What’s The Worst Car Maintenance Task You’ve Ever Attempted?

It’s finally happening: the days are getting warmer, the evenings are getting longer and the scent of spring is wafting through the air. That means it’s time to roll your project cars out and get to work once again, but is there anything you’re dreading tackling on your cars?

That’s what we want to know today. We want to hear all about the worst car maintenance tasks that you’ve ever attempted. So, what have you got for us?

Whether you’re new to the wrenching game or a seasoned mechanic, we’d love to hear about your ideas of the worst car maintenance tasks you’ve ever had to perform on your beloved vehicles. Maybe it’s something as simple as replacing an awkward-to-reach spark plug, or perhaps it’s something much more complicated like engine-swapping your adorable little Miata. Whatever the task and no matter how big or small, we want to hear your hard-fought mechanical adventures.

Supposedly, the hardest task you could hope to complete yourself is repairing a ruined transmission and refitting it perfectly, or restoring your damaged bodywork back to a factory-fresh appearance. Have you tried either? How did you fare?

Personally, the toughest task I’ve ever attempted myself was rebuilding a bike wheel that I shattered on a New York subway grate. Sure it’s not a car, but it required bearings, bolts and a bodged together truing station that I fashioned on my kitchen worktop. It took all night, but the resulting wheel is straight, true and (as far as I know, as I passed the bike off to a friend) is still rolling the streets of Manhattan a year and a half later.

But what jobs would you add to this list of wrenching nightmares? Head to the comments section to let us know your picks for the worst car maintenance tasks you’ve ever attempted. We’ll round up some of the most gallant efforts in a slideshow next week.