You're not going to believe what I did...

[Dan K]

And I can't believe I'm going to admit to doing it.
The town I live in has a cruise night once a year and quite a few cars show up. So I decided this was going to be one of those rare occasions that I make it a point to get the car out of the garage and get it cleaned up.
First off...half way through washing it I managed to snag the emblem on the hood and break the 3 off. No biggie I figured. Fairly clean break. Shoudln't be a big deal to fix. Still frustrating though.
So I went over and grabbed the can of what I thought was my trusty bug, tar, and adhesive remover to get the residue off from the area where the emblem broke.
Started rubbing a bit and noticed it was coming off really easy. WooHoo!!!
Wait...why does this look like black paint?
I about died. Now granted the paint on my 39k mile GN isn't perfect, but it's still factory and is a great 5-footer. And how I had a spot about the size of a quarter that it had appeared I had worn the paint off the hood.
After a few four letter words I started wondering how this had happened as I had used this stuff on the car before and never had a problem.
Walked over to the work bench, grabbed my Miller Lite, and noticed that I didn't grab the bottle that I intended to grab. It wasn't my bug, tar, and adhesive remover.
Well heck, no wonder it looked like I was getting paint off the car and had a nice quarter sized spot of what appeared to be no paint. Lacquer thinner!
OMG!!!
Well, after 45 minutes of different rubbing compounds, polishes, and waxes it doesn't look too bad at all. Once I got the emblem back it's hardly noticable.
I can live with it, but I sure wish I could take that hour of my life back.

Anyways, I just had to share my stupidity...

 

[MaxVO2]

****Wow. That could have ended up a LOT worse!!! I saw a guy at a car show once not paying attention and cleaning off the road tar on his quarter panels, and the bugs off the front of his bumpers/fascia/hood with Berkeble 2+2 gum cutter/carb cleaner!!!! It was almost dark, and I guess he didn't notice his spray on bug/tar remover was carb cleaner. Holy crap, the next day his car was full of sections down to primer/metal. You couldn't laugh as it was soooo bad the car was going to need a repaint - it HAD been a nice car with great paint!!! Luckily, he did it to himself, as if it had been his wife I'm pretty sure they would have been in either divorce court, jail, etc...

Glad it turned out ok and you noticed paint coming off before it STOPPED coming off!

Billy

 

[arista5]

wow that was close, glad all worked out to be not so bad

 

[Red Regal T]

$hit.........that ain't nothin'. I was stopped next to a 2' high hose spicket, forgot it was there, and ran my passenger door right into it, pushing in the middle of the door on back to the wheel opening.

I'm in the middle of fixing it........got the door off and was able to straighten it. Pretty soon, after about 20 hours of work, I'll be right back to where I started.

 

[turbo39151]

That sounds horrible but it reminds me of an incident that might top even that...

Back in 1994 when I was stationed on Fort Hood with my 86 T-Type, I was in the PX parking lot and I was backing out ever-so-gently. This woman in her minivan, stereo blasting, starteed backing out too. I honked the horn because I saw her. She didn't see or hear me and proceeded to plow my driver side rear quarter panel. I almost cried.

But wait there's more... After a drive down to Austin to check out a good junk yard for a replacement quarter panel, (I didn't have much access to the internet then,) I saw a Juicy Lucy's burger stand (They only seem to be found in South FL- my hometown) so I proceed through their drive through which is a tandem deal You can drive up from either side. Since the only side that was open was the one where I'd have to reach out the passenger side to pay, I pulled up REALLY close. When I finally got my glorious burger I started to pull away and heard this horrible gut wrenching sound of mangling metal. I wondered to myself who's the jackass that's doing that??? Guess who? I had managed to basically peel the front passenger fender from the car against the big red posts near their window's.

Needless to say I have never had another one of those burgers to this day.
But since I was going to the junkyard I was able to buy the new fender that day.

 

[Dan K]

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who does dumb sh!t like this.
And believe me, I've got a couple of other stories where I've damaged some of the cars I used to have...and damaged them badly. Aww, heck...let's just say I have problem with leaving doors open and backing cars up.
Remember this: Open cars doors don't win in fights with garages or basketball poles.

 

[SilverSleeper]

When I was a senior back in high school, all of us were leaving the parking lot on the last day of school. Well, as it happens, one of the guys in my class jumps the gun and hits my driver side door. Which, actually wasnt a big deal, because it was rusted out at the bottom and was getting replaced in the next week or so anyway.
Well, fast forward a couple weeks. I have my nice newly painted door on. And, I stop at the store on my way home. it was pitch black out, and I was really tired, so I didnt notice anything when I came back out and went home.
Well, the next day, I go out to my car to find the whole door scraped down to the metal by what looked like a shopping cart rammed into it. I knew it happened at the store the night before, but since I didnt report it right then, I couldnt get the store to cover it.
So I had a nice new door, newly painted, with about 4 huge dimples and scraped down to metal. Hows that for a kick in the teeth?

 

[Goldberg]

Boy does this thread bring back some bad memories!! I had my piece-of-crap Mercury daily driver parked in front of one of my two garage doors while I was checking the lights and E-brake before taking it for inspection sticker.
While the car was running I checked the e-brake by putting it in drive and giviing it the gas, brake worked great. Unfortunetly the release mechanisim which was supposed to release it when you stepped on the main brake pedel was not working. The standby release lever was a small lever tucked under the dash . I could not reach it while seated so I got out of the car and while on my hands and knees I peered under the dash to find it.
Feeling proud of myself I located it and proceeded to give it a tug to release the e-brake. At that exact moment in time I instantly remembered that the car was still running and IN DRIVE!!!
Needless to say the car started going forward as I franticlly tried to halt its progress. I was being draged down my SLOPED driveway as the car headed towards the closed garage door.
At this very moment my Wife was entering the garage from the kitchen and witnessed me driving through the garage door which had my GS front fender leaning against it from the inside. To show you how much she knew I loved my beloved GN, which was parked in the next bay, she grabbed the falling fender before it could hit the GN at great risk to herself.

I managed to plant the Mercury up to the windsheild into the garage door. My landlord was very understanding and decided to replace the door with a metal one.
I have never felt so stupid in my entire life. Oh well I guess it is things like that that make up a life anyway.

 

[Dan K]

That's the dumb stuff I'm talking about! Perfect!

 

[ksmmspt]

Another bone-head job!

Back in '89 when I was in college, I lived in an apartment complex. I usually parked my car at the other end of the parking area to avoid boneheads that could care less about my car. Well one day I parked my car close to the apartment, then remembered that I need to move it around 8pm. I ran downstairs, hopped into the GN to back out, cut the wheel too much, and tore off a Honda CRX's rear bumper. Amazingly, those were some cheaply built car as all I had wrong with my car was 2 scratches on the front bumper. The girl that owned the POS Honda was really upset....like she owned a Bentley or something. The body shop straightened her bumper support and put her old bumper back on!

Talk about a bonehead (me). I never have gotten in that big of a hurry again!

 

[webleyaz]

As a body shop owner...

You can imagine all the cool stories I've heard. My favorite, however, is on about my own employee.
We have a frame rack situated in the middle bay of a 3-bay building each with its own roll-up door. An S-10 truck was on the rack with a brand new pass. door on it. The guy who had just installed that door backed the truck off the rack catching the door on the building ripping the door completely off the truck. OFF THE TRUCK! It was lying on the floor. He was very sad. :frown:
OOOOH!
The Porsche that had just been painted and when the paint booth door was closed one of the 8' fluorescent bulbs fell out of its fixture and shattered on top of the car! Had to wait a couple days before we could blast it back to the metal.
These are the moments that test your stability.