Tight arsed owners tales

[sierraman]

Just wondering what tales of penny pinching you folks have come across in your shite? Heres a starter for 10, a pal of mine at work used to 'bind up' old perishing anti roll bar bushes with gaffer tape. Saving him all of £5!

[mat_the_cat]

It's all in foreign-speak, but the pictures tell the story...

(Bear in mind the bush itself costs around a fiver).

http://www.forum-auto.com/automobiles-mythiques-exception/section5/sujet114459.htm

 

Perhaps that explains a lot about the French attitude to car design?

[Bren]

An ex work colleague would not get a puncture mended on his triumph spitfire.

 

Instead, he spent 10 minutes EVERY DAY blowing it up with a foot pump.

 

He was tighter than a trampoline.

[jbz2079]

A workmate walked 50 yards over to a coach I was just about to leave the garage with and turned the sidelights and markers off.

I'm just going with that I said.

I know but it wastes the bulbs, he replied.

[Bren]

When I bought my SD1 vitesse the previous owner could not be arsed replacing the aft section of exhaust, and utilised some scaffolding pole instead.

 

When removed from the car it was dropped onto the floor with a sound reminiscent of when Eddiie dropped the frying pan in the "gas" episode of bottom.

[Bren]

It's all in foreign-speak, but the pictures tell the story...

(Bear in mind the bush itself costs around a fiver).

http://www.forum-auto.com/automobiles-mythiques-exception/section5/sujet114459.htm

 

Perhaps that explains a lot about the French attitude to car design?

I would imagine that somebody was pissed off about losing a clog.

 

Unless it was Mc Cartney's ex wife.

[beko1987]

"Here's a lovely cold cup of tea. Better drink it before it gets warm" is my normal working on the cars way of drinking tea!

[Asimo]

When Dad's Mk1 Zephyr 6 started using a lot of oil he started scrounging 5 gallon drums of sump drainings from the local garage."Filtered" through old stockings, this black stuff was poured into the engine in ever increasing amounts.

When the car became unbearable because of the fumes from the engine breather getting into the cabin, Dad "modified" the intake by connecting the carb. to the oil filler hole on the rocker cover with a bit of radiator hose and making a hole in the far end of the rocker cover so that inlet air had to pass through the rocker cover taking the fumes from all that piston blow-by with it. That was ok for a bit but eventually the blow-by got so bad and the amount of oxygen in the intake "air" so reduced, power fell so much that  the family had to get out and push on even modest hills.

[oman5]

When Dad's Mk1 Zephyr 6 started using a lot of oil he started scrounging 5 gallon drums of sump drainings from the local garage."Filtered" through old stockings, this black stuff was poured into the engine in ever increasing amounts.

When the car became unbearable because of the fumes from the engine breather getting into the cabin, Dad "modified" the intake by connecting the carb. to the oil filler hole on the rocker cover with a bit of radiator hose and making a hole in the far end of the rocker cover so that inlet air had to pass through the rocker cover taking the fumes from all that piston blow-by with it. That was ok for a bit but eventually the blow-by got so bad and the amount of oxygen in the intake "air" so reduced, power fell so much that  the family had to get out and push on even modest hills.

haha!! My dad used to get oil that way for his utterly f*cked rover p4 75. it used about a gallon a week.

[MrDuke]

It's all in foreign-speak, but the pictures tell the story...

(Bear in mind the bush itself costs around a fiver).

http://www.forum-auto.com/automobiles-mythiques-exception/section5/sujet114459.htm

 

Perhaps that explains a lot about the French attitude to car design?

 

 

 

Apparently Raymanboy codes Google's translation software:

 

 

What can I say? What to do? How to react? What time do we eat? uh ... What Bricofoy take his foot with a sole, it can accept each his own after all. massacred But as it compensated shoe that only short, we can say, really ... weed the streets: And then, that she belonged? Perhaps an unfortunate prostitute who made the mistake of crossing the road Brico, and must now continue his journey limping ... Unless there Brico took the pair have a history of silent Block reserve. Question: Recycling the 'I do not mind, but will do our Brico the rest of this unfortunate godasse? Since the heel is lower mett'nant, Pitet a sandal? Bravo, Brico!  And without joke, they sell it to how their silent-block PSA? And still seriously, you put, I suppose, a bit of fat in the axis. Bearing grease? Graphite? Because there is always the game, so ....

[Station]

Witnessed a local prop developer putting siphoned, waste fuel in the local scrap yard (probably owned by him) into his brand new Porsche 911 Turbo.

 

Tighter than two coats of paint.

[Junkman]

It happened more than once that I found three different kinds of spark plugs fitted by (a) previous owner(s).

Several black and one red plug lead is also not too uncommon, also plug leads repaired* with electric tape.

Usually the owners of such cars complained about the excessive OMGMPG.

 

My own tightarseness often makes me do even long journeys with underinflated tyres,
because I will not pay money for air at a petrol station.

Charging for air should be made illegal on a general principle.

[cms206]

A workmate walked 50 yards over to a coach I was just about to leave the garage with and turned the sidelights and markers off.

I'm just going with that I said.

I know but it wastes the bulbs, he replied.

 

That used to really fuck me off. I got blamed for a regulator dying on a Metrobus because "driving with lights on kills the alternator".

[mat_the_cat]

"driving with lights on kills the alternator".

 

Is this why nobody indicates nowadays?

[barefoot]

I used to know a bloke who never used to drive with the heater fan on, because it would wear it out.

Mk 3 escort, almost constantly fogged up.

& a bloke my old man used to work with used to empty the oil from his car an old P4 and pour it into 

various (plugged) holes he'd drilled in the pillars and sills etc.

That old P4 never rusted, but split open in a dramatic deluge of oil when it was eventually broadsided!

[Jikovron]

Ive been party to loads of miserly penny pinching over the last few years mainly through a desire to get the car fixed there and then rather than wait a day for delivery however the memory has jettisoned the bilge to the part of the memory that needs prompted probably the worse was cutting up a used metro brake pad to fit my skoda 120l 2,pot caliper whilst I waited for a insultingly cheap set to apear on ebay...it worked but I wont be repeating that trick ever.. Also reused a volvo 340 Head gasket at about a week old because I noticed the replacement bottom end was a 1108 cc C1G so promptly reused it when fitting a C2E out of a campus ... shamefull really :s

[jbz2079]

The regulator on the Metrorust probably could not find an earth return through all the oxidized metal!

[eddyramrod]

 "driving with lights on kills the alternator".

 

Looking at the foglight content of any average glimpse of traffic, there must be hundreds of utterly fucked alternators in daily use.  Or are foglights not connected to the alternator on a modern car?

[mat_the_cat]

They don't appear to be connected to any switches, that's for sure!

[meggersdog]

 

Charging for air should be made illegal on a general principle.

When I worked in a small village garage this "free air" bollocks used to wind me up.

A one bay workshop with one airline so when Mr/Mrs free air complained about the dirty hose or couldn't understand how to use the gauge I had to stop what I was doing to check their tyre pressures.Atleast half an hour, maybe more, of the working week was lost checking other peoples tyre pressures.If we let them do it themselves more often than not they'd chuck the gauge down where it was and run over the fucker on their way out.So no it isn't free.We never charged anyone even though it cost time and electric to run the compressor.

[Grundig]

When I worked in a small village garage this "free air" bollocks used to wind me up.

A one bay workshop with one airline so when Mr/Mrs free air complained about the dirty hose or couldn't understand how to use the gauge I had to stop what I was doing to check their tyre pressures.Atleast half an hour, maybe more, of the working week was lost checking other peoples tyre pressures.If we let them do it themselves more often than not they'd chuck the gauge down where it was and run over the fucker on their way out.So no it isn't free.We never charged anyone even though it cost time and electric to run the compressor.

 

Free air for customers only then - customer care, goodwill etc  

[meggersdog]

^^^ yeah that's about it.

Those that asked for free air because it's 20p at the petrol station up the road are what used to piss me off.

[mercrocker]

I know a bloke with a Marina who used  to drain the coolant daily rather than buy anti-freeze.   He used to fill up 2 jerry cans in the firm's khazi before going home each night as his water was metered at home.  

[jakebullet]

Heavy breathing engine? Bolt in the pipe to the air filter, chunk of hose pipe to divert fumes under the car.

 

Full exhaust system for a land rover 88" was in the region of £35. Local tyre / exhaust place that chucked old exhausts round the back, £FREE

[cort16]

Who was it on here who used to fix head gaskets with hammerite?

[Micrashed]

Cardboard and gloss paint do make serviceable gaskets.

[twosmoke300]

I knew a bloke who always shat at work to save water and paper

[Micrashed]

I knew a bloke who always shat at work to save water and paper

Ummmm, yeah. I do this, but also on the grounds Im being paid to take a dump.

We have showers at work so I often get in early and shower there too.

[Pillock]

My local one-bay village garage does free air, but the airline is down the side of the workshop. If you pull in for air, you have to park right next to the doors where the mechanic will be working. This puts off a lot of passers-by but regulars will have a chat whilst they're using it, and hang it back up neatly. Works well.

 

My cost-cutting measure was once rewiring a Nova rally car using only red wire, as it was cheaper to buy a massive reel of one colour than lots of smaller reels. The guy I did it with has just rebuilt the car again and he described the electrics as a "fucking nightmare"

[New POD]

Free air for customers only then - customer care, goodwill etc  

 

I worked in a petrol station whilst failing my A levels, and being in Merseyside, and having being paid £1 an hour, and being told by the boss that if we had the airline stolen he'd take it out of our wages. I kept the airline under the counter, and it only came out with a £5 cash deposit.