Real Mechanic Reacts to Horrible Tiktok Car Advice

We hired 3 professional mechanics and forced them to watch Tiktok car advice to find out if it's as bad as we think.

HERE IN MY GARAGE…
Curious what we use in the shop on a daily basis? Check it out below. And if you purchase these tools from these links, you’re helping support Donut. We appreciate it!

Milwaukee - 48-22-0125G - 25 ft. Magnetic Tape Measure - 2-Pack

Milwaukee 48-59-1880 M18 REDLITHIUM HIGH OUTPUT XC 8 Ah Lithium-Ion Battery and M18 /M12 Charger Kit

Milwaukee Angle Grinding 2781-22 M18 Fuel 4-1/2"/5" Slide, Kit

Milwaukee 2735-20 18V Li-Ion Flashlight

Milwaukee 2557-20 M12 Fuel 3/8" Ratchet

Milwaukee 48-11-1880 M18 REDLITHIUM HIGH OUTPUT 18v 8.0 Ah Lithium-Ion Battery Pack

Milwaukee 2125-21XC M12 LED Underhood Light Kit

Milwaukee M18 FUEL 3/8" Compact Impact Wrench with Friction Ring

Adenna Dark Light 9 mil Nitrile Powder Free Exam Gloves (Black), Large - Box of 100 (DLG676)

Scott Shop Towels Original (75143), Blue, 55 Sheets / Standard Roll, 30 Rolls / Case (10 Bundles of 3 Rolls), 1,650 Towels / Case

Zep Cherry Bomb Industrial Pumice Hand Cleaner - 48 Ounce (Case of 4) ZUCBHC48CA

AIDEA Microfiber Cleaning Cloths-100PK

Barrow 52 in. Brown Large Rectangle Wood Coffee Table with Lift Top

Barrow 52 in. Brown Large Rectangle Wood Coffee Table with Lift Top

New to the Channel?

We upload almost every day, subscribe so you don't miss out!

Click here for more info on joining the Donut Underground!

Shop Donut Merch:

Donut Media is at the center of digital media for the next generation of automotive and motorsports enthusiasts. We are drivers, drifters, and car enthusiasts who love to tell stories.

[MrSluby]

You can see how nervous James is with that old school mechanic, he didn't wanna say anything goofy 🤣

[irishwristwatch]

All the guest stars were amazing. The guy with James really radiated "stern but super knowledgable dad" energy

[amedaius]

11:00 I used to work for a roadside company, and the advice they gave us when doing tire changes was 2 things: always use the stock spare change tools in spite of issuing all of us hydraulic jacks, and make sure you use the jack points. The reason for these two points is simply liability coverage. Several times I had jack points fail to live up to their purpose(IE damage the car), but because I used the included tools and designated point, the company and my job were safe.

[Incubansoul]

I always questioned how plastic wedges could stop a car from rolling until I forgot to remove them and tried to drive. That thing didn't budge and now I trust wheel chocks completely 🤣

[watchyourtimeco]

That bit where the car started rolling on the guy scared the hell outta me.

In 1982, when I was 8 years old, I was playing in my friend's back yard while his dad was changing his oil in the yard with the front of the car on blocks. Unfortunately, he neglected to chock his wheels and, considering the blocks were on dirt, he wasn't in a very safe location. He was under the car when it rolled backwards off the blocks, crushing his chest. His mom called 911 and my friend and I watched his dad die over the course of about 5 minutes. The ambulance arrived only a couple of minutes after the man passed. I can still hear my friend's mom screaming and the gurgling that man made as he tried to breathe with a shattered chest. This was an awful and excruciating way to die and I had nightmares almost nightly for the next year or so. Hell, I still have occasional nightmares about it today (40 years later).

Do yourself a favor. Chock your friggin wheels!

[chipsthedog]

My favorite mechanic anecdote came from a letter a pilot had wrote to Readers Digest & went (something) like this..
During the last hundred miles or so of my flight I was concerned about a noise coming from my left hand engine although there seemed to be no effect on performance. After landing and taxing to the hanger I found the overnight ground crew mechanic was on his break so I left him a note that said "Unfamiliar tapping sound coming from lefthand engine"
On arrival at work the next day I was handed a note from the previous nights mechanic that said..
"Ran engine all night, noise is now familiar"

[SAMarcus]

Belts are good for removing all kinds of things from cars... like filters and shafts

The wire trick is used by electricians all over

[TheRecklessUploader]

My dad used to be a farmer and he worked on all of his own equipment and I was brought up with this fundamental dislike of engineers and their inability to foresee real world application, problems and solutions… Engineers!?! I feel you on that one

[bluej]

As an ASE certified master tech this is great to see. Most yt videos and tiktoks are full of misinformation

[TheGinger]

You can tell a real mechanic just by the way he talks. Dude knew the lines were backwards. My mind went to the GM issue where the angel sensor fails and tries to “find center” but it does a 5° spin to either side.

[badgermetal]

11:15 a good tip when using jack points from the side is make sure the wheels on your jack are pointing the right way and its rolling a little each time you lift. The jack should be able to roll or your jack point will move instead and slip off. This can happen if the ground you are on is pitted, too soft or there is something stuck under the jack wheels.

[edwinzer]

i have used youtube and google but i am always so so glad i bought the repair and maintenance manuals for my vehicles. even if some things aren't really very easy to figure out from the terrible pictures and jargon filled instructions, far more often than not it makes things easier, and at least from the number and complexity of the steps you get an idea of how long it will take and if you want to do the job or get help with it

[williambuford]

The forged vs. cast joke in the beginning made me do the half swallow half laugh and choke on hot coffee. Real mechanic stuff.

[jgreenberg]

The unchocked car one really resonated with me but for a different yet similar reason. As a pilot and specifically a flight instructor I can safely say that many flight schools, FBOs etc don't have level ramps and chocking planes isn't just enforced, it's necessary. At one airport I flew into, I saw a Cessna slowly start rolling across a ramp toward a $8 million King Air and a student frantically chasing it. He didn't catch it. Nobody was hurt as both planes were empty at the time.. nobody except the accountant at his flight school, probably. But from that day I always made sure I remembered to chock my aircraft at unfamiliar fields and tell my students to do the same.

[RayRaeTV]

This format of video actually works well in this genre. You guys are the pioneers of a tried and true formula. Good Shiiii!

[zombieregime]

As someone who fiddles with first surface mirrors, lenses, and optics for lasers, telescopes, and microscopes, the coffee filter as a low lint/lint free wipes is 100% true! I tried so many other wipe alternatives, including making an updraft hood, and a filtered cross flow hood to keep stuff off of optics I was cleaning to avoid buying kemwipes all the time, cheap basic no frills coffee filters absolutely work for cleaning surfaces without leaving fuzzies. HOWEVER, you can still scratch mirror finishes or optical coatings, so be careful (if you're doing optics stuff, that is. I imagine steel cylinder walls are a bit more resilient that a few atoms of optical coating).

[Suzukibob]

The extension hack reminded me of when I was trying to do the brakes on my VW. It’s a triple square socket, and I could only find 3/8 drive locally. The idiots that had the car before me never changed the rotors out, so the caliper bolts were crusted into the holes (aluminum hun with steel bolts on a then 10 year old car in Pennsylvania). My air impact wouldn’t do the job, so my dad and I got an idea. We had a 3/8th adapter on the socket, with about 3 feet of extensions, to a 1/2 inch breaker bar, with a 4 foot jack handle and me jumping on it. We broke three adapters but it by god we got it done lmao

[trevorseals]

The coffee filter thing is pretty neat, would have to see the oil filter after running it, lint from regular and heavy duty paper towels will actually clog an oil pickup tube and filter, you may not even see the lint when assembling the engine.

[christysivley]

This was a fun video to watch with my husband, whose a mechanic of 25+ years. We'd love to see more like this.

[HannahFortalezza]

The comment in the vid about mechanics hating engineers is very true hah. When I was doing my mech eng degree an ex chief engineer from Ford was our lecturer. I quizzed him on why their designs made it extremely difficult to work on some models, and whether they put any thought into that - the answer - basically zero thought. The vehicle was designed to last for five years, after that it would be scrapped and the difficult parts would theoretically never actually need replacing.

As you can guess, I hate working on Fords!