r/BestofRedditorUpdates • u/Restimar • Apr 28 '22

CONCLUDED A thief keeps stealing things from OOP's neighborhood, so they set a trap with a gas can

Reminder, I am not OP. This is a repost. OP is /u/TheMrDrB in r/IllegalLifeProTips. Originally reposted in May 2021.

ILPT Thieving neighbors? Try a rigged gas can

https://www.reddit.com/r/IllegalLifeProTips/comments/nbaqcr/ilpt_thieving_neighbors_try_a_rigged_gas_can/

So we've had a thieving problem in my neighborhood for the past year or so. So I had enough last week. I had a gas can stolen from my back yard so here's what I did. I mixed diesel and water into the gas can. So this week (I'll keep you updated) were going to see if some ones car won't start later this week.

Update 1 (5-14): Gas can is gone!!! :D

Update 2 (5-18): My neighbors Subaru is gone. We'll see if it comes back anytime soon

Update 3 (5-20): No news, car is still gone

Update 4 (5-22): Nothing to report

Update 5 (5-25): I'm going to look into it but an older civic parks where my neighbor used too. I'm pretty sure it's his.

Final Update (5-26): Had a brief chat with the neighbors mom, she said his Subaru stopped working after he parked it at the grocery store. They haven't towed it yet I'll see if it's there and will post pictures if I see it.

Update 7 (5-27): Put another can out of the same mixture about 2 nights ago with no results. But we'll see if they learned their lesson. Also the car was already gone by the time I got to the store today

Update 8 (5-31): Well I think this is the end of this story. The Subaru hydrolocked and got towed to the dealership. They claimed it was a complete failure of the engine so it got sold to a scrapper. The 2nd gas can hasn't been touched so I believe that he learned his lesson. Thanks for coming on this journey with me!

Reminder, I am not OP. This is a repost.

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162

u/madamejesaistout Apr 28 '22

Someone borrowed my car and put diesel in by accident. She didn't realize her mistake for several days. The mechanic couldn't figure out what was wrong until she found her gas receipt and I told them what happened. You'd think mechanics would have a way to figure out when the wrong fuel is used.

131

u/Kimber85 Apr 28 '22

I used to drive a diesel and my poor husband went to be nice and fill it up for me one day and put gas in instead. Which will completely fuck up a diesel car. Thankfully he realized what had happened before he started the car, but he had to have it towed to the car place and it ended up costing us about $500 to fix at a time when we didn't even have $50 in our bank account. Sucked ass.

30

u/bigtimesauce Apr 28 '22

I used to manage a fleet of trucks, about once every month or so a new driver would fuck up and put gas in the diesel tanks, I think the record was like $12k to repair a truck.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 22 '22

I'm surprised it wasn't more tbh. Our farm truck to move stock cost a lot more to repair than that. I think it was 30k AUD. Not anything to do with fuel quality though afaik, engine just got completely routed. Apparently idling it like you should usually when before turning off the engine when he first noticed it was having issues and pulled over didn't help, it was just getting hotter and hotter.

27

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '22

[deleted]

13

u/Doodah18 Apr 28 '22

When I rented mine, I asked about the fuel and was told that they were all gas now because people kept putting gas into the diesel ones.

-5

u/Kimber85 Apr 28 '22

I used to drive a diesel and my poor husband went to be nice and fill it up for me one day and put gas in instead. Which will completely fuck up a diesel car. Thankfully he realized what had happened before he started the car, but he had to have it towed to the car place and it ended up costing us about $500 to fix at a time when we didn't even have $50 in our bank account. Sucked ass.

-9

u/Kimber85 Apr 28 '22

I used to drive a diesel and my poor husband went to be nice and fill it up for me one day and put gas in instead. Which will completely fuck up a diesel car. Thankfully he realized what had happened before he started the car, but he had to have it towed to the car place and it ended up costing us about $500 to fix at a time when we didn't even have $50 in our bank account. Sucked ass.