Previous Owner Horror Stories

In reply to Strizzo:

Cheap alternative to "acoustic fill," oftentimes used for DIY speaker building.

My basket-case 240SX's interior lights never worked (nether did the head-up display speedometer or odometer), so the PO installed some PepBoyz blue interior lights that ran from the cigar lighter to the intstrument cluter. They were aimed with ball-and-socket joints, but one would never stay aimed at the IC. They were too dim to be of any use except to illuminate one gauge at a time, so I kept one aimed at the temperature gauge.

My FC's front windshield wiper switch and horn didn't work when I bought it, so the PO rigged up a horn activated by a doorbell in front of the IC and the front wipers with a toggle switch that would get very hot after 30 minutes. He cut the wires from the wiper motor to the stock wiring harness and spliced some wiring from the wiper motor to the toggle switch. Turning the wipers off was not fun as I would either get zapped by the exposed wires or burned by the hot toggle switch. I found out S4 RX-7s suffered from cold solder joints after the insepctor pointed out that my brake lights didn't work, either.

I eventually pulled out the wiper switch and the circuit board that housed the horn and brake lights. I resoldered some joints, installed new relays in the wiper switch, rewired the wiper motor back to the stock harness, and put everything back together. Worked like new. The toggle switch is gone, but I still have the extra horn installed. I'll pull it eventually.

aahhh man. this one is great. My 01 P71 the PO said it needs new batery terminals. No biggie right. BTW thise a car I test drove for about an hour. So the next day I drop my daughter off at day care drove about a block the car stops. So I look at the terminals, yep there ok. The car did it one more time befor I got to work.

Long story short the car HAD NO COOLENT in it at all. So the water temp gauge never did eny thing. So the motor was warp to hell and now my P71 says it has 98k on it but the motor has 28k.

On a good note the ford dearlship only quote'd me the motor to be pull'd not pull and put back in so I got half off on the instal of my motor for the P71.

BTW this is the frist water cool'ed in 12 years

In no particular order, the '37 GMC pickup with a drum that was 1/2" narrower than the shoes on the left rear, the '59 TR3 with floors made of galvanized roofing material & sheet metal screws, multiple floors repaired with STOP signs, the Dodge van professionally rewired in all yellow wire, old pieces of extension cord do seem to be the preferred repair kits for lighting on old British cars, the nail in place of a glass fuse, the bit of belt in place of a rod bearing, the coffee can hammered flat & bonded over a hole in the block, the Mazda aftermarket radio wired so that the antenna went up when you turned off the radio. My fingers grow tired before my memory wears out.

Nothing huge, but here are a few marks that the PO left on my 03 Focus SVT:

Car alarm that I haven't uninstalled; I just disarmed it and don't mess with the key fob (I just use my key to get in the car). I actually forgot that it even exists... It feels like I will awaken a monster if I try it out now.

Ghastly red "carbon fiber" trim that left even worse trim glue when I removed it. I have replaced the more unsightly pieces with new OEM stuff; it looks so much better as a result.

I had a '67 Opel Kadette wagon. The PO repaired the quarter panels by riveting on blue plastic mini-toboggans and slathering them with bondo. That was the only car I ever bought in the dark. Later on I had a '65 Ford F-250 pickup truck. The front cab mounts had rusted away, so the PO stuck metal fenceposts through the rust holes and wedged them between the frame and the underside of the dashboard to hold the whole thing up.

Since I buy new I don't have to deal with PO's, but my brother-in-laws are into "project cars". One in particular buys "riced out" cars from kids who "got tired of it" or "ran out of money". He makes some good money from cleaning them up and "flipping" them.

Most of them come with some type of aftermarket entertainment system which is where I get involved. My job is to uninstall the usually screwed up mess and put it back to stock.

About a year ago he bought a nice looking Civic that "didn't run quite right". He told me it seemed a bit slugish on the way home form picking it up one afternoon. so I stopped by that evening to check it out. As we pulled out of the driveway I noticed that the lights were flickering. When I turned on the "sound system" it was like we threw out an anchor.

Returned to his garage and checked out the wiring. Looked like the PO had hacked out large portions of the wiring harness and replaced it with Radio Shack speaker wire (lamp cord would have been better).

I told my BIL to leave it sit until I could look at it on the weekend. He didn't listen to me and took it out the next night to show it to one of his friends. Damm thing caught fire and burnt to the ground!!!

When I picked up the 57 Chevy most of the wiring connections under the hood were done with wire nuts. The under dash wiring was best described as a rat's nest. Over the year or so that I owned it, it ran flawlessly and I never fixed any of it.

Jensenman wrote: Ho lee crap. I've been messing with Britmobiles for years so the bodging stories are nearly endless, most involve that brown lamp 'zip' cord and masking tape to repair wiring.

My Spitfire was like that, only the zip cord was transparent yellow and the owner had merely twisted the wires together, omitting the masking tape. There was also a jury rigged switch for turning the radiator fan on. Ironically, the reason it suffered an electrical fire was not because of the previous owner's rewiring, but because there was no circuit breaker, fusible link, fuse, or any form of overcurrent protection on the headlights at all, from the factory. Had a wire to the headlights fray out, short, and send the high beam switch up in flames. But what is it with LBCs and lamp cord? It's like they somehow manage to have both the worst factory wiring and the worst previous owner wiring at the same time.

My Civic, though, had the Spitfire beat for inexplicable PO problems. It's been a real lemon, and when it needed a break job I was so sick of wrenching on it that I dropped it off at the local mechanic. He called back the next day to tell me that the driver's side brake was an inch larger diameter than the passenger's side.

My mg came with no wiring - all connections clipped. Custom valences made out of landscaping border drilled into the body with drywall screws. Also had a custom interior made out of luan - again, drywall screw mounted. Some carpet - seemed to be a rubber backed bath mat. #1 piston was in little pieces in the bottom of the oil pan.

The rocker panels in my old bronco had window screen backing with a generous layer of bondo sculpted to the general shape of a rocker panel. Silver and black astroturf was liquid nailed to perfect original (ranger houndstooth) door cards.

My Jensen Healey had serious rot in the rockers; someone had wadded up tinfoil which was then stuffed in the rocker panels which were then covered with screen wire and finally a layer of fiberglass. Noice.

Not full size car related: electric RC car speed controls come with bare wires hanging off of them, the owner splices in their choice of connectors. Most of them are roughly 2/3 the size of a matchbox. I once saw a NOVAK speed control which had a lamp plug crimped to the input wires. The stupid plug was bigger than the speed control.

I have to admit to doing some butchery on my early cars due to a combination of ignorance, inexperience and a severe funding shortage. I wonder if anyone has ever looked at one of my old bodges and said, 'WTF was he thinking?'

Mental wrote: Ummm, I am scared to post anything. I am probably the source of most of these stories. I had no gearhead mentors growing up, my parents would not open the hood of a car. So I had to figure out a lot of easy things the very stupid way. I'm no better now, but the stuff I have to rely on goes to a real mechanic. I had a Porcshe 924 in Germany, and the main harness was developing a short. First the headlights went, the the motors to raise them, then the ignition. Being mostly volkswagen, the fuel pump relay had already gone. Then they really bitchin steering hwwel I pulled out of a junkyard car that didn't clear the turn signal switch, so I notched the stalk, which was great until it broke, the next day. My solution to each of these problems was stereo wire and a $.50 rocker switch. By the time I passed it on to the next guy, starting the car required the activation of three seperate swtiches along with the key, as well as another 2 to operate the lights, and another 2 you had to turn on and off to make the signals flash. There was no ryhme or reason to where they went, I just cut a hole in the dash, or the console and mounted them without a label. 81 Scirocco, water pump went bad. Cut the timing belt cover off with a dremel tool, cut the timing belt off. Realized I couldn't pull the water pump without pulling the crank pulley, took it to a mechanic. He tried to tell me in broken english (It was also in Germany) as politely as he could something along the lines of the hood lock lesson mentioned earlier. Same car, caliper freezes up, I sucess fully remove and rebuild the caliper, put back on, back out of driveway when I realized why I would need to bleed the brakes. Luckily hit nothing. Resolve that with the car in the street, pull forward car locks up, forgot to put in the top caliper bolt. The caliper has tilted forward and jammed against the inside of the wheel. reverse back into the garage, fix that. Back out for a test drive, find the largest hill I have, scream down it at 90, jam the brakes as hard as I can to "test" them.... ..luckily I had actually fixed it. 1991 GTI, I was given a set of steelies with snow tires. They didn't fit over the center hubs, so I "forced" them on with an impact gun. Whel I pulled them off with a hammer in the spring, it was a month before I realized what the whumping sound was and why the wheel steering shook when I let off the throttle. I had stripped every lug hole on the car. Same GTI, given a "Cold Air" intake. Looking to mount it, I disconnect the "emmisions crap" box between the airbox and intake. When the car wouldn't start I then diassembled my air flow meter still thinking it was emissions to make it fit on the filter. That was a pricey replacement. Blew a rotar in my 2nd Gen RX7, became conviced the problem was the catalitic converter, hacked it off, hit it with a BFscrewdriver and mallet util I cleared it all out, welded back in place. Still no power.... Guilty of a lot of stereo and fog light installs all using the same speaker wire, as well as the "twist, tape, zip tie" method of wiring

Wow, after reading that I'm not surprised your wheel flew off of your trailer! I am, however, a bit surprised the challenge car made it all the way from the trailer to Gainesville. I guess you've changed some of your evil ways?

BTW Mental, Where do you live and what cars have you sold...

...just curious...

Since I buy new I don't have to deal with PO's

Well laaaah-deeee-freakin-daaaahhhh!

poopshovel wrote:

Since I buy new I don't have to deal with PO's

Well laaaah-deeee-freakin-daaaahhhh!

Yeah thats not very Grassroots of you!

16vCorey wrote:

Mental wrote: clipped stories of stupidity

Wow, after reading that I'm not surprised your wheel flew off of your trailer! I am, however, a bit surprised the challenge car made it all the way from the trailer to Gainesville. I guess you've changed some of your evil ways?

I would love to get all defensive about that, and say it was a defect in the trailer, but the truth is, I used that single axel trailer to haul a 6 Series BMW from Lansing to OKC with a Hyundai Sante Fe.(A wonderful epic tale told on the old board) I'd also love to tell you I have mended my eVil ways, but my gift, and curse is that I am not afraid to be stupid, or break things.

I am usually only stupid one way once, and then I learn my lesson and find a new way to be an idiot.

stan wrote: BTW Mental, Where do you live and what cars have you sold... ...just curious...

Everywhere! and lots! (no seriously)

I had a Pinto rattle canned flat black, outside and inside. Seats, door panels, headliner, dash, bumpers, wheels everything on the car was flat black except the windows, headlights and cluster glass. Until I washed it. Then everything was flat black and blue.

When I worked at Mercedes in the 80's we would get about one car a week with a popped airbag where the phone installers would run 4" long screws to mount the hand set cradle right thru the harness or ECU for the air bag, or tap into the air bag harness for power. When the first call came in BANG.

At about the same time, I worked at a Ford dealer, cell phones were new to the market. I had a customer come in with a new Taurus wagon which REEKED of gasoline inside. Come to find out a phone installer had used a self tap screw about 4" long to hold the box under the back seat. The screw went into the top of the tank and pulled it up so that it touched the bottom of the floor pan. The phone box was swimming in about 1" of fuel. The phone installer was called down to look at it, did his damndest to deny it was his doings. The car's owner turned to me and said, 'Fix it. I don't care what it costs. I'll take care of getting my money back.'