Never be so stupid as I was

[Bud]

I snap-decisioned and pulled into a service station and bought a new car battery, fitted it myself and got home on the new battery with no air conditioning and shock horror, no radio. 

More importantly, likely no airbag as well   

[Ed.Kloonk]

DIY oil change is another possibly stupid thing.  What if you kick the oil plug and can't find it?  You can't drive to your auto supply store, or anywhere else.

Drain the oil. Phone rings. Distracted. Come back to car. Fill engine with new oil. Why is it not showing on the dipstick yet? Why do my feet feel wet?

Yep. I wouldn't have thought it could happen. But it did.

Marry a woman that doesn't admit a single drop of oil on the floor, even in the garage, and you'll never get distracted again.

The mechanical servicing is more than tolerated since everyone benefits. However, motorcycle parts on the coffee table is apparently where the line is drawn.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I snap-decisioned and pulled into a service station and bought a new car battery, fitted it myself and got home on the new battery with no air conditioning and shock horror, no radio. 

More importantly, likely no airbag as well   

Vehicle too old to know what an airbag is. That commute in those days had an average speed of 28kph. The top speed was just over 50.

[richnormand]

DIY oil change is another possibly stupid thing.  What if you kick the oil plug and can't find it?  You can't drive to your auto supply store, or anywhere else.

You twist a wine cork in the hole. Fill it a bit, and then, go to the store.

[james_s]

I snap-decisioned and pulled into a service station and bought a new car battery, fitted it myself and got home on the new battery with no air conditioning and shock horror, no radio. 

More importantly, likely no airbag as well   

Meh, the only car I've ever owned that was new enough to have come with the optional airbag I removed it to use the more comfortable steering wheel from the car it replaced. I'm really not a fan of driving around with an electrically triggered explosive charge pointed at my face. I always wear a seatbelt and drive carefully.

[vk6zgo]

I snap-decisioned and pulled into a service station and bought a new car battery, fitted it myself and got home on the new battery with no air conditioning and shock horror, no radio. 

More importantly, likely no airbag as well   

I doubt that the airbag has any situation where it isn't prioritised, so it would probably have been OK.
Aircond & radio are not priorities.

I had a similar thing happen just North of the Billabong Roadhouse, 248km from Carnarvon in West Oz.
One moment we were sailing along serenely, with the aircond keeping us nice & cool, the next, we were coasting to a stop.
The temperature on the road was 49C (around 120F), so we didn't want to stay stuck there for long.

Luckily, we flagged down a young couple in a Toyota Hilux, who towed us back to Billabong, where I played around under the bonnet, whilst sending my wife & daughter inside the roadhouse.

The battery was "dead as a doornail", so I decided to buy a new one, on the offchance it was what was faulty.
A charged one from Billabong started the engine okay, but, shading the dash with a towel, I could see the charge warning light was on-------Bummer!

The helpful couple suggested that, if we wanted to try for Denham in Shark Bay, they would escort us & charge our battery with jumper leads from their car, as required.

As the aircond used current for its magnetic clutch & fan, as well as the more esoteric matter of whether a greater mechanical load on the engine could cause the ignition, or Engine Control Unit to use more current, we opted to leave it off & wind all the windows down ----the old "4-80" system!
Off we went, stopping whenever the battery ran out, got a charge, & continued on.

Everything worked well, at least after I got my "hot weather mojo" back------so well, in fact that at the Denham turnoff, our helpful friends suggested we go on to Carnarvon, which we did, although the "duty cycle" of moving to stationary got somewhat worse towards the end.

That day was a Public holiday, but the next day, we organised for the local auto-electrician to pick the car up .
About four hours later, he had reconditioned our alternator & we had the car back.

Try getting service like that in the City!

[eti]

We all make mistakes, it’s how we learn. Bless you my friend, don’t lose focus.

[Trymon]

wow I was not able to look into the Forum for a few days and now there is a metric ton of replies.
Have still to read everything but can't resist to say that I fix a lot myself regarding my Car. Just oil change is a complicated topic. No really good possibility as I don't have access to a lift and I know that it would be possible to do it also on street level but if some neighbor sees this and thinks this should be reported or the police I would be in trouble. Changing Car fluids somewhere on the street is highly illegal in Germany, even if you don't spoil anything.

[james_s]

When I was a teenager I used to change the oil in my truck in the parking lot of the apartment complex I lived in. It was against the rules I'm sure, but I was quick and never left a mess so nobody ever stopped me. It had enough ground clearance that I could crawl under it without lifting it though.

[Zeyneb]

I do live in an apartment complex in the Netherlands. Before I was member of a DIY car repair shop I also did my oil changes in the parking lot. I did get a complaint from the woman who thinks she is boss of the entire apartment complex. Very awful person. But I learned in those cases it's very important to stand up for yourself. As these people use all kinds of bullshit arguments to get their way. After that they didn't bother me to work on my car in the parking lot.

As for doing some stupid thing, today I was at the DIY car repair shop. The objective there was to clean the throttle body. I successfully unmounted the throttle body and removed deposit from it with carburetor cleaner. I'm using these foam swabs (like a deluxe Q-tip) for this. But when using solvent like carburetor cleaner eventually the foam separates from the stick. That happened just when I thought I was a good idea to put the swab in the opening of the intake manifold. So, the foam portion dropped down in the first intake runner after the throttle body. That sucked! Eventually I was able to get it out luckily. So, I was able to drive back home and type this sentence right now.

[james_s]

I would have just put it back together and started the engine. While I don't make a habit of putting random junk into the intake of an engine, any kind of foam or cotton ball would almost instantly burn up and/or blow out the exhaust. It's not going to jam anything up or cause damage.

[CatalinaWOW]

I would have just put it back together and started the engine. While I don't make a habit of putting random junk into the intake of an engine, any kind of foam or cotton ball would almost instantly burn up and/or blow out the exhaust. It's not going to jam anything up or cause damage.

I'm not so sure of this.  I agree that foam or cotton swabs are likely to make it through the engine without damaging anything (except possibly getting caught on a valve seat and causing a leak for a while, until it wore or burned off).  But a modern car with catalytic converter has sensitive devices and mesh like screens in the exhaust path.  Odds seem high against doing major damage, but the possibility of a significant life reduction for some expensive parts seems too high to ignore.  Even vaporized foam might poison something.

I would work pretty hard at recovering the debris before I drove off.

[james_s]

I suppose that could be a concern, although catalytic converters run very hot by design and I expect would incinerate just about any organic matter or plastic substance. My cars are old enough that I wouldn't worry about it, but YMMV when it comes to newer stuff.