40 Chaotic Cars That Would Drive Any Mechanic Mad

By Aakash M

This article was originally published on drivingtodays

How well do you know your car? Do you spend time cleaning it on the weekends? Do you often change the tires and the oil? Or is the knowledge you have about your car limited to driving around and filling the gas tank?

We all can easily get around by just knowing the bare minimum about our cars because, for the technicalities, we always rely on expert mechanics.

However, irrespective of how nice the mechanics are to us, they could be laughing at our incompetence the moment we walk out that door. Sometimes, they even share images of the vehicles and the problems that they face on the internet!

We checked out Reddit to find some hilarious examples of the stuff mechanics deal with on a daily basis. You will need a basic understanding of cars to understand these disasters. Have a look!

Allergies

It looks like this car had sort of an allergic reaction. Maybe it was allergic to gasoline since it was a diesel-only car, and the guy accidentally poured gas into it. In fact, that’s how our faces look when we eat peanuts.

Reddit/ lifeincolorgames

But here’s the crazy thing. The owner of this car drove it all the way from Mexico to the mechanic! In his defense, he didn’t have any option left other than driving it because he was told not to pull over in Mexico.

Way past the date, buddy

The person who shared these images noticed this problem on his trailer while he was loading it with tires. He should have expected something of this sort because, guess what? The inspection date was actually five months before this happened!

Reddit/ Fergastancher

When we first looked at the image, we thought that everything looked pretty much okay. Then, we looked again, and that’s when we realized that nothing was “fine” about this situation. We pity the mechanic that will have to fix this.

A mess of a car

When the owner of this car went to the mechanic, the mechanic straight up refused to enter the car. He said that nothing could make him go in. We can’t blame him because the car looks like a huge mess. There could be vermin in there.

Reddit/ redclayroots

On a serious note, it seems to be the car of a person who lives in their car, and from that container, we can also tell that this person owns a cat. We really hope things get better for him and he can find a home.

What are the odds?

The chances of something like this happening to your car are probably less than the chances of you being eaten by a shark. And just for your information, the chances of you being eaten up by a shark are one in 3.8 million.

Reddit/ ae112r

That’s how rare a puncture like this is. How could something like that even happen? This puncture happened outside the shop of the mechanic who shared this image. It’s not even the sharp side of the object! It’s the blunt side that has pierced the tire. We live in a world full of surprises.

Magnetic force

It’s high time people stopped playing these kinds of pranks on their mechanics. That’s gonna be a huge mess to solve for the technician. Next time when you bring a car in, only hand over the keys that the mechanic is actually going to need.

Reddit/ winfreddixon

Don’t be like this guy. Don’t hand over the keys to all the doors of a locality. Also, if you want to make your life easier, don’t carry this many keys. Unless you’re a gatekeeper, we don’t think anybody would regularly need so many keys.

Didn’t quite analyze it

There’s something seriously wrong with this battery analyzer. Perhaps its time has come. The battery is in its worst state, and you don’t even need to be a mechanic or some kind of expert to tell as much. You just need working eyes.

Reddit/ Trip_Jones

But here’s what the experts say. The battery is apparently an AGM battery, which is quite different from regular car batteries. Although the plastic might be all melted, it still provides the current output. But, despite that, it should definitely be replaced.

No, thank you

This person had brought his car in for an airbag recall. His car was a huge mess, and he knew that the mechanic who’d be dealing with the car was going to have a tough time. So, he decided to give the mechanic a tip.

Reddit/ zoidbergin

It’s generous of him to do that, and only a few people take the time to understand the troubles of a mechanic, but this guy needs no sympathy. He’s a stern man who just wants to do his job, regardless of how easy or tough it gets—no tip for him.

Keeping the rats at bay

Our eyes might be deceiving us, but isn’t that cotton candy? The customer who brought this car in said that a friend told them to do this because, apparently, it helps keep rats out of the engine bay. Well, that car has to be dead by now.

Reddit/ HTAfM

What’s even sadder is that this car is the latest Toyota Camry, which means that the owner bought it just recently! Too bad things had to be this way so soon. The moral of this story is not to believe everything you hear. Always do your research.

Five elements

There you go. This is what you see when you zoom into a tire. These are the so-called five elements of the tire. The elements are the sun, the rain, the snow…Wait, that’s just three. What about the remaining two?

Reddit/ kambesama

From the three elements, we can understand that the tires can do well in heat, rain, and snow. But what’s the fourth element? Is it a plant? If it is, then maybe they’re talking about the forest. What’s the fifth element? Bruce Willis? Or is it water vapor from a hot coffee mug?

One of a kind

Somebody actually drives this car in real life. It’s not a car that has been made to use in a superhero movie or some other fantasy movie. Somebody uses this car regularly. In fact, they had to bring it to a mechanic for repairs.

Reddit/ DeBray3

We do have a lot of questions. How do you sit in this car? How do you drive it? Basically, this car is a whole new concept to us because it looks like something between a hot dog and a joint bottle of ketchup and mustard sauce.

Small problem

Did somebody try to burn this tire? If yes, that’s not a good joke. The husband of the woman who posted this image had called her shortly after his half-hour drive home. He said that the tire felt “a little off.”

Reddit/ thegirlthatmeowsalot

Yes sir. It is just “a little off.” The entire outer part of the tire is missing, dude. We don’t even know how the guy managed to drive that thing for 30 whole minutes. Did nobody point that out to him on the way?

A chill car

Mechanics get these types of cars as well. We pity the car since it is clear that the owner didn’t take good care of it. Firstly, there’s snow inside! Apparently, the owner came in complaining that the heat wasn’t working in his brand-new car. Well, sir, it seems like we found the issue.

Reddit/ cellnivek

If he had popped open the front of his car even once, he would’ve known what the problem was right away. Also, if that’s how he treats his brand-new Civic, we don’t know what the car’s condition is going to be even five years down the line.

Fancy mirror brackets

This guy is some sort of a genius. At a time when everybody was showing their welded art, this guy thought of joining the party with his car. So, he welded these mirror brackets that you see in the image to his 1968 Ford F100.

Reddit/ EETFUK68

The design that he chose for his mirrors is quite creative, too, because it looks as if somebody is holding the mirror from the inside of the car. That kind of design could honestly sell for a lot of money!

Wobbling car

That tire has a severe problem. Driving this car would’ve been very dangerous, not only for the person driving it but also for other people on the road. Can you guess what the operator reported about this car? He literally said, “S Shaped Tire!”

Reddit/ [deleted user]

It’s weirdly funny, but the operator is right. In most cases, such tires buff out on their own when you top up the blinker fluid, which would ideally recalibrate the flux capacitor. No, we don’t actually know what that means, but Google University says it’s true.

Drift king

Can you believe that we actually share the road and drive around (unknowingly) with people who have these kinds of tires? Now that we think of it, the idea of driving around itself seems to be a bit scary. You never know what could happen!

Reddit/ iseewutudid_thur

On the bright side, if you have a tire like this, the drifting is gonna be on a whole other level. It’ll be so good that you can use the same car to drift for your whole life. Yessir, all 20 seconds of it from the point you hit the brakes and swerve.

Shady stuff

The technician who shared this image on the Subreddit had to deal with this car. What can we say? It’s a weird world. Something tells us that the reason why this guy has so many wire hangers in the back of this car could be shady.

Reddit/ Mrfrunzi1

What other explanation could there be? Are you a wire hanger salesman? Do those even exist, and if they do, do they sell each wire hanger separately? Because we don’t see any packaging in here. The mechanic needs to be cautious with this one.

Just an experiment

This experiment was carried out by a professional, so it’s best that nobody tries something like this. The coolant line of this car had been broken. So, the tech thought of using a quarter of a hotdog to stop the leakage.

Reddit/ CloseToCu**ing

The results? Well, the car has been driving with no problems for well over two weeks now. It’s a smart fix for the short term, but the leak would surely overpower the hotdog in the near future. Also, if there were critters in the car, this would’ve never worked.

This little light of mine

The guy who took this image wants to know why his car is so angry. First off, we think it’s the music choice. Secondly, that’s just too many lights, even for the worst driving conditions. There are low beams, parking lights, fog lamps, HDC, and hill holds all at once.

Reddit/ TidusJames

This guy just activated every single light, and we won’t be surprised if the lights inside the car are on as well. We don’t want to judge, but that does look like somebody who might’ve neglected their car’s regular check-ups.

Yuck

It’s best not to have any thoughts about this one. This image is of the inside of the fuel pump of a car that just came in to be fixed. Well, either the owner takes very poor care of this car, or he just has some serious haters around him.

Reddit/ keithfoco70

Previously, the car came in to be fixed because there was water in the tank. This time, there’s again something in the tank, as you can see, but nobody knows what it is. Well, we’ll try to solve things by taking a guess. We’d say that’s a mixture of water and cheap quality whey protein.

Mysterious footprints

This Nissan car with a fantastic V6 engine had just come in to be fixed. Maybe it’s one of those regular fixes and repairs because nothing seems to be visually wrong or broken in this situation. But what are those footprints doing over there?

Reddit/ Photographitti

Did the owner of this car stuff somebody in the front? But that’s not even possible! From the angle, we’d say that somebody probably kept their foot on the inside of the hood of this car while it was open.

Having some fun

Here’s a lead mechanic having some fun. Doesn’t he look like the Michelin Man? Well, if you put a jacket on that suit and a sailor cap on his head, we bet he’ll become the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man! Time to destroy Manhattan.

Reddit/ imnotonmytablet

That kind of suit is something we all need because the heat does get the best of us at times. We hope you realize that he has an air conditioner attached to the pipe that is at the back of his suit. It must be nice and cold in there.

DIY installation

This car battery was owned by a person who wasn’t a car expert. He probably bought a new car, and that’s it—no extra experience. But, instead of visiting a professional to install a new car battery, he went on to do it by himself.

Reddit/ FatherofGoblins

We hope this will be a lesson for this guy and other car owners to learn. Here’s the catch. Car battery installations are free! Too bad it won’t be free anymore. His battery has achieved a molten form, and there must be other damages as well.

An easy fix

We’re not sure if this kind of fix would lead to a lot of damage, but it’s still not something you’d typically expect your mechanic would do when you go to fix your car. Something does look fishy, and you don’t need to be an expert to tell.

Reddit/ Alpaca_bull

This mechanic has used some heavy cable here, which could really rust things up in no time. There’s a lot of reasoning behind that, but all in all, this invites corrosion. Maybe fixes like these are why people take matters into their own hands.

Had us in the first half

This image had us believing that somebody left their kid inside their car and gave it away for repair. Only when we looked closely we realized that it was not a kid. It’s a picture of Cinderella on a baby’s seat! Maybe the car has a missing slipper in there?

Reddit/ Theworker82

The mechanic who shared this image captioned it by saying that it’s Elsa from Frozen in the back seat. That’s even more confusing! It’s not Elsa, and they don’t even look that similar! Actually, it’s okay. Mechanics help us a lot. If they can’t differentiate between Disney characters, we’ll let that pass.

Disastrous

This car just went from being an ordinary car to a death trap in no time at all. We are happy that no accidents happened because of this condition. The owner of this car was driving it at 50mph, and suddenly, the plastic snapped.

Reddit/ GardenGnome25

That honestly sounds like a horror story to us, and this incident certainly raises a lot of questions about the durability, quality, and safety of this particular car company. After this happened, the car got towed to the shop. Thank goodness everyone is safe.

Confidential: DO NOT OPEN

Here’s something about human tendencies. When you are told not to do something, you suddenly feel like doing that exact thing, even if it is something that doesn’t generally interest you. So, what do you do when you are told not to check the inside of a car part?

Reddit/ RickardBobby

It’s good that these guys didn’t take an image of the inside and upload it, which shows that they respected the privacy of the car owner. But, the peculiarity of this image makes us wonder what they could even be hiding there, of all the places in the world.

Lucky fellow

If we were to sum this whole situation up in one sentence, we’d say that the owner of this car was living on prayers. A lot could have gone wrong here. The damage would have been catastrophic, but this guy was fortunate.

Reddit/ Philgo1980

For those who don’t know what’s happening, that’s a timing belt on its last legs. A timing belt failure is disastrous for the engine. Pro-tip for car owners: Always conduct regular visual inspections of the parts under the hood. It will save you a lot of money, time, and of course, your life.

The absence of common sense

We can bet that the customer who asked this question got their driver’s license by fluke. It’s one of the most obvious things about the car. You don’t even need to know about the basics of driving to know how to roll a window down.

Reddit/ suicidal_squirrell

So, if this person doesn’t know how to do that, then they certainly don’t know anything about cars. Here’s a hint: Use the buttons below the windows! We are pretty curious to know how the mechanic answered this mind-boggling question.

Fancy gear stick

The person who shared this image is just as clueless as we are because his buddy sent him this image. The guy sells used cars, but honestly, we don’t know how he’d be able to sell this one in particular.

Reddit/ will-i-am-lit

The owner of the car has quite frankly made a mockery out of the gearstick. He might’ve thought that he’d get points for creativity, but he honestly didn’t. That’s not what you call being creative. We just want to see the guy shift gears in this car.

Hot air problems

This customer is stating the obvious, and the service advisors are the prime medium for this kind of stuff. We wonder how those guys keep themselves professional when they write stuff up in this manner. It is beyond our imagination.

Reddit/ Lobotomite430

Well, you never know. Maybe the customer wanted cold air to blow when the heat was on. Jokes apart, what’s there to inspect in this situation? Oh yes! You surely need to inspect the customer and check what’s wrong with them.

Oops!

This is what happens when you employ people but don’t check if they’re fully qualified for the job. No offense to the employees, but when you work at a garage, you should be closing all the valves and shutting everything down when you leave, right?

Reddit/ UrbanSteveIrwin

Well, in this case, an 18-year-old tech forgot to close a valve overnight, and the result of that is in front of you. We know the kid is trying to work hard and make a living, but you should always be careful about these things. That’s a tough mess to clean now.

That’s nuts!

You must have some sort of basic car knowledge to understand what’s going on here. This part is a water pump, and to be more precise, it is a water pump of an Audi Q7. To be honest, it’s nuts. You can see that all the nuts have been taken out.

Reddit/ xsprocket7x

A water pump basically pushes the coolant from the radiator through the coolant system to the engine and then again to the radiator. It basically helps maintain the heat, as the heat from the engine is transferred to the air in the radiator.

From the future

What a lovely way to get information. That’s an appropriate question to ask if you’re in hibernation or if you are living a highly secluded life somewhere in the mountains or in the jungle. We’re glad that the technician shared this experience with us.

Reddit/ Slowvia

The answer to that question honestly depends on where you’re living. In most places, the restrictions have been removed or at least reduced to a great extent. But that doesn’t mean that everything is back to normal! Such types of questions make us wish that time travel were possible!

Tinted to darkness

That’s a lot of tint on the windows. It’s unhealthy. We get that tinting your windows does give the car a really cool look, and when you have tinted windows, you can look out the car clearly, but nobody can look at you in the car with the same clarity.

Reddit/ yourFriendlymechanic

That feeling of privacy could also be the reason why so many people tint their cars. But this amount of tint ruins everything. When your windows are tinted this bad, not only can nobody else look into your car, but you won’t be able to drive properly because you can’t see anything either!

DIY phone holder

This is a car with a custom phone mount inside it that was brought to the shop of the mechanic who shared this image. Well, we don’t really have anything against this one because, honestly, it looks to be pretty safe.

Reddit/ Edit4488

There’s no problem if this thing works. It looks like it could obstruct the vision of the driver, but we’re sure that it’s just the angle of the photograph that makes us think that way. It’s a really innovative idea because when you mount the phone on the windshield, it often falls down.

We have a situation here.

A customer once brought this car into the mechanic’s shop, complaining that it had been running very roughly for some time now. The mechanic had a look into it, and the image you see is what he found. That’s why the car has been running rough.

Reddit/ SnackMaster5000

You need to treat your car like it’s your car. You cannot treat it like it’s your dog and expect it to run smoothly. We say that this guy treated his car like it was his dog because it’s clear that he has fed dog food to it, and obviously, the car couldn’t digest it.

Bad tire

This car wasn’t even at the mechanic’s when this image was taken. A guy clicked this image of his car and sent it to his friend, saying that he had a little trouble doing his brakes. Well, happy realization to you.

Reddit/ rudbri93

It’s pretty bizarre for a car tire to end up in that condition. Was it a woodpecker attack? Or did the car owner try to screw some nails into it? The most probable reason seems to be that it happened as a result of hitting the rotor with a hammer to pull it off.

DIY phone holder part-2

Earlier, we saw an image of a decent phone mount. The owner of this car should perhaps meet the owner of that car and take some inspiration from his designs. Even mounting your phone on your windshield is better than this!

Reddit/ SeventyB

This guy has mounted his phone holder as if he literally has nowhere else to mount it. Maybe he really needs some help, or the infotainment system is of no use to him at all, in which case, the position of the phone holder is somewhat understandable.

Paint it white

If you’re somebody who loves keeping your car clean, we’d like to warn you. This image could cause an immense amount of emotional pain to you. Viewer discretion is advised. The fiance of this guy spilled a gallon of paint in his truck.

Reddit/ meowinsideacave

When your fiance does something of that sort, even by accident, it causes a great deal of trouble. This guy now has to clean the mess up, which is a mammoth task. Pro-tip: nail polish remover helps remove paint from carpets.

Job done

We feel bad for this guy because the previous shop that he visited made a fool out of him, and he didn’t even realize it until probably some months later. He wanted to replace the hose of his Volkswagen, which is why he went there in the first place.

Reddit/ Ageminisempiternum

The shop charged him $90 to replace the hose, but guess what? They never did. They just added some duct tape to it and a few zip ties. Last time we checked, “to replace” in this situation refers to removing that hose and installing a new one.