Glove box heat source?
 

Just had my car serviced which included changing the airfilters, which I suppose is located in my glove box as the contents in there have been moved around- Is there any potential heat source that's created when changing it?

The reason I ask is because I noticed some black stuff in my glove box, took out my OFT tablet and noticed that a strip of the plastic along the top had melted. I originally thought it was oil from the mechanics gloves but when trying to rub it off, it's definitely melted plastic, and was recent as it still smelled and hadn't fully solidified.

I've always stored my OFT in my glove box and its never had part of it "melt" before, and my sunglasses and another plastic box that houses my exhaust valve switch seems to be unaffected by whatever heatsource was created.

Any ideas?

They will have to remove everything from the glove box to have it pull all the way down to get at the filter. Probable set it down on or near something hot.

Possibly, strange though as he would've set down all my glove box items in the same place (since they're all together) yet only the OFT has been effected by whatever was hot enough to melt the plastic in the span of a few minutes.

Not a major issue since it still works, just annoying that it's all sticky

Most of the time they just put your glove box contents on the seat or floor. Sure you didn't do something? Shops do that everyday. They are pretty good about handling your shit. I find it hard to believe they did something during the 15 seconds it took to change your fresh air filter.

That's why it makes no sense to me. 100% nothing i've done as the OFT is always in my glove box so it doesn't get stolen, and I don't even get much of a chance to drive aside from to and from work as my state is still in full covid lockdown.

I know 1 week ago my tablet was fine as I moved things in my glove box around. It's also been cold weather all week and i've probably only travelled a total of 70km in that 1 week period

The only things in my glovebox are my sunglasses, my valve control box and a cardboard airfreshener. The top part of my OFT had melted and some of it had got onto the cardboard airfreshener, I smelt it as soon as I opened my glove box.

The only driving I had done today was 5minutes to the mechanic, and home where I checked the glove box right away to make sure everything was there. He had moved around the wiring from my valve motor which is how I knew it had been disturbed and that's when I smelt and saw the still liquidy melted plastic residue.

Nothing in the glove box felt hot to the touch which is why I initially thought it was oil from the mechanics gloves from the oil change.


The melted part was on the part of the OFT tablet that was resting against the back of the glove box, on the bottom side (towards the passengers feet). My valve control box is to the left of it so it couldn't have been any heat coming from that as the side that was closest is fine

Hot summer? Leave OFT in car all day? Some plastics grease up when they are in prolonged hot environments

Well, as I said it's winter where I live, been cold and raining all week, the plastic is thick enough to have been unaffected by any natural heat from months ago when it actually was hot. Safe to say the environment wasn't it

Did the technician have a trouble light with maybe a 100 watt incandescent light bulb in it? That could melt plastic given contact and a little time.

Maybe they didn't have a laptop to warn them about danger to manifold, and your passenger side floor opened up.

:clap:

Not exactly sure how all the air is routed behind the dash, but I suppose some part of your glove box could get pretty hot if you ran on full heat, low fan for a while.

Sounds like they plopped a halogen work light on the floor in front of the passenger seat then opened the glove box and things fell out.

Those halogens get way hot, and the metal grid on the front can catch hold of small stuff.

If the glove box got that hot on it's own, it would be dripping down the firewall.

I'm wondering if the oils from your cardboard air freshener reacted with the OFT surface and deformed it in a way that seems like it melted. If they're not normally in contact with each other and ended up that way because of your glovebox being moved and the contents rearranged, could be what happened. Those air fresheners often have warnings on them not to let them come in contact with certain surfaces or materials because the oil can stain them or break them down.

Edit: Upon some rereading, it's not likely that the oil would've done that over just a few minutes, or possibly even hours. It would've had to contact the surface for a while. What I've seen from people talking about a work light may be what happened, but I suspect other plastics in the box and the box itself would've been damaged too if it were that hot.