Whats the dirtiest stuff you work on?

[DieselD]

I hate mine trucks. Sad thing is this thing only has like 10k miles on it and a 2006. The mud is like concrete!

 

[Steve Mutter]

Man thats one hell of a shop! nothing that new but I have had some sweat trucks roll

into my bay

[Jim Warman]

So far our grand prize winner has been not quite 3 wheelbarrows full of mud in order to replace the trans.... Muskeg is the worst since it sometimes has an odour that can only be described as "unique".

[jaysonfordtech]

It's got to be the septic tank and portable potty truck account we have. It smells like blue water and is caked with "mud". We just have to keep telling ourselves, "it's mud not septic tank overflow and grass."

[Bruce Amacker]

We've had them all- garbage trucks, "honey wagons" (porta-potty pumpers), construction, dumps, etc. The worst BY FAR was a tanker truck used to pump the old cooking grease out of restaurant tanks. The odor was unbelievable from this truck- so bad that my secretary went home ill from nausea when it was in one time, and the office is in a different room from the shop. If the doors were open at both ends of the shop, it was almost tolerable for a tech- and remember most tech's sense of smell is shot from breathing Brake Clean. If it was too cold to have the doors open, it was unbearable. After this truck visited us 2-3 times, we took a vote and politely told the owner to find a new shop.

 

Second place went to a triaxle dump driver who was the worst pig I ever saw- I had to do dash electrical on his truck one time and emptied a wheelbarrow full of trash (rotten sandwiches, food wrappers, newspapers, etc) from the cab floor and it smelled terrible. I called the owner and told him I was charging him and extra $50 for cleaning, which he completely understood and deducted from the driver's pay. He had it "up to here" with this driver already.

 

Mud doesn't bother me a bit, besides having to scoop it up after doing a big job. What bothers me are the jackasses who won't fix an oil leak and drive it dripping for 2 years, and then you have to put a clutch in it.

 

Tied for third was the guy who chewed tobacco and couldn't hit the can to save his life. The other third place contender was the lady's car with the Kotex wrappers all over the floor of the car. We're thinking she was whipping the used ones out the window as she was driving down the road.

 

Duck!

[DwayneGorniak]

Ha Ha Ha: Daddy what was that big bug that splattered all over the windshield? That was alot of blood! The absolute worst one for me was a black Escort in 40 degree celcius (104 farenheight) weather with a black interior and the floor was covered in soiled diapers from her kids that were baking in that hot weather. I almost tossed my cookies the moment I opened the door. Hot baking crap: I will absolutely never forget that smell. It's permanently burnt into the back of my brain. Second for me is: Native trucks off the reserves full of dead animals in the back with blood dripping all over after they thaw out from the radiant heaters in the shop. Then you have to get underneath the darn things with them dripping all over the darn place. Now with job security and alot of anger built up in me from working on ugly crap like that, I absolutely refuse to work on vehicles like these. When I first started out in the trade, it wasn't allways an option to refuse. These days are quite different though. And the real muddy ugly ones, I definately charge mud time for and I charge for any kind of janitorial work I have to do. By the way, Now it's just oil patch rigging trucks that can have alot of nasty mud all over them and alot of used rubbers or pono mags in the back seat.

[Keith Browning]

Man, I have had it easy over the years! I stumbled upon a dildo under the driver's seat of an Escort which I didn't care for but it was easier to deal with than the barrel of a handgun pointed at me from under the seat of a pickup. I was under the dash when I saw it. I am not a fan of loose weapons, particularly those that are bouncing around loose in vehicles.

 

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[DwayneGorniak]

Alberta is redneck central and we see all kinds of rifles in the cabs of vehicles out here. Bullets friggin everywhere. Doesn't bother me though, I'm a hunter myself. But I do not leave my weapons in any of my vehicles ever. That is also against the law. Not to mention just plain stupid. With the amount of theft and crimes these days you can't afford the burden of putting a weapon into a criminals hands. Never see hand guns though. Canada has very strict laws on hand guns. You have to have a restricted licence and a membership to a gun club. When transporting hand guns, you have to transport them directly from your home to the club or gun shop for repairs with no detours from the closest route to that point of destination.

[DieselD]

Man, I have had it easy over the years! I stumbled upon a dildo under the driver's seat of an Escort which I didn't care for but it was easier to deal with than the barrel of a handgun pointed at me from under the seat of a pickup. I was under the dash when I saw it. I am not a fan of loose weapons, particularly those that are bouncing around loose in vehicles.

 

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When i worked in the car shop i came across stuff like that all the time. The best was a compliant of a weird noise from under the seat. turns out he dildo getting turned on and off under the seat when driving.

 

I also had a t-bird that was piled up to the windows with trash and a bucket of half eaten chicken wings baking with the windows up in 115 degree Arizona summer.

[Alex Bruene]

Nothing stinkier than a non-refrigerated fish truck... especially when it's an Econoline with a walk through door. Next worst thing I find are ice-cream trucks. Gotta like stale milk at 100 degrees.

[LARRY BRUDZYNSKI]

The absolute nastiest thing I've ever seen was when I worked at the Honda car store. Back in 1991 a guy gave his son a 1990 CRX SI for graduation about three weeks later the kid has a break up with his girlfriend and sits in the car sticks a 12gauge in his mouth and pulls the trigger. What a mess and my dealership had the joy of cleaning it up, we replaced the complete interior. NEVER WANT TO EXPERIENCE THAT AGAIN!!!!

[DieselD]

wow larry Im suprised the dealer cleaned that. Most times they have a company capable of handling biohazzard clean that up.

 

seems ironic since I posted this thread the first truck I get is a 550 with a sanitation rig on the back of it. It wont start and is about half full of poop. Its sticking up my bay and shop. glad we have the doors open today /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/crybaby2.gif

[Keith Browning]

I'd hate to be the first guy in the shop tomorrow when you open up!

[DieselD]

Nope I diaged it and got it the hell out. It would not start and had a CMP fault. ended up needing a pcm and the part has to come from the manufacture and Im sure its a few days out. I slapped in my test pcm and drove it outside! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbup.gif

[LARRY BRUDZYNSKI]

Rockbronco, keep in mind that this was back in 90-91 and most all of the dealers and bodyshops had to deal with this. How many of us that have a bodyshop have had to fix a car that somebody has went thru the windshield? The worst thing about it is knowing what happened to the guy in the car.

 

By the way I think poop trucks are the worst stench-wise, garbage trucks come in a close 2nd especially when they tow it in and it's sitting right under shop heater.

[Jeff Clyde]

one of my favorites is climbing under a Waste Management garbage truck to change a maxi, only to have little helpers drop down from the box to help you do the job!

[Kyle E. Grathwol]

A cab-over Freightliner that had electrical problems in the dash. The smell inside that truck was horrible. Any guesses what smelled so bad?? Not 1 but 2 pet ferrets inside the bunk scurrying around. I'm quite sure that those two ferrets were not house broken.

 

Another cab-over Freightliner. This time the cab was jacked up and I was underneath pulling a PT pump off of a Cummins. Noticed a thick brown substance running down my arm starting at my shoulder. I felt it when it hit my forearm. The drivers spittoon tipped over and was running out the gearshift hole.

 

Over-the-road truck drivers can be some of the grossest, dirtiest, nastiest smelling people that you will ever meet. Not all of them but some.

[eastendpowerstroke]

garbage trucks, rendering trucks (used grease), fish trucks, Ive had them all but the worst was a Taurus wagon that broke down with a bunch of food ,raw meat.and stuff the people were giving the food to a friend before a month long trip to Europe when the car wouldn't start so they forgot the food and got a ride and had someone call to get the car fixed.

The smell was indescribable!!!!!!!!!! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/puke.gif