If there’s one thing we know about things inside containers, it’s how they can end up outside their containers in a particularly aggravating fashion. When this happens inside a car, some not-so-funny stuff can happen, from big detailing bills to mechanical damage to irreversible psychological harm. Today on Autopian Asks, we’re talking about the worst stuff you’ve spilled inside a car.
If you’ve been following my ramblings for a while, you’ll know that I’m particular about my cars. I don’t let anyone eat in them or drink anything other than water in them, which means I don’t have many spill stories. However, this doesn’t mean I’ve always been a clean freak, but rather that I’ve learned from my mistakes the hard way.
If you ask a mechanically-savvy car enthusiast what the most pungent thing is inside any car, they’d probably say gear oil. This heavy, sulphur-enriched lubricant serves up a Desert Storm-tier nasal assault, and it’s one fluid you definitely don’t want to spill inside your car. Well, back in secondary school, I had to run my old diff oil to the proper recycling facility, which means two bottles ended up in my Crown Victoria. You can probably guess where this is going.
If you’ve never been inside the trunk of a Crown Victoria, it’s roughly the size of the Sydney Opera House. Commodious enough for three or four former associates, it’s not an environment conducive to holding one-liter plastic bottles soundly in place. In my head, the rear footwell’s rubber mat seemed to be a more appropriate place for temporary gear oil bottle transport, but I failed to account for one thing — cheap one-liter plastic bottles have a habit of leaking, particularly when they’re re-used to transport used fluid. Naturally, you can imagine my face when, while driving along, I was smacked across the face with a smell best described as that of robot excrement. Yep, I ended up with gear oil spilled all over the carpets of my Crown Victoria. Well, at least the air-con didn’t work, so the incoming summer would be windows-down.
Another category of fluid that’s not good to spill in a car is anything that goes bad with time. Say, milk, for example. I want to apologize in advance to my parents for sharing this story, and make it abundantly clear that this wasn’t their fault, but simply something that happened to them. I remember years ago, arriving home, only to find that a gallon of milk had leaked, drenching the trunk carpet of their then-late-model Hyundai Sonata. Needless to say, work happened quickly, pulling the carpet and sopping up any residual milk pooling in the trunk floor with paper towels. However, that trunk carpet stayed out of the car for a very long time. Not good, people. Not good.
So, what’s the worst thing you’ve spilled inside a car? Did inducing motion sickness in a passenger by telling them to “watch this” result in a tsunami of vomit sloshing around your all-weather floor liner? Did an evasive maneuver decant your coffee directly into your electronic shifter, requiring some serious repair work? Did you have a glitter incident? Whatever the case is, we’d love to hear it in the comments below.
[Ed note: Wanna read more about Thomas’ Crown Vic? You just passed the link! – Pete]
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)
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