Stupid and expensive mistakes - feeling like crap tonight

[forgodssakes]

A bird shit on the bonnet of my car a few weeks ago in the work car park, I then took ill and I have been off sick from work and I have had various other personal stuff going on and I just didn’t get round to taking it to the car wash until today. I got home and I have realised it has eaten away at the paint, took it the local body shop and it needs a full bonnet respray at £500+. It’s a lease car and goes back in 2 months so I have no choice but to fix it but I feel like such an idiot. Someone please tell me your stupid and expensive mistakes and make me feel a tiny bit better.

I did the opposite to you. I cleaned off the world's largest and crusty bird shit as it was about a foot wide.

Put a load of scratches on the bonnet in the process. Thankfully my neighbour's expensive car polish hid most of them.

Can still see them if it's sunny and I'd only had the car a fortnight.

Try a mattress topper, you may be able to salvage the situation!

I asked my husband tonight, he is a SMART technician doing mobile repairs and he says that's right, the whole bonnet needs resprayed. He says t-cut gets him a lot of business as lots of people trying themselves, muck it up and the that needs more work than the original repair. Might be enough to pass the 'handing back' test though if you were to do a really good job.

This. That’s a T-Cut job.

I managed to knock a nail brush down the toilet of our rented house while flushing it. It’s a Saniflo toilet and has blown the pump. It looks like I will have to pay the insurance excess of £300 for the repair ☹️
thankfully we have another bathroom upstairs

I did the same. I spent the night in McDonald's and got the 1st train in the morning

Now, that's interesting. I can't tell if you were in another city and waiting for a literal train, or in the right city and are referring to the subway/underground. At least you didn't have to waste the money - and, one hopes, maybe you missed the train by accident, rather than my missing my ride by my own stupidity.

Blew £250 on Ralph Lauren sunglasses at Heathrow. 24hrs later, forgot they were on my head, bent over, they fell in a plant causing scratches on both lenses.

Booked an expensive hotel room for the correct weekend this Summer, but in 2026. Non refundable.

Switched on a fan heater but didn't notice it was upside down, until I smelt burning and it scorched a hole in our bedroom carpet.

Adjusted the position of our claw foot bath too vigorously, detaching the waste pipe causing a slow leak. Cost ££££s to repair and replaster.

Scraped all the passenger side panels on my brand new VW Golf on our gate post. Burst into tears. Composed myself, adjusted the steering wheel, reversed and scraped all the side panels on the driver's side! In my defense, I was a new Mum and very sleep deprived.

Long time ago but got out of the car to open the garage door. The drive is on a slope leading to the garage. Left the car door open. Walk to the garage, open the door and realise the car has started rolling towards me. The open car door hit the wall edge so a big V is now in the door and the car keeps coming towards me but slowed down and didn't pin me to the wall.
Bought a new to me watch. V.ecpensive new and an unusual model. Went to the gym put the watch in my bag, bag in locker. Came back. GONE!! Bag, watch, car key,house keys. Clothes in the bag. Contacted the watch seller (40 miles away) but it's a small world. Contacted me a fortnight later. He could get it back but £700. I did. Someone in that changing room saw the watch and knew how to pop the locker. I heard stories of people losing expensive cars having the keys taken from lockers and the gym changed the lockers from pound coin type to own padlock type.

Booked an expensive hotel room for the correct weekend this Summer, but in 2026. Non refundable.

Oh yes that reminds me, I booked expensive tickets to an event and put the date in my calendar for the Sunday. Wake everyone up to head off to the event, all ready to go, check the tickets and they say Saturday. The day before.

I’m definitely not going to try and touch it myself!

Honestly google for a "Smart" repair it will take some sleuthing as even when you search for the "Smart" it brings up traditional body shops.

The company I used was called chips away - but that was a few years back. They painted a 5 inch scratch on my door, definitely did not spray the whole door and it looked great.

Smart repairs aren’t generally suitable for bonnets.

I was in Birmingham on a Friday night. Luckily McDonald's was open 24 hours as they don't allow people to stay inbthe train station

I took it to the main dealer today to get a quote as I was told by Volkswagen that if I don’t use an authorised repairer if it needs a respray then it will invalidate the paint warranty, the quote to respray the bonnet was £1300 😮😮😫if it needs a respray then it’s an insurance job

Volkswagen did say that they would be advising the at it is resprayed

How very hard-hearted of the railway. A couple of years ago I was stuck having to sleep for several hours on the very uncomfortable stone benches in the Los Angeles train station, and I would have had no idea at all where to venture out if they had ejected me.

I dropped a pair of nail scissors down the loo. Didn't want to stick my hand down, so I flushed it away. Didn't realise that every time we used loo paper when flushing the loo, it wrapped around the scissors. Eventually it blocked the loo completely. The plumber had to take the loo off the wall to retrieve the scissors and its overcoat of loo roll. Cost a fortune!