Your most costly, stupid mistake.

  • Thread starter Deleted member 30535
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 30535

Guest
.... and don't say "Getting married" or "having kids" or whatever!

A recent stupid mistake of mine was attempting to service and start a lawnmower that had been in the garage for 10 years but not used. Being an engineer (a proper one I might add ;) ) I was more than happy to drain the oil, re-fill, change air filter, strip down carburettor and clean out fuel lines, clean the spark plug and remove and sharpen the blade in readiness to start it. Well, I couldn't get it to start. Not even a slight cough. Mutter, mutter. I re-checked things but no joy.

So, I swallowed my pride and took it to the local Honda place where they last serviced it 10 years ago when it had belonged to my father-in-law. I explained what I had done and couldn't understand why there was a problem. It was suggested that if the unit had been left and the petrol had fully dried out in the carb, then the carb could do with a special oil bath/sonic clean. Ok, that's sounds reasonable. Left it for a week and then collected to do the lawn at the weekend. They had tested it and made sure the carb was set right and was running OK. Sweet!

I got it home and the next day I tried to start it, making sure I had the throttle in the "choke" position for a cold start as I had the previous week.

Well blow me, it wouldn't start. Not a cough. No amount of pulling the starter chord would coax it into life. Odd. Very odd. It must be me. What could it be?

Of course I knew that the lift bar on the handle end of the lawnmower was there to put the mower into drive mode and that if you let go whether intentionally or accidentally, it would stop propelling itself. Wait a minute! What's the second bar for? It's a dead-man's handle you dipstick to cut the engine off when it's released. If I had read the manual I would have learned that. But being a man and an engineer, manuals are for wimps. So, I pulled up the dead-man bar and pulled the starter chord. Bloody thing started first time! I bet the damned thing would have started after I had serviced it the previous week!

Grrrr.

That escapade cost me £76 plus fuel.

What stupid mistakes have you made which cost you money and how much?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A mate of mine runs the local council tip

A guy bought a fairly new looking Honda petrol mower in that was his dads who'd passed away

Yeah it's knackered mate , won't start

My mate pulled the red handle and it fired first time

At least you still have yours
 
Not buying 4 houses with a mate when I had the chance back in 1995.
 
Not buying my Nana's house in 1990 when she had to go into a care home, sold for 32k of which 26k was mine so could have had it for 6k, it recently sold for 350k :facepalm:
 
2009, Playing Blackjack whilst pissed, 14K gone in less than half of a 6 deck shoe. The girl that dealt it is a friend, she still apologizes to this day.
 
Lot's of things when you look back. But he who does nothing makes no mistakes!

Prised up a bit of motherboard when fitting an SSD in a mac mini (about £300, but an awful lot of hassle). Parked in a disabled bay by mistake (£265). Fixing a mortgage at the wrong rate (000's), my wife choosing a dark blue carpet in a dark room with cats (not very much!). But probably the biggest is not doing well at school. Nothing compares with the implications of that.
 
Regret not buying my parents house when they divorced. I could have probably just managed it, would have made a nice bit.

Not pressing the buy button for a load of Barclays shares when they were sub 50p.

Main one is not going to university though. I am the only person on my floor without a degree, that is not a problem at the current place but it stops me getting interviews elsewhere.
 
I'd have to agree with the fixing the mortgage at the wrong rate. That properly peed me off and i received "advice" from a mortgage broker.
 
Booking flights a few years ago to Spain to visit Mum & Dad. The flights themselves were just over £300 for 3 of us. I booked them for not only the wrong month, but the wrong year...
Couldn't pay to alter them, so had to shell out another £300-odd for new tickets. SWMBO is now I/C flight booking in our house :(

She is also I/C of reminding me and anyone who'll listen whenever she books flights, hotels, parking, dinner reservations, cinema tickets and so on... :(
 
We were moving house a few years ago. The house was clear so I did a final check of the loft, lived there for 16 years, I only put my foot through the sealing. :eek::D
Luckily we were still covered by the insurance:facepalm::devil:
 
Not buying the vinyl record Jo Sago for £1.99 by a group called Tea and Symphony I saw in a charity shop ten years ago. It's currently worth £700 in mint condition.:facepalm:
 
Trying to save myself delivery charge of £20 at a famous diy store I picked up a few bags of sand and cement. Only 5 in total. Anyway, trolley moved as I was putting stuff in car. £350 damage to body panel.:facepalm:
 
Not massively costly but I got some IPA wipes that my company make a couple of years ago. They are brilliant for cleaning so decided to go to work on the kitchen. Noticed the front of the oven was pretty dirty so got going with a bit of elbow grease.

After about 15 minutes the front was gleaming! Then I noticed something wrong, id also rubbed off all the marking around the dials, no way to tell which function it was on nor what temperature it was set to! I'm the end I had to buy a complete replacement front for the oven for about £120
 
Took the front passenger seat out of the van to gain some luggage space. Disabled the airbag system and put it in a fault state :( The time and monetary cost of resolving this is TBD.
 
Many moons ago I worked as a service engineer for a pub chain repairing all the coin operated amusement gear. I once did a service call to a very busy pub/restaurant on a Sunday lunch time to replace the battery on the pool table and to repair a fruit machine.

In my haste to leave for my next job I accidentally left the dead pool table battery behind the fruit machine with a small PCB sitting on top of it. For those that have never seen a pool table battery, do a Google image search, it looks a lot like explosives.

Someone spotted it and the whole place had to be evacuated and many customers refunded for meals etc.
I narrowly escaped with my job still intact.
 
Last edited:
When i was an apprentice keen to impress my boss asked me to throw the heaters into the compactor pointing at a pile of heatre sadia instant hot water boilers used for tea making in the office kitchens.

I loaded the trolley fast as i could even thinking how good they looked to throw away, i didn't question anything and crushed the lot.

It was only when i walked back into the workshop that i saw the pile of old knackered filters piled behind where the heaters had sat and the realisation/dread kicked in.

The boilers had all been purchased and unboxed prior to replacing all the old scaled units throughout the building

Oops
 
Didn't forsee the property crash and bought a small end terrace for €140k.

Current value probably about €50k

Of course on the flip side my current (lovely) house cost €135k and at the peak of the market was probably about €350k.

But doesn't change the fact that my first house is a disaster. I'm fortunately not in a position where I need to sell, I can sit tight and rent it out until the market recovers a bit, but I don't think it will ever get much above €90k no matter how long I wait.
 
I invested £7,000 in a stocks and shares ISA back when I thought they were a low risk investment.... just before September 11th.

I'm sure we all remember how the stock market crashed, and a year later I found myself in a situation where I needed the money and had to accept the loss of close to £2,000. Had I ever know the risk could have been that high, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it. Learned a valuable lesson from that experience, now I see any risk as potential of high risk.
 
When I worked for Renault in the spares dept at Renault Ilford, I had to order a new engine for a Master. Didn't realise I had entered 10 instead of 01 in the quantity box...
So the warehouse sent 30 grands worth of engines out without even questioning it.
Problem was the policy stated that nothing can be sent back to the warehouse unless it's damaged. So after shouting at me for 10 mins, my boss gave me a club hammer, hack saw etc and I had to send 9 engines back as damaged...
 
Not banging more into my pension fund.
 
I sold a stunningly mint condition Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1 (in white of course) - B reg 1985 with 56,000 miles on it and completely immaculate and original in 2007 for £4400. Bought it in 2005. Only sold as I saw another car I fancied and figured I could get another RS at some point - never happened.

Kick myself everyday - the one car I always promised myself (back in 1987) and I let it slip through my fingers.

Not to mention it would probably be worth 10-12K now in that condition and mileage...
 
Last edited:
I past my driving test many moons ago and the family went away on holiday. My dad put me on his insurance so I could have the car for the week.

Two days later im driving the car and for some reason no matter what gear I was in it would not go over 30mph. Started to freak out and called out a mobile mechanic (£60 spent already) he looked at the car and could not see any obvious signs of what the problem was so he asked to take it for a quick test drive.

15mins later he shows at the front door with a smile from ear to ear. He walks to his van and hands me an invoice for £100.00 inc call out and tells me the foot mat was lodged in behind the accelerator, hence why it would not go any faster than 30mph.

Felt like a complete tit
 
Back in the 80's my Mum and Dad went away on business for a weekend leaving me with access to a couple of cars - my Mum's regular estate and my Dad's Porsche for which I was expressly forbidden to drive and could only move it in the event of an emergency.

I also wasn't allowed to touch his stereo system in the house either. So I called a mate around and we took the Porsche out for a blast (as you do.) My mate then decides to ring up a "call girl" - anyway you'll never guess but a bloody transvestite turns up. Anyway he gives me the number of a hot blonde who he reckoned would be much more up my street - and she was!

Anyway then her pimp turns up and I realise that one of my Mum's prize Steuben crystal eggs was missing and the pimp pulls a bloody gun on me! So we escaped in the Porsche. Girl tells me that if I get 300 out of the bank I can get the egg back. Anyway later on the girl invites her mates around and reckons we can make a ton of money off her friends (who are also call girls)

So we go out in the Porsche again, parking up by the riverside. We're sat by it and the bloody girl has only gone and knocked the gear shifter into NEUTRAL!!! Car rolls down the embankment onto a pier and whilst we go after it the pier collapses and in goes the bloody Porsche!!

Anyway, house gets wrecked at the party bla bla. but make a ton of money off the other girls. Managed to tidy up before Mum and Dad return. Bird wants to see me again. Dad forgets about the Porsche so I play dumb.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom