things mechanics leave in cars
 

A mechanic once left a 17mm spanner in my zook engine bay that caused a loud rattling noise.
Recently , another mechanic left a usb rechargeable led light bar in my zook engine bay and it did not like the fan belt.
Is this why some of us prefer to do our own oil changes?

Yes.

Found a cigarette butt stuck to the top of my front subframe once.

After getting a cheap alignment done I had my car up in the air a few weeks later and found a wrench still attached to an adjustment bolt lol; looks like they're weren't able to remove it right away and forgot about it.

I love getting bonus tools.

10mm socket and 1/4" drive ratchet on the windshield cowl under the hood.

Never had a mechanic's tools left in my car, but I work on my own cars because it's the only way I can guarantee that the job gets done right. If I leave it at a shop, I have no idea who is working on it and if they even care about their job or my car.

A 1/4" Snap On driver and a socket in the driver door of my 64 Impala when it had a window replaced.


The list of what I myself have left under the hood is probably endless though.

just big bills for me

LOL i'm with you, I would feel guilty mentioning things mechanics leave in cars, I am the culprit 99% of the time.

I do have to mention the one time I took an old civic in for an airbag recall and they somehow left the oil fill cap sitting on top of the valve cover :iono: Yeah they left oil all over the bay and refused to admit they did it.

Worst that I did was leave a gallon jug of antifreeze sitting on the suspension beside the engine in my 58 Ford (yes there was a lot of space under that hood). Started to pull out of the driveway, remembered it was there, hit the brakes and sent it right into the fan. What a mess.

Speaking of old cars...
 

on a related note I have found quite a few interesting "factory worker" artifacts in some of the cars I have restored from the 1960s...

Basically as a car was rolling down the line it served as a trash can for the assembly workers. Old factory paper coffee cups with union mottos... countless extra screws, nuts, bolts, and washers, the build sheet for how the car was optioned... the list goes on. Once the should deadening and carpet went down they were trapped for life.

I once found a small tool hand tool chest full of meticulously maintained Snap-On tools in the back of a Ford LTD wagon that I was having the carpet replaced in after someone spilled gas in it (it was a company car back in the day).

Knowing that mechanics pay for their own tools though, my conscious got the better of me and I returned them. I did end up with some free labor on my own vehicles for my trouble though.

Reminds me of the things we would find in walls of old homes when I worked construction thru college. Lots of old beer cans. Once found a letter over 100 years old.


I never found tools in my car, but once when I was a kid I dropped a big combo wrench in the engine compartment of my 1969 Chevelle. Now, you would think it would be easy to find in a 1969, but I couldn't for the life of me find it. A couple days later I come to a stop sign on my way home from school and hear it fall out. I was happy to get my wrench back.

Lets see here. In the walls of houses eh?

A partial list of what I can remember:

WW2 medals
Hundreds of torn up hymnbooks (in a church manse)
Cat, bat, raccoon, bird, opossum, rat, and turtle (yes turtle) skeletons/mummies
A very old teapot with no lid
Hammers
Screwdrivers
Plastering trowels
Assorted toys
Jewelry (not good stuff)
A scythe
and...
A horse jaw mounted on a board

My dad ran (attempted to run is a better term) a demolition business for a couple of years. Most of the houses were built between 1900 and 1930. So much bizarre stuff was found in those walls.

10mm socket, wrench, and both bolts from the door courtesy light switches. Found in the door storage compartment.