Be careful working on your car

[OilBurna]

well today i was a stupid bloody idiot and ended being very lucky... Was rotating tyres around and was on the last one the left front in the garage probably in less than ideal light and as it was getting late probably in a bit of a rush, Thought I had checked the jack was seated and began jacking the car up.. How wrong I was the jack slipped and even more stupidly I had my hand under the tyre. Ended up with my four fingers of my left hand trapped under the tyre for about 3 mins and managed to get the jack under properly and jack the car up again with my right hand.. Needless to see was in a fair bit of agony wife took me to Austin hospital where luckily i was fast tracked through Thankfully after being x rayed it turns out my fingers are only very severely bruised. Doctor said I was very lucky the tyre was fully inflated and in effect cushioned the blow.. I've changed hundreds of tyres before and never had an issue there is always first and last time so always check and make sure your hands or any part of your body are not under the tyre or car..

[whiteVR6]

oh dear
i dont like hearing these stories!

glad your ok!

[Jace]

Thanks for the reminder!

[darkfriend]

rather appropriate that the picture at the top of the page when I read this was of those two VW private ambulance cars! Glad you're ok.

[Spyda]

Where you using the widow maker? Ive had a few close calls with them, one damaged my quater panel.

[Buller_Scott]

you need a head-torch.

i couldnt live without my head-torch.

glad you're okay. are your fingers swollen?

[rayray086]

Gosh, could've been a tragedy, but glad you're OK. Ditch the widow-maker and replace it with a scissor jack.

[ryana89]

God this makes me feel stupid, all the times I've worked under a car with only a jack.
Definantly gonna have to get some stands.

Glad your ok.

[The_Hawk]

The widow maker is passable when it's your only option, but for round the house I highly recommend a floor jack. Even the cheap ones from Supercheap or Autobarn are miles ahead of the stock unit. While your there grab a couple of stands as well

Glad to hear your OK.

[Spyda]

The widow maker is passable when it's your only option, but for round the house I highly recommend a floor jack. Even the cheap ones from Supercheap or Autobarn are miles ahead of the stock unit. While your there grab a couple of stands as well

Glad to hear your OK.

I dunno about that man, the cheap ones i got from autobarn as prity shocking. I jacked up the mk1 to adjust the coilovers and before i knew it the brake disk was kissing the ground. I had to continously pump the jack untill we got the widow maker out.

[Manaz]

Even with an expensive trolley jack - NEVER work under a car supported by just the jack. If it's not on ramps/stands, it's not safe to be under.

[Ben J]

Rotated my tires with just the widow maker all of 30 mins ago, might have thought twice about that if id read this a bit earlier but whatever

Good to hear there no serious injury, but still definately not a nice thing to happen to anyone.

[noone]

Glad to hear you are ok.

I have done far too much work on my car relying on the jack only, I've not had any issues to date, but continuing to tempt fate is not a good idea.

Thanks for sharing...

[WABIT]

wow! scary story! this stuff really hits home with me glad your not seriously injured!!! ive had my right hand crushed before and its not a good thing to have you feel soo useless with a missing hand

dom

[Cousin]

Even with an expensive trolley jack - NEVER work under a car supported by just the jack. If it's not on ramps/stands, it's not safe to be under.

Probably the very first lesson I learnt with my first car. Working under the back with the car balanced on a jack, with no back wheels. Heard a creak of two, rolled out just in time to see the car fall off the jack flat on the ground.
HK wagon, so no light weight either.

Learnt my lesson, and made sure my son follows.

Good to hear you're relatively alright


M