Posted on 08/02/2025 5:52:42 PM PDT by thecodont
A Minnesota mechanic made a long lost discovery in an SUV he was working on. He found a wallet belonging to a former employee lost 11 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
You don’t want the phone numbers of all the plum happy grandmothers?
One of the funnier books I have read on the auto industry is Rivethead by Ben Hamper. It goes a long way towards explaining some of the defects and easter eggs you find in a vehicle.
https://www.amazon.com/Rivethead-Tales-Assembly-Ben-Hamper/dp/0446394009
There was a story on one of the car forums from some guy that bought a vehicle from a police auction. The HVAC wouldn’t blow so upon taking it apart he found it stuffed with illegal drugs that PD had missed. OOPS!
Heck, by now even their granddaughters would be old enough to date, but a lot of ex-girlfriends frown on that sort of thing.
“..He said the tradition was, as a matter of honor, a worker had to place a hidden item such as a beer can somewhere inside the panels of every vehicle leaving the line....”
When I was a little kid, my dad purchased a brand-new 1959 Chevy Impala.
Every single time that he made a hard right turn, there was this “thud” noise somewhere in the back....he looked and looked and could never find anything wrong. He finally took it back to the dealer’s service center. He got a call the next day and was asked to come to the center. Inside the the inner fender well, they had found where someone had tied a string to the upper frame with a big nut tied onto the other end. Inside the nut, was a rolled up piece of paper that when unrolled was written: “Ha, ha, ha...you finally found it.” Every time, he made a hard right turn, it would swing that nut up against the inner fender.
IIRC, I believe that was the last GM product he ever bought.
That’s neat - but I have a better one: in 1978 I owned ‘a 58 Morgan sports car. It was supposedly “completely restored”, according to the naval officer I bought it from. It wasn’t. It broke down over and over and I finally took it completely apart and rebuilt it.
The seats were redone in vinyl, so I pulled them out and I discovered a large gold coin under the seats.
Paid for whole restoration, including the reupholstering in leather!
Cool story!
Its license plates didn't read GEN11, did they? ;-)
My father was bothered for weeks by a mysterious rattling noise in our new Chevy station wagon.
Eventually he found the problem: a large bolt wrapped in a piece of paper, rubber banded.
On the paper was handwritten: “You finally found it!”
From then on he bought foreign cars.
Some joke.
No wonder the American car market was failing.
Such immaturity amongst the auto industry workers.
It may have been an annoyance to the owners, but it cost the dealers their money.
No - that would have been appropriate though. When I sold it, a tall, elegant and standoffish Brit couple arrived from London and asked to take a test drive. I said “sure” and away they went.
I could hear him really winding that thing up, shifting right at the red lines and when he came back his hair was on his face and he had a big grin and he said “I’ll buy it!” and he shipped it back to England.
I’m sure he noticed that I had a bumper sticker on the back that said “All of the parts falling from this vehicle are of the finest English workmanship “.
Local story.
Owner had problems with a gutter company. The pitch wasn’t set for correct drainage, causing stagnant water, mosquitos and leaks at the wrong ends so they had to come back and redo most of the job.
Later, owner found the downspouts were obstructed.
Gutter employees jammed plastic water bottles in them.
#neversendthefoodbacktothekitchen
My father owned a service station when I was growing up...back when they were truly “service” stations. His head mechanic, actually a pretty mellow guy, would keep cans of sardines in the locker room freezer. Whenever he had a really nasty customer, he would pull out a tin, key it open, and pop up the car’s back seat for a little “bonus” before backing the car out of the bay.
That’s a feel-good story! Thanks!
I about took my driver’s area apart one time over an annoying new rattle—glove box, fuse panel, air filter, the works. Turned out to be a tin of Altoids in the console between the front seats.
Here’s a story.
Can’t remember who but in his autobiography he said he worked at an auto salvage yard when he was young. One day he worked and strained to pry apart a warped and damaged door and finally found the problem. A severed lower leg and foot of a corpse were jammed at the hinge, left over from the car accident that killed the person.
Shoe, pant leg and sock still on it.
RE: auto repair sabotage....
Old blues song I remember some folk group doing. Original—
What’s That Smells Like Fish
-Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Boy Fuller, vocal and guitar in C position, standard tuning, Bull City Red, washboard.
INTRO SOLO
What’s that smell like fish, mama, good if you really wants to know
What’s that smell like fish, baby, good if you really wants to know
Smell like puddin’ and it ain’t no pie, same thing that you know you have to buy
What’s that smell like fish, good if you really wants to know, I mean, good if you really wants to know (Spoken: Yeah!)
SOLO
What’s that smell like fish, mama, good if you really wants to know
What’s that smell like fish, baby, good if you really wants to know
Smell like sardines and ain’t in no can, same doggone thing you took to the other man
What’s that smell like fish, mama, good if you really wants to know, I mean, good if you really wants to know.
Or empty pint booze bottles. My dad found them a lot as a mechanic.
Ha. That explains so much about the quality problems in the declining years of the American auto industry——of vital interest to us in Michigan.
I once looked at new Dodge Darts and Plymouth Valiants and the salesman admitted the assembly lines had problems.
He pointed to the same car with a chrome name plate “Dart” on one said and “Valiant” on the other. The same car.
I left and bought a new 1976 Pontiac Ventura V-8. Loved it.
That means the console had breath as fresh as all outdoors.
🌼🌼🌼🌼
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