• Track_Shovel@slrpnk.netOP
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      3 days ago

      You all laugh, but one time I was young, dumb, and just did what people told me to do.

      In this regard, I found myself pulling a grain auger on a much-too-small flat deck trailer. The trailer was maybe 10ft long by 6 ft wide, so we put one wheel of the grain auger on the deck, and one on the external tail light of the trailer which was relatively sturdy. ‘are you sure this is a good idea?’ ‘fuck it, she’ll go. Just go slow

      So I start driving. No immediate problems. Turns out that going down a major, winding hill at the 100 km posted speed limit is not a good idea with an awkward load. It’s also a pretty interesting time to figure out that if you brake, you make the trailer sway worse. Hmm so speed up it is! Started at the top of the hill at about 90 km/hr and came out for it at about 120 km/hr. Lol.

      And that’s just one of the times I shoulda died! Whee.

      This is also why I mentor the fuck out of any junior I work with. too many stories like this.

      • abbadon420@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        I’ve also got a story of other people saying “it’ll be fine” while I should have been thinking for myself.

        I used to be a garbage truck driver. I was sent to pick up a bin at some fishing club. It was at the end of a dead end road. I drove my truck to the end hoping there would be enough room to turn the truck around. Of course there wasn’t. That’s when I should’ve just decided to back out, but I didn’t. I asked the members of that club if the garbage truck usually turns around or backs out. They said “sure you can turn it on the grass, they do that all the time”.

        So I started turning, one small moment later, I was stuck in the grass. My back wheels just kept slipping and digging in deeper. I putting gravel and wooden boards under the wheels, but nothing really worked. In the end we got like 6 of the fingers to push the truck (10.000+kg) out of the grass… and they fucking did it! It took a little back and forth, but we managed to get the truck out with teamwork.

        It was a pretty stupid decision of mine, but I learned from it. It was 10 years ago, but I still remember it well,because it was just and awesome experience of teamwork and humanity.

    • The_v@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I keep looking at it wondering … Why? The others are common. The truck, however took a little special reasoning.

  • PineRune@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I worked at home depot, and our manager made people sign a form before having a Hi-Lo load a pallet of floor tile into their truck because it would cause their suspension to bottom out. They’d do it, and drive off with zero leeway on their shocks.

    We had one guy come in bragging about how his super-expensive hydraulic suspension could handle it. We loaded 2 pallets of tile into his truck bed. I bet he felt every little crack in the road driving to the job site.

    • Fosheze@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      You do feel every little bump and odds are your suspension will never be the same afterwords. But that’s why you do it with beater trucks and not anything you actually care about. My dad did the same thing except with landscaping blocks in an old salt truck he picked up for like $200. You can’t break a suspension that’s already broke.

      Or that’s the theory anyways. In reality he wound up blowing the same rear tire 3 times on the trip home. Four times if you count the tire blowing again after the truck was parked. We kept having to pull over, dismount the tire, take it home, mount another used tire on the rim, take it back to the truck, and put it back on, and go until it blew again. Every time we had to do that I reminded him that I had told him before hand that he should bring the trailer.

  • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I bought a table saw during COVID. They only allowed pickup in the parking lot. You couldn’t rent vehicles because we were on lockdown. I had no choice but to pick it up with my Jetta.

    People were laughing their asses off at me unpacking it and barely fitting it in the trunk. Styrofoam was going everywhere as I broke it. Had to throw all the packing material into a dumpster.

    So embarrassing.

  • infinitevalence@discuss.online
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    3 days ago

    Once again the minivan heavy portfolio pays.

    *The damage to the drywall was like that from the store it was 75% off and being used to make some patches and fill a small renovation.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Not only did I haul drywall home in a minivan, I even had the foresight to buy a couple of 2x4s to act as rails to slide it on so the edges wouldn’t get chewed up by the rounded rear hatch opening.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    That is not limited to Home Depot. I once saw two ladies trying to fit three trollys full with an IKEA bedroom (bed, frame, mattresses, and a stack of PAX wardrobes, plus a heap of smaller items) into a compact car. A very compact car…

  • tino@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Go to the Netherlands and see the same thing, but with bikes. I once brought back a 1,5 meter long wooden pannel under my arm. I didn’t anticipate the wind, which started to push me out of the road.

  • 200ok@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    See also: people struggling to fit IKEA packages in their vehicle.

    Bonus: while the cursed, multi-directional-wheeled carts roll out from under them.

  • Avg@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    They will rent you a fucking truck, it isn’t that expensive either.

      • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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        3 days ago

        Really it depends. Truck fucking can be way more fun, if you can find somewhere to bend over the tailgate while getting railed. It’s really quite exhilarating. But if you’re in the cab, van is definitely better.

    • ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      Like $20 for the first 90 minutes. Makes it very affordable to not own a truck for the few times a year you might need to haul something home

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Rented the biggest truck they had at home Depot.

      American trucks are so shit that it still wouldn’t fit the small length of lino I had cut for my bunny room.

      Shoulda just tied it to my little car and saved the 70 bucks.

    • ebc@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      The store nearest me will deliver whatever you want for a $30 flat rate. I have a minivan so I can still carry a lot of stuff myself but for that price it lets me avoid messing with removing my seats so it’s worth it

    • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Best part is, there’s a hitch on the back, so buddy has used it with a trailer, just not this time when it would have been the ideal solution

      • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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        3 days ago

        I was in college and needed to fix my apartment. I didn’t own a car and took the bus to Lowe’s. I called my buddy who had a car.

        I’m in this picture.

      • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        I personally don’t know if they are real or not (they certainly don’t seem like it SHOULD be real). But maybe the text artifacts on the license plates and signs in the original post are just sponge tooled/liquefied to censor out businesses or a random person’s car identifier.

        • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          I’m leaning towards real, there’s signs in the background that have coherent text on them, instead of weird, unintelligible, almost-letters.

          • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 days ago

            I’m leaning real too, the one where the guy destroyed his truck bed by ratchet strapping whatever that is to his wheel well is literally in the HD parking lot and that’s exactly what would happen if someone was stupid enough to try it. But the first one with the “Mazda” logo in the background, that one looks fake as hell, so I’m torn lol.

    • Liz@midwest.social
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      3 days ago

      I really hope AI continues to have noticable failures. I have my doubts, but one can hope.

    • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      And this one makes absolutely no sense because a single search gives you hundreds of these pictures. It took more effort to generate these than to find them.

      • curled@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        Yea you are? Sprinters or Crafters easily fit a stack of sheets, at least in the EU they do

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          I’m honestly baffled as to where they got that idea, most commercial vans are built around standard pallets and wallboard sheets. Mercedes Sprinter and Vito will, the Transit including the Transit Custom will, the Toyota Hiace will, it’s pretty much a standard feature.

      • gnu@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        As in plasterboard sheets? I don’t see why not if hand loading, plenty of vans will fit a 2400x1200 sheet (my Transporter fitted a bunch of plywood with room to spare). Loading one with a forklift is harder due to no side access long enough to fit 2400mm but that’s a problem shared with tub back utes. If however your plasterboard pallet is side accessible a van with barn doors (like you’d buy if pallets were a priority) will allow you load it in fine.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        Most commercial vans are slightly over 2.4m long in the cargo area, which is the size of a standard sheet of wallboard. (1.2x2.4m).

        Mine will fit that comfortably.

  • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    I bought a locker a while back, like the kind you would find in the employee room of a closing bed bath and beyond. It didn’t quite fit as expected so we ended up just tying the back hatch as closed as it could with a single rope and took back roads the whole way home. I don’t think we went above 20mph for fear of the damage this giant steel box would cause if it fell out. Also got a tetanus shot the next day because I managed to rip my hand on its rusted foot. Good times, I love that locker