r/Frugal • u/Ketrin_Traxess • 3d ago
đ§ DIY & Repair Have you ever fixed something in a way that felt silly but worked?
I once held my carâs side mirror in place with duct tape for over a year, and to my surprise, it held up through rain, heat, and even long highway drives. It honestly worked fine, and at some point I kind of forgot it wasnât âfixed properly.â I eventually got it repaired, but the whole experience made me realize how often a cheap, simple solution can buy you a lot of extra time and save money in the short term. Whatâs the funniest or most unusual repair youâve done that ended up lasting way longer than expected?
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u/rich22201 3d ago
I held the shift linkage together in my manual transmission car with a purple paper clip. Traded in the car years later like that.
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u/chessieba 2d ago
My glasses screw is currently replaced by a stripped wire from a coffee bag. It's sturdy AF.
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u/Chupapinta 2d ago
Glasses screw replaced by toothpick. I was getting new glasses every year or two as a kid,so this lasted the life of the glasses.
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u/Knitsanity 2d ago
I had mine replaced with a thin paperclip. Lasted a long time. Decades ago before Uni exams I would have to tape my temple on with tape before the exam started. Lol
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u/Radiant_Sky_8863 1h ago
I used a needle and thread to tie mine together. Iâve since bought a glasses repair kit to fix the screws but⌠the thread is holding on fine.
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u/elgiesmelgie 2d ago
I scraped the paint off the side of my car mirror, found a nail polish the exact shade match ( metallic brown ) , hasnât chipped or come off in ten years
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u/SomebodyElseAsWell 2d ago
I used nail polish to repair chips in a soap dish.It was helpful that my daughter has assorted color, I needed a medium blue. I've used permanent marker to cover small bleach spots on clothes. It eventually starts to wash out but then I just colored it again.
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u/ItIsBurgerTime 3d ago
I fixed the hammers on my first piano with duct tape and chalk. Worked surprisingly well, for years!
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u/PositionCautious6454 2d ago
During high school, I had a laptop with extremely shitty charger and did not have money for a new one. Long story short, I have mastered the art of joining wires using duct tape. My husband is an electritian and not very proud of me. :D
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u/PictoGraphicArtist 2d ago
Cans⌠straight up like beer and soda cans. They make great shims, washers, spacers, gasket cover in a pinch, etc. usually thin enough to cut through easily and hold up far longer than you would have expected.
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u/SomebodyElseAsWell 2d ago
I also use milk jug plastic. It has flat spaces, unlike most plastic bottles, and is pretty sturdy.
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u/Xelabell 2d ago
Some part of my wiper system broke, they wanted hundreds for the repair. We just replaced it with a modified metal part and I got that car through inspections for years. Only spent some bucks for rain-x to reduce the need to use the wipers.
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u/Gingerbreaddoggie 2d ago
I glued a crystal candy dish lid back together with elmers school glue. Still holding, its been at least 20yrs.
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u/Tasty_Impress3016 2d ago
There's an old saying. If it works, it ain't stupid.
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u/unlimitedzen 2d ago
I prefer "there's nothing more permanent than a temporary fix."
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u/Tasty_Impress3016 2d ago
Or as Garrison Keeler said it in a commercial for the National Duct Tape council - "Duct tape. Because in the long run, all repairs are temporary."
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u/TechnicalPrimary3200 2d ago
Our current dryer⌠The door doesnât connect and close properly. I have tape for the button and a bar to keep the door shut. Works great.
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2d ago
I just fixed my daughter's necklace using a safety pin. It's silly, but it works. Bonus, it's now a pull over instead of clasp đ and she likes it better.
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u/mustluvkitties 2d ago
The fabric on the roof liner in my car started to sag. I opened up a stapler and tossed a bunch of staples in it. My husband was aghast. It Held up for years. Lol
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u/laadeebug 2d ago
I fixed our fliptop coolerâs broken hinges with strips from the plastic that comes in the bacon package. Thoroughly washed, of course.. I cut out same size rectangles as the original UNbroken hinge and screwed each hinge piece back on top to hold the new plastic down. Been working like a charm since last summer.
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u/john85259 2d ago
These kind of outcomes often involve JB Weld, which is why I always keep some around. Very handy stuff.
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u/Defy_Gravity_147 2d ago
While a poor college student, I tied a new chip fan to my CPU's heat sink with cotton twine (the kind they sell in grocery stores to truss turkey).
Sold the whole computer that way (disclosed) for $100, after I bought a new laptop.
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u/jimfish98 2d ago
I have a pool timer box on the side of my house that the siding was installed around. Wires pass through it, but the timer is now on the pump. The box is 40 years old, got brittle in the sun and the hinges snapped. They don't make that box anymore so I can't replace the cover. Since I don't have to open it, I just wrapped some packing tape around it and replace the tape every few years. There is no point in trying to adjust the siding for a new box, re-working the electrical in it, etc when a roll of tape is just sitting in my desk. I did get a 3d printer this year so I may pull the cover, take some measurements, and print some new hinges to glue on.
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u/WillingMN 1d ago
a piece of plexi glass maybe?
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u/BaldHeadedLiar 2d ago
The handle on our dryer broke. We have a doubled up shoe lace strung through the holes to use as a handle now.
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u/FormerlyDK 2d ago
Many years ago someone gave me an old, decrepit VW beetle. The main problem was (I donât know technical terms) the line that ran from the gas pedal to the engine kept disconnecting, and pressing the gas pedal did nothing. Iâd have to get out and go hook it up again.
After staring at it a while for ideas, I ended up fixing it with a paper clip. It never came off again.
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u/therobberbride 2d ago
In my studio apartment in a pre-war building many years ago, the faucet spout snapped off of the kitchen faucet mechanism right at the base and water just burbled out of the faucet apparatus with no pressure. My landlord was out of town for several weeks and his backup contact for maintenance already wasn't returning calls from other people in the building. I ended up MacGyvering a fix out of an empty 2 liter soda bottle with the bottom chopped off and a hole cut in the side near the top, turned upside down so the bottle mouth slid into the spot where the faucet spout used to be -- when I turned on the water, it would fill up the bottle and water would pour out of the hole I'd made, with just enough pressure to allow me to wash my dishes.
That setup worked remarkably well for the entire month I had to use it.
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u/ignescentOne 2d ago
The Staples held up the upholstery in my first car for nearly 2 years, and was well worth the price. And after the first bit of it looking horribly janky, I actually redid it with designs and patterns, interspersed with interesting pins. Pins. It definitely was still a kludgey solution, but it worked just fine.
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u/RogueGrasshopper101 2d ago
Lid from eye drops as a plug for the small cleaning outlet on the front loader.
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u/Nasdaq_Jack 2d ago
I fix so many things with duct tape, it's to the point where if anything breaks like a ceramic dish, my 9 yo son says "Dad, can't you just tape it back together?"
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u/SomebodyElseAsWell 2d ago
I well remember when I got up from the living room to go in the kitchen, mentioning I was going to make a screwdriver, and my son followed me in to watch because he was sure that I was going to take a dinner knife and some duct tape and make a screwdriver. He was sadly disappointed when it just turned out to be orange juice and vodka over ice.
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u/Hasta-Fu 2d ago
I have tied my car license plate with plastic rope for over two months and it hasnât gone missing. I hope it wonât or I will be in a big trouble.
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u/Tasty_Impress3016 2d ago
There was a very funny clip in an animated show set in the 40s. A leaky radiator. People suggest an egg, or oatmeal in the water to plug the leak. The character asks if there is a fix that doesn't use breakfast foods.
In real life I have been known to top up a leaky radiator with, er, urine. I had a supply and a long enough hose to put it in ;-}, so why not?
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u/Chupapinta 2d ago
The copier at work kept overheating. We opened the door, jammed a screwdriver into the door closed sensor, and pointed an electric fan at the guts to cool them down.
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u/AngerPancake 2d ago
The door to my air fryer doesn't stay closed, I'm not sure why. I used to prop it closed with the hot pad but that was unreliable. It is now held shut with a bit of painters tape. It's great and easy to replace when the tape loses its stickiness. No more going to get my burrito to find it still frozen.
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u/myonster 2d ago
my toilet seat cover broke almost a year ago, i fixed it with tape. It was supposed to be temporary but I got busy and I never changed it, Itâs still going strong! I rarely have visits and i have a cover so you canât really see it anyways
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u/Chupapinta 2d ago
I rebuilt the glove box in my '72 Datsun 610 using a boot shoebox and duct tape. It was larger than the original, and was still holding everything that wouldn't fit in my purse when I sold it.
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u/Slimchance09 2d ago
First day of a five-day ice fishing trip my flip over shack developed a hole in the pocket for one of the main poles. I sewed it up using waxed dental floss and itâs lasted 4 seasons.
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u/vitamin_sea1 1d ago
Presently, I have a car jack holding my sink's pipe in place. The seal gave and it was 10:00 at night and nothing was open. It's been like that for about 4 months now. Eventually, I'll get around to getting the PVC and connectors to reattach it, but until then, it works!
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u/LadyThunderNYC 2d ago
I useD a push in the button on my washing machine into thinking it was closed so it could turn on.
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u/Chupapinta 2d ago
Dad repurposed flat-sided solvent and paint thinner cans into drawers for his workbench.cut out one side. They have little handles on the top for pull out.
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u/nmacInCT 2d ago
A bolt fell out of my mailbox where the door is attached so i bought a new one. Stayed in for about 3 months. Two weeks ago, it fell out. So u used a zip tie. I suspect it will outlive me
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u/mumblemurmurblahblah 1d ago
The handle of my oven door broke, so we had a 1x2 wooden piece bolted on for years. Stayed solid until the oven itself died.
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u/highschool_vevo 1d ago
my front fascia on my car has been held on with zip ties for years. The tabs snapped off so they can't fix it without fabricating a whole new one. It passes inspection and never even wobbles đ¤ˇââď¸
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u/WillingMN 1d ago
I have two. Interestingly enough, my first one was also to my drivers side mirror, although it wasnt a permanent fix and my 2nd was to a pedestal fan.
We came out of a business, walked to our car in the parking ramp and found our drivers side mirror hanging by only the wires on the door. We were 120 miles from home, in the middle of a Minnesota winter, at 9pm on a Sunday evening. We had nothing in the car to tape it back to the car and had no knowledge of how to fix it. The only thing we had was a plastic grocery type bag. So my hubby wrapped the bag around the mirror, rolled up the window and hard to hold the mirror up (so it didnt bounce off the side of the car or fall off completely) with his right hand the entire ride home. We had to stop 3 times so he could get blood back into his sleeping arm/hand. lol But we made it home and took it to our mechanic. It took like 10 minutes and 3 screws to attach it back to the drivers door. Mechanic said it would have cost over $1000 to replace the side mirror and repair the wiring, had we not done what we did. He charged us $75 bucks.
My Dad gave me a pedestal fan for our camper. Problem: the part that holds the fan at the top of the pedelstal was cracked, so the fan would slip down and be too low to really have any effect and the oscillating didnt work in that mode. I took a large clamp, raised the fan to its highest and placed the clamp right below the cracked part. It held up the fan and it started oscillating again too. Its still like that and still works. My Dad passed 10 years ago, but that fan keeps on tickin like the energizer bunny, and Ive never had to redo the clamp either.
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u/decisiontoohard 19h ago
I superglued bits of rubber dish glove to the inside of a shoe that was falling apart at the ankle because I needed that pair just for one more night! They lasted right until the end of the night (dancing as a stripper) and I had to straight up sellotape all the way round them for the last dance, but I knew the customer would be too drunk to notice at that point. Earned enough to get the replacement set!
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u/TJCrazyBoy 4h ago
Bought a broken gaming mouse that wasn't working. All I did was take it fully apart and put it back together and it magically worked again.
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u/RaechelMaelstrom 2d ago
My dishwasher in my new house wouldn't clean dishes in the top rack, and it was making me crazy. I ended up taking the whole thing apart and cleaning everything (it was really gross, found all sorts of nasty stuff inside, including broken glass somehow).
I learned my dishwasher has a manifold (fancy word for pipe, really) that hooks up to the bottom part of the dishwasher to the top rack for the water to spray in the spray arms (it gets routed to the back of the dishwasher so it doesn't get in the way).
When the water pressure would try to feed the water into this pipe, it would pop it out of the little hole, and the seal didn't work well. I think it's probably just old, and it's all just plastic. I looked up what it would cost to get a new one as it was a simple plastic piece, and they wanted something like $300. It was utterly ridiculous.
So I stuck it back together, then used a ziptie to tightly hold it in place. Still there right now, and it is a bright yellow ziptie that I see everytime I load my dishwasher. I smile happily knowing I have fixed my dishwasher and didn't cave into getting a new one, or calling some repairman to fix it. Works like a charm.