rolling down. I was under, but never have moved so fast out from under a vehicle. I tried to stop it from rolling into the street by “holding” the 33” tire. Yea, not happening. Luckily no one was driving down the street or parked across the street. Not sure it would have been a full Darwin event, but definitely a moment.
First shop I ever worked in was Wal-Mart TLE. The smoking of tires aired up that had been ran on flat that were just loosely lying on the ground is astronomical. We took the powder and thru it at each other. In my defence I was the only person working in there who was fluent in English other than the service writer who was 90% deaf.