Scars are tattoos with cooler stories. what are your car scars?

So I picked up a new car scar.
My wife pointed out that besides one surgery, every scar on my body is the result of a car incident.

Chronologically

1. 9 years old, working on a cub scout pinewood derby (it's a car! small and wooden but it's still a car) I lost control of the dremel tool and ran it over the back of my left hand. result is an inch long scar at the base of my index finger.

2. 2" scar on the top of my head, working getting the Porsche transaxle mounted in the back of the Frankenfiat. Rolling around under the car with a creeper and ran my head into a bolt on the crosspiece I built.

3. whole bunch of little scars around my eyes and forehead from window glass in a wreck with my Miata I traded the frankenfiat for. Also my left eye is permanently red and the pupil is all jacked up from a piece of glass.

4. 2 inch burn on the back of my right arm. one of the first times I took my shifter kart out, I blew my brake point and slammed into the back of my dads kart. Dang near bounced out of the kart and coasted to a stop in the grass. when I stopped I thorugh I smelled something burning, then I realized it was my arm which was laying on the exhaust.

5. dime size spot on my left index finger. Driving the shifter karts, I reached down with my left hand to adjust the brake bias. I have bad depth perception with only one eye, and I came up short on my reach which meant I droppe dmy hand down and drug it on the ground. ground through my glove and took a large chunk of skin off my finger.

So what are your cool car scar stories?

Does ripping off both side view mirrors and crushing a fender squeezing my XJ Cherokee between two trees count?

Edit: I'm a dummy in a hurry and didn't read.

One thing I remember is testing continuity with a paper clip and the circuit did indeed have continuity. Burned a paper clip-shaped scar into my finger tips. Smelled great too!

Still have the obligatory "I rode a dirtbike with shorts and sneakers" scar from the muffler on my calf.

Got a bit of scar tissue on my right elbow from when a Jeep pulled out about 100' ahead of me while I was riding my motorcycle at night. I grabbed too much front brake and dropped the bike - luckily, I missed the Jeep and my riding gear took most of the damage. But the leather elbow pad was just an inch out of place from where it needed to be.

Only scar I think of that came from wrenching on a car is a small one on my left thumb from ripping it open on the clipped end of a plastic ziptie...

I hung from a fuel pump relay under the dash on my old integra. When it let loose it cut me to the bone. That sucked!

So many I can hardly remember what gave them to me.

Got a big burn mark on my chest from a blob of superheated grease falling down my shirt while welding up a crack in a steering box mount on an old Jeep.

There's a good one on my upper lip from using the combination of a fir tree and my face to slow down while riding my mountain bike.

it's mostly healed up. but I had a 4" knotted wirebrush jump up and chew through my glove and skin between thump knuckle to tip of index finger.

nice 3/4" wide trench about 5" long.

I got to many to count...

Amongst hundreds of wrenching scars

I have a scar on my chin I call Harrison from Burrito's old E30. We were swapping struts in my driveway when the hood came down and smashed my face into the engine bay drip rail. Looks a lot like Harrison Ford's chin scar.

I also have one on the base of my left index finger from when an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel (no guard, slide switch) cut halfway through my finger. It took the better part of a year to get feeling back in that digit. I also refuse to use a grinder unless it has a guard and a paddle switch now.

In 2012 I put down my Concours while wearing work clothes and a helmet. My hands have pretty well regrown appropriate looking skin but my elbows never will. I slid along the asphalt for around 200' before making it into the broken glass/gravel/weeds of the ditch and MAN did that feel better than pavement.

30 years later I still have a stripe between the first and second knuckles of my left middle finger. I got that from the wheel arch trim on DW's '81 Fairmont Futura while pulling the drum off doing a back brake job. Just another reason to hate that car.

I was trying to carry a small, rolling toolbox full of tools (car-ish, right?!?) down off a raised sidewalk, when I lost my grip. A corner of the toolbox caught my shin. The 7" gouge that definitely required stitches (that I didnt get - gauze and stretch-wrap are amazingly good at holding gaping flesh together) left a scar that frightened my 5yo niece when she saw it years later...

I have two 3" long scars down my left forearm where they put a 12" plate in to hold my ulna back together after a harmonic balancer shattered it. And I suppose the scar from the balancer impact itself, but thats a little guy. I have poor luck with Toyotas...

I also have one on my right hand from an ACVW oil pan...those fins get pointy.

And I thought it was just me..... my best scars are when the grinder disc came in contact with my left hand between my thumb and index finger, left a clean deep cut that has a great scar on it (working on my challenge car at the time). Other scars are the welding burns when I was too lazy to put on long pants. I am sure to wear long pants, boots and a long sleeve shirt now!

Most of my scars are from moto-x crashes and the resulting surgeries.

I do have a 3" scar under my left eye from taking a pry bar to my face about 18 years ago when popping a control arm off a 240 Volvo.

Arms and knuckles have dozens of little scars from 23 years of being a professional tech. Couldn't tell you the story on any of them. Just a daily occurrence.

Only two that I can call directly car-related....

1. Small scar on my right arm from where got knocked into the sharp-edged frame of a car by a forklift when pulling an engine in a junkyard. Didn't require any stitches, but DID require an updated tetanus shot for good measure.
2. Far, far more noticeable scar on the back of my right ankle- from the surgery to repair my Achilles Tendon after I snapped it trying to push a car that I was looking at to potentially buy stalled (had charging system problems).

In reply to HippieWagon:

And you got a GRM Challenge rule named after you!

Best (or worst) is when I got my self with the pressure washer. I know have a 3" long Nike logo permanently above my left thumb.

I broke a tooth on my 2000 Protégé.

Leaned forward to snag a Miata seat in the garage and ran smack into the ramp at the end of the lift. Lovely slice along the bridge of the nose, but I got rid of those leather seats!!!

Was riding my new to me minibike at age 10 (40 years ago, mind you) down a gravel road with best buddy on seat behind me. My ballcap flew off, and when I reached up instinctively to grab it, we crashed. Friend landed on top of minibike which landed on top of me as we all slid down the gravel road. Somehow a brake rod got detached from the minibike and impaled my left knee, plus I got to spend the next hour in the shower scrubbing embedded gravel out of many wounds. Yea ... I still have the scars, and yea, I was back on the minibike within a week. Good times ...

There are numerous others, but none as memorable.

Damn, if I had to remember where I got all these scars from...

For all that, the only stitches I've ever had are from having my wisdom teeth out. Maybe that's why the scars are so good. :)

Don't tear a hole in sheetmetal with a tire iron and then try to stab it shut with said tire iron.

This was peripherally related to trying to remove something from a car destined for a junkyard. I cut my thumb so deeply that it cut into the thumbnail below the nailbed. It took over three months for the cut in the nail to grow all the way out. Still have the scar.

Peeled open my left index finger while compensating the heads while aligning a Mercury Sable. One of the older Sables that had the quarter panel a straight cut across the rear wheel. Was rotating the wheel and finger got stuck between the tire and fender lip, peeled the finger open like a grape. Memorable because this happened at a half hour past lunchtime and when the service manager heard me start cursing like a sailor he just said "You're not taking lunch until that car's done." Had to tape my finger up for three weeks, should have had stitches. That was almost 20 years ago, scar still plainly visible.

Manager had a point, though. In the service industry, customer throughput is paramount. They don't know or care that you haven't eaten or have a monster headache or injured yourself or something, all they know is they want to be out of there ASAP, so get to work and get them gone as your first priority.

Those are the two that I can see. I have a habit of welding without gloves, and when I weld something dirty that spatters a lot, I usually smell burt bacon and hair for a day or two. It heals fast so who cares.

Oh! It doesn't count because the scars are gone, but I remember trying to set rear toe on a Taurus wagon (and anybody who is an older fart and did alignments knows how this pans out) and I was a poor SOB and was holding my boots together with twisted-up chunks of coathanger, and I had my foot up high to brace on "something" while I was pulling with both hands on a breaker bar trying to make the toe adjuster move, and the adjuster tool slipped off and I raked my right hand across the raw end of twisted-up coathanger and split open the backside of three of my fingers, and when I saw tendons I started to pass out. Manager (different from other story) told me to hold my head between my knees, which kept me from passing out, but I felt bad that someone else had to finish the work that I started. That was long enough ago that the scars are gone. Sure as hell didn't use coat hanger to hold my boots together anymore after that.

OTOH, I buy a pair of $150 Caterpillar boots every six months, so maybe I'm a little better off than when I was 19.

ebonyandivory wrote: Still have the obligatory "I rode a dirtbike with shorts and sneakers" scar from the muffler on my calf.

Not as good as chainring scar on the right ankle/calf from mountain biking. I never had it very bad, but there was a picture contest in one of the mountain biking magazines and someone submitted a photo of a crankarm/chainring set that probably had more blood on it than mud.

I have a scar on my right foot from sticking my foot through a window after watching a karate movie. Probably Chuck Norris. That one cut half through a ligament in my ankle. I was pretty young, maybe 10.

I have a rather severe scar on my right wrist from sticking my hand through a door glass while chasing a girl. That one cut the ligament to my thumb, the nerves to my thumb, index finger, middle finger, half of my ring finger and half of my pinkie. The thumb recover 95% of it's motion. I still can't feel much in my fingers. It makes working in blind holes that you can only get to with the right hand a little difficult. I was 13 when that happened.

Consequently, I have scars all over my right fingers. Sometimes I don't know things are sharp or hot until after the damage is done. None of them are major, just faint white lines or blobs on my fingers. They gradually fade, only to be replaced by new ones. The good news is none of my kids are squeamish about blood. They just let me know I'm bleeding.

There are a few on my left hand as well. The largest is on the back of my middle finger. It was caused by a roll of chicken wire.

I've worked with my hands all my life. Occasionally they end up in harms way.

Surprisingly, I don't think I have any notable ones from working on cars. Quite a few hard knocks, but nothing that left lasting impressions on my skin or memory.