What’s the most expensive 'I can fix that myself' lesson you’ve learned?

I’m currently in the midst of redoing the buildout on my sprinter motovan. The market for livable vans has gotten outrageous. So if you want something well built and well finished, your options are pay ridiculous amounts for parts from an upfitter or design and built the whole thing yourself—odd angles, weird fixes and all. 

It’s definitely cheaper to do it yourself, but it’s a major headache and far more time consuming than you would expect. 

This was a long time ago, almost 30 years now, but I thought I could install a new crank in my Yamaha Blaster without any special tools or help. This was way before internet/Youtube help. I thought how hard could this be? I took out as many bolts as I could see and started to chisel away at the case halves with a literal chisel and hammer to spread the cases. As you could imagine, this did WAY more damage than good. I literally ruined the cases and had to save money up to have a shop find used cases and do all of it themselves. The damn kicker to this whole story, the damn thing was stolen about 6 months later and I had zero insurance on it. A lot of financial learning lessons for a teenager in a years time. 😂😂😂

My divorce.

I really thought I would be the stability her life needed in contrast to her messed up family. I could fix her!

Nope.

Yea, i have learned that lesson more than once!😂

Doc...it hurts when I do that.

Well, don't do that!🙃

I bought our first house...$20k.  4 acres with a brand new 20x40 shop, big barn, 5 rail fence with hog wire and a tiny house...in bad shape.  The bank said I should burn the house off the land.  

It was all sweat equity but we converted the attic to bedrooms, new walls, floors, electric,  plumbing.  It's a good thing we were young and dumb.  

No, apparently you didn't learn that lesson any of the previous times. 🤣

post pics of the build

Not expensive, but painful. 

We're finishing the basement in our house. Bought flooring for $2500, some decent padded LVT click stuff. Didn't want to pay the $2500 for installation, so i started doing it myself. Got a quarter of the way done doing it after work, then had a big crash, fractured tibia, bruised femur, and bursitis on the other knee. 

needless to say my little home install project has come to a screeching halt for the foreseeable future

77' Dodge van > Timing chain ...

No manual , just a new chain , and two gears.." Ill just put it back together the same way I took it apart.

Towed...a shop had to put it back together. And !!! The timing chain had nothing to do with what was wrong with it ! 

Edit : I was maybe 19 lol

I know how to do a shit ton of stuff. On the ledger of stuff done vs stuff I should have jobbed out, I am way, way ahead. The one that didn't pay off that comes to mind is when I tried to remove the staples from a hernia surgery myself. I had missed the appt. and went for it. Mistake. The doctor couldn't stop laughing. It took him 3 minutes. I still think I could have done it if I had one of those gizmos he used.

borg, I think you win the Darwin award.😂

Here I was going to say I was helping a buddy out with a horribly paint ravaged Peugot he bought. I suggested rubbing compound could bring it back to life and so we began applying it and the 'paint' sucked it up like a thirsty frat boy. It looked far worse than when it began. He kept saying "we have to keep putting more of this shit on to get the shit we just applied off!!

He didn't speak to me for a couple weeks. 

Never said I was smart. I'll take any award.

We’ve all been there. Lol 

My 1st house had the water line come up in the utility room. It looked like a well casing. (normal for older homes to have the well just behind the house and then have an addition and then its inside). I started having loss of water. Was talking with a co-worker and he says "its the foot valve, easy fix" So he comes over and says all we have to do is pull the pipe out and cut it because of the ceiling and then just put new in. So after cutting 15' or so off we realize it turns and goes Who know where. He now tells well shit your kinda fucked. I let him talk me into this. I call a plumber who says I need to tear out my concrete patio and exploratory dig to find the well. I said no way. Had a well guy come out and ended up putting in a new well because it was cheaper than the plumbers idea. Spent a month hauling 5 gallon jugs of water around in my van so I could flush toilet until well got put in. Took showers at work or friends houses ate carryout all month. What a disaster. I could have hit the guy when he said I was fucked. He had the nerve to go into work and say how stupid I was to actually cut the pipe. (it was all his idea, I was to young and dumb to know better)

My sprinter unfortunately has seen its last trip. Mercedes parts are just too expensive, and high mileage has taken its toll on maintenance so looking into a transit or pro-master. We’re thinking of doing same and building one this winter, but I could be getting into a project that is very frustrating. 

I once stripped my cam bolts on my dirt bike rebuilding top end. My torque wrench didn’t click into spec and it doesn’t take much to overdo. Expensive little mess up. Went back to my old fashioned torque wrench with needle and gauge after that. 

My house... Windows, doors, shingles, new deck, flooring, insulation and drywall my downstairs. It doesn't end. To top it off my wife wanted new furniture cause what we had "didn't match the new painted walls". I said it would be cheaper to paint the walls again but you guys can guess how that went. 

So while in college living on my own, the apartment oven had a “roast probe” that kept getting in the way. The removal of the bourbon tube did not control the oven very well. Relatively easy fix but still a oops moment. 

OMG...it's the same at my house.  If we get new furniture this whole bitch is getting repainted...and we've replaced a lot of furnitue.🙃

A year ago I was having some issues with my printer.  The first thing to try was  a simple part replacement. Pretty much a one way valve that keeps air out of the ink lines. I dug in and replaced it and took my time doing it and it fixed the issue. I had used some cheap parts since I was able to get them the fastest. So I had to do that same thing over a few times.  I ordered the good parts and when they came in I decided I would put them in since I had already done the job 3 or 4 times with the cheep stuff. 

That day my mother wasn't feeling well, I was stressed and not getting a lot of sleep ( I was her caretaker at the time 7 days a week, 24 hours a day , my sister helped me so I could also get some work done ,somedays while she was with my mother).  I took the printer apart and  had to go help my mom, came back into the shop and put  it together . Rushing since she would likely need my help again,  also not wanting to allow the print head to dry out. There are 4 cables that attach to each head,  if you plug the wrong cable in, you kill the head. Well in my rush, I not only damaged a cable I plugged 2 in wrong and cooked the printhead. 

As a result I was down for a MONTH, and had to pay $5k for a tech to come replace the head ,cables and  some other parts .  At that time I had slowed down the amount of orders I was taking but it was still a big hit. Luckily I still was able to make some money selling gear and parts. but that was an expensive lesson on paying attention.  A month of lost or delayed sales plus the cost to fix the printer. Some customers were able too wait. But some orders went into the trash half done. I really do not want to think about the total dollar amount that tiny oversight cost me.

When I was a kid,  maybe 12 or 13 . I had an infected ingrown toenail on  both of my big toes.   I had gone to get them fixed by a Dr. and stopped when they brought out the needle to numb my toe. I was scared to death of needles. My parents were worried about the infection and had offered some sort of reward for facing my fears and getting the nails fixed.  I think it may have been some sort of MTB part or RC car part.  

That night after having learned what would be done by the dr. I gathered up some tools and a camcorder. Afterall I would need video proof to show the Dr. so he could tell my mother that it was done right and I could collect whatever the rewards was.   

I grabbed  my x-acto knife  and a fresh blade. Burnt it to sterilize it. did the same with some of my mothers special jewelry plyers and tweezers and got a bag of cotton balls and some medical tape. I took some ibuprofen and used something that was supposed to numb the area that I found in the medicine cabinet. It didn't really do anything, I made the cuts along the nails like the dr. showed me they would do. 

For those who do not know, They remove the sides of the nail and only the middle is left. About 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide  front to back on both sides of the nail and then pull them out so the root comes with it. So I made the cuts and  pulled them  out with the plyers. Rinsed  my toes off with some peroxide . Stuck some cotton  under the remaining nail to lift it up and keep it away from the area that had grown into my toes . I used some tweezers for that, again from my moms jewelry making tools.    

I showed my mother the video and she refused to bring me back to the Dr. to show them the video. She was worried they would think I was crazy or report her for child abuse. 

It fixed them for a while, but I did not dig deep enough and they ended up getting ingrown again. The problem was that we were unable to find shoes that fit my feet, so I always had shoes that were a bit small after 12. My shoe size matched my age for a while. Seven  through 16 , my age and shoe size were the same. My toes are all permanently scrunched up from years of waring shoes that were too small.  Not long after my failed fix, I returned to the Dr. sworn to secrecy and had them fixed the right way. I was still afraid of needles but the constant pain from the ingrown nails helped me tough it out. Many years later I overcame that fear of needles, while fighting a MRSA infection and having to have blood drawn 100's of times along with giving myself shots in the belly after each surgery.  

And still to this day my friends from back then will bring up the video I made of performing surgery on myself.