Worst thing you did or encountered?

I broke the windshield on an Audi A8 one time. I was removing the a-pillar to run the antenna wire and the windhield cracked somehow. It was 700$ to fix. When I picked the car up from the glas guy he said he broke the first one he tried to replace it with and he suspected that the body of the car was tweeked since the new window didn't fit quite right.

Another time I had a soldering iron burst into flames in a new caddy, burning the carpet and my hand, costing 300 to fix. (the car, that is)

I don't know that those two things were my fault ( i know the soldering iron thing wasn't) , but aside from that, it has just been little things like clips. All told, aside from those two things, I think I may have spent 500$ total on damages in 8 years of installing. Not to bad I think.

ugghh it pains me to think about it.  last shop i worked for (basically a front for a drug running jew) dealt with alot of "ballers"  or at least they think there ballers.  

anyways 96 cadilac seville custom gold with rediculous flake adding a 15 and 2 12 inch flip downs to the back seat.

i mad a cool fg pod to hold it all and secured it to the metal bracing all across the roof.  well on my last screw i tighted it a 16th too much and pop.  little dimple that has a peak coming out of his roof :(  he wasnt that wized about it and i told him that thats what insurance is for but man was i ashamed.

i quit that job and have been at my new one for about 2 and a half years and lo and behold he walks in to my store.  i sold his brother a plasma and fgd a double din into his dash on his newly painted 96 caddy sevile, same one.  i guess it took my old boss a couple of years to go through insurance!  so i guess the guy was as cool as can be i mean if i put a screw through your roof would you ever let me work on your car again? didnt think so

I once also drilled through a brake booster on a hundai...santa fe??  Just barely nicked it but that was the biggest thing I have done.  Other than that, I have broke a hazard switch on a older blazer.  Actually the other day, I got the keys to an isuzu rodeo, walked out to unlock the car and the key just twisted like butter.  Turns out, the key was cut "wrong" ...they said it was cut too thin.  I love the life as an installer.

It was my day off  a couple months ago and got a call from the shop.

"new guy wrecked a truck"

It turns out that the installer that was hired without my input could not drive stick and paniced when the passenger mirror touched the door frame of the shop. he took his foot off the clutch and turned the wheel slightly which caused the truck to lurch forward and hit the passenger door against the wall and tore the trim (and most of the paint) off the truck all the way back to the rear bumper. This winner says that he was going to talk to management and instead he grabed the few tools he had, got in his car and left. I think he is still wanted for hit and run... On the outside chance that he is reading this (i am not convinced that he can read) we still have your charger and jacket dummy.

in a little over 6 years of installing, i have had two mess-ups and actually fixed them both before anyone ever found out.  the first was when i was making some custom seat brakets for a set of racing seats in a honda.  i went to drill the hole in the floor for a support bolt and knicked the fuel line...luckily i had some JB weld and told the guy he needed to leave the car overnight for me to finish up in the morning.  thank God he went for it and by next day the stuff had dried and viola!, no more leak.  the second was on and expedition with rear climate control.  i was mounting an amp under the passenger seat and hit a coolant line with a screw.  i didn't notice i had hit anything until i saw a large puddle of antifreeze forming beside the truck.  i asked myself "where the he11 did all that come from?"  i first disregarded it thinking the truck may have had a small leak, but when the puddle began to grow more and more my heart began to sink.  i looked under the truck to see antifreeze trickling out from right under the passenger seat...much to my dismay.  luckily i had a good idea and some scrap line laying around the shop (as we also have some drag racing cars we do as well) and i patched it up.  oh yea..i busted the windshield in a 10 year old lexus...insurance paid that one though...so i guess it was 3 things.

i also had a coworker some time ago install an amp in a older lexus and almost had to change his pants when sand came pouring out of the firewall when he went to drill a hole for the power wire.  i almost died laughing.  ( for those of you who are lost at this point...lexus used to {maybe still does} put sand in between double firewalls to cut down on road noise in the car to make it quieter to drive in)