• DCRC 2024

Let's hear your stories that start with a bad decision

Gravy

Gravy

Ant Anstead of Dirtbikes
Supporting Member
Location
The Land Northward (Bountiful), Utah
bad decision #1

Almost 10 years ago a friend and I helped another friend build a xj. He bought this cheep Jeep that leaked oil everywhere and ran like crap.
Built him lower control arms. He bought adjustable uppers.
Found him springs out of the junkyard. Gave him a set of 3" leaves and v8 zj steering.
Gave him my old shocks for $20, built him a set of shackles.
Did a new oil pan gasket and main seal, new valve cover gasket, Distributor, wires, plugs, etc...
We got the motor running great.
Did all the labor in my garage and at my other friend's house with my tools while he sat there and played with his phone.

We did all the work for free so we could have another buddy to wheel with.
Spent countless hours and money on consumables.

The cheapskate wouldn't pay to get it aligned and starts complaining about how we "ruined his jeep" by "making him" lift it because now he's got death wobble.
He keeps driving it and starts complaining how "We ruined his tires" because he drove it with the alignment out.

A week later he sells the Jeep at a huge profit ($3.5k- he bought it for $1.5k) because it now it looks and runs nice.
I felt like a schmoo for letting him use my friend and I.

Quasi-bad decision #2

Kid he sold it to comes to me to ask why "I screwed up the lift kit."
Turns out before he sold it, my "buddy" had installed some leaf springs shims (because we told him it would help the driveline angle)....
Turns out he installed them backwards and it was making the rear driveline vib and spin like a jump rope.
I felt bad so I helped the kid swap the shims (it only took 45 mins. with an impact).

Good decision #1

Two days later "my buddy" came over to showoff his new car he just bought (because of me and my friend's hard work) and............



He accidentally got a black eye.
A different somebody else "visited him" at his work the next day and taped his valve stems to the windshield.

Funny life lessons :rofl:
 
R

roverrocks

Active Member
Location
Montose,CO
Twenty years ago I let a guy who was supposed to be my best "friend" at the time sweet talk me in to loaning him 5 grand for a "sure thing". Took me a couple of years to even get $500 back from the SOB con man. Needless to say I learned my lesson about loaning money to "friends". Sweet talkers and used car salesmen and trusting idiots like myself need a few extra eons in Hell.
 
I Lean

I Lean

Mbryson's hairdresser
Vendor
Location
Utah
I love how the first sentence of the first "bad decision" post has an XJ in it. :p
 
DOSS

DOSS

Poker of the Hornets Nest
Location
Suncrest
Yeah, I once helped someone by doing a little fabrication for them.. told them I only wanted to break even on parts.. prick tried to sell it on here and has still never paid me for my steel and welding wire, let alone apologized for being a tool...

Looks like the moral of this thread is if you do a good deed you will probably get screwed... Especially if it is regarding an XJ
 
L

LT.

Well-Known Member
Location
Los Alamos, New Mexico
I have made more than a few along the way. Currently though, I suspect getting into 4 wheeling would have to be one. Huge drain on money. Another one would be starting all my current projects before I finished the first. Project Run a Round, Project BFT, Christine, the Beater, sheesh. Where does it all end.

But, on the other hand. Where would I be without 4 wheeling? I have met so many really fantastic folks because of it. And I hope to meet more here on this board. Funny thing is that I end up learning more from this board and its members than I probably learned in school. Thanks y'all.

LT.
 
sixstringsteve

sixstringsteve

Well-Known Member
Location
UT
Not a 4x4 story, but we're in the chit-chat section so here goes.

As a missionary in Mexico, we were taught only to drink bottled water. The Mexicans where we lived didn't drink the tap water either. The city we lived in used lead pipes that were 100 years old. Many of these pipes were broken and in disrepair. So those that lived in the city got a weekly delivery of water. Everyone had a 55 gal drum that they left on their porch, and the weekly water truck would come and fill it up so they'd have water to bathe with, etc. Since the 55 gal drum was so heavy, they just left it on their porch all the time and dipped buckets into it when they needed it. It wasn't uncommon to see a skim of insect lavae on the top of the barels.

We visited one house, and they let us in for some water since it was a hot day (110*). They pulled a pitcher of cold water out of their fridge and served it to us. It was very refreshing and welcomed.

That night my companion and I were very sick. He'd been in Mexico for 22 months, so he had built up a tolerance to the bacteria there. It was my first month, and I wasn't very accustomed to it. After a few months, I still had stomach pains. The local mission doctor said I was getting too much sun and told me to wear sunblock. I knew it wasn't sun-related, but I wore my sunscreen and hoped that it'd go away. It didn't, it only got worse. About six months in, it was unbearable. I couldn't sleep due to the stomach pains, and I was pooping blood. The mission doctor told me I had hemrhoids and gave me some preparation H or something. I was getting tired of this "doctor" guessing at what was wrong with me, so I went to a gastroenterologist. Shey did a colonoscopy and found thousands of amoeba living inside of me. I had 3 ulcers, where they were trying to eat through my intestines and get to my vital organs like my liver and my heart. Fortunately we stopped them in time and we killed them all, but it took me two years after that to be able to exercise normally. I'm still really jacked up from it, and I'll never be the same as before. But I'm grateful for that fantastic gastroenterologist in Mexico who saved my life. I'm also grateful for modern medicine and doctors who can help me today.

Moral of the story: don't drink the water in Mexico, even if it's in someone's fridge, and they're drinking from it too. I'm 99% sure that water we drank came from the 55 gal bucket outside with all the scum on top of it. If there were ever a day I could take back and do over in my life, that'd be it.
 
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SAMI

SAMI

Formerly Beardy McGee
Location
SLC, UT
Lost $800 and several months without a second vehicle and 4x4.

The bad decision: Purchasing a Mitsubishi Montero.

Lesson learned, stick with Toyota; or at the very least something somewhat familiar.
 
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Rot Box

Rot Box

Diesel and Dust
Location
Smithfield Utah
Years ago I bashed an officer of the law on a public forum :rolleyes: Being young, dumb and immature i thought cops were the bad guys. I have since pulled my head out of my a$$ and gained a new respect for law enforcement.
 
Johnny Quest

Johnny Quest

Web Wheeler
Location
West Jordan
So one evening back in college we decided to take a stock Ranger, a stock Cherokee and a stock Discovery out wheeling in northern Vermont in the dead of winter to hit up the local trail called "Mickey Mouse" since it was usually very easy...

(this story ends with the sun coming up and aa handful of VT's finest, some of which in a helicopter, telling us to 'not do that again')
 
OrvisKrawler

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
when i bought my house i couldnt get it unless I had someone else on the mortgage with me, so I had my g/f of 6 years sign with me on it (BAD DECISION), shortly after it gained a whole lot of equity, she cheated, broke up with me then got a lawyer and was going to take me to court for half the equity, long story short she ended up with 50k
 
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