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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I was carrying 2 1.75L bottles of Grey Goose vodka in the back of my Civic Si Coupe when I decided to show off to my friend and take a corner pretty fast. I had forgotten I had the bottles in the back but remembered when i heard both of them explode. If you don’t think Vodka has a smell try pouring roughly a gallon of it into your trunk.
The back seat of my Escape would have forever reeked of a 4 year old’s vomit if I hadn’t made a sacrifice- my lunch bag. I can’t remember why I still had my lunch bag in the car that late in the day. It was still there, so I sent it on one last mission. She filled it with her dinner while I pulled over. Now obviously a zip up lunch bag isn’t going to hold that awfulness in for long. I couldn’t drive home like that. So I dumped it out into the gutter in front of someone’s house (I’m sorry! Please forgive me) and put the now retired lunch bag in the garbage skip when we got home.
My wife once spilled, or rather broke, a jar of cream of chicken soup in the back seat of her Probe. She didn’t clean it out because it was late when she got home from work. then it froze because it was winter in Northwest Indiana and we didn’t have a garage. We ended up just throwing out the floor mat.
Not so much a spill, but we were watching kids for a cousin while she and her husband went on vacation. The kids had been sick but the cousin swore they were over it. Not so much. One of the kids chucked all over the back seat of my car.
Worse than that, I caught the bug they had.
When I was a kid, in helping unload the groceries, I missed the ground beef. But hey, we found it a week later!
Personally and in my own car, a stupid leaky (new, unopened) 5qt bottle of oil sullied up the rear seat in my Sentra, but I do blame myself for that. Shouldn’t’ve put it there in the first place.
A couple gallons of beer. Years back, my then-girlfriend and I participated in Minis on Top, a Mini Cooper-themed gathering where we’d all drive to the top of Mount Washington in NH up the very fun and kinda scary Mount Washington Auto Road.
We picked up some growlers of beer from our favorite local brewery and drove on up the mountain. We we reached the bottom again and rolled our windows up, the unmistakable aroma of beer hit our noses and when we checked the growlers, all were on their sides and leaking out of their entirely ineffective plastic seals around the screw-on tops.
We were local enough that we just decided to drive home after the event. Well, on the way home, I nearly plowed into a moose in the middle of the road. If you’ve never had occasion to look up at a mooses’ undercarriage in an r56 Mini, I don’t suggest it.
Well, my near-miss showed me someone else wasn’t nearly as lucky – a motorcyclist had also apparently had to dodge a moose, but went off the road into the woods where he broke his femur. We had zero cell service and it was around 10 p.m. If you’ve been driving in the White Mountains of NH after 10 p.m., you might be waiting for a long time for someone to happen by in perhaps a more appropriate vehicle, but this dude needed help. My missus squeezed into the back sideways so we could load up this fella with a broken leg and headed toward the next town where we could call for an ambulance.
Well, we say “call for an ambulance,” but this dude really, really wanted to just call his friend to take him to get looked at instead. Turns out, the dude got into his wreck after taking off on the state police who wanted to pull him over.
I found this out from the state police who came to the gas station when the clerk gave them a call when we got there. Apparently, it was well known this dude was being looked for.
So, with a car that absolutely reeked of beer, I had to explain to the cops how I wound up with a guy who was running from said cops in my car. Fun times.
I worked in the hospitality industry as a kid and wad often sent home with food from the kitchen.
The night before I winter stored my 240z, the chef gave me an awesome cut of steak which was saran wrapped and chucked
in the back of my awesome little Datsun.
Come spring, that steak had grown into a monster and the juices leaked all through my carpet under the hatch; the car smelled like I had been storing a dead body for the winter.
Days of cleaning, I tell you.
Nobody is supposed to say bongwater,
But, bongwater,
Other than that, the worst automotive fluid is burned ATF. That stuff makes differential lube smell like cologne. (maybe not cologne, but Axe body spray)
My brother-in-law spilled a jug of 2-part epoxy resin in the back of his car.
More slosh than spill – a caterer’s rickety aluminum foil tray of italian beef, au jus.
‘Cause who doesn’t want party leftovers?
0oo that’s a spill I could live with. Where was the beef from?
Chicagoland
I need a new favorite beef joint. My old one, Teddy’s in Darien, changed management and the recipe, to something completely different and not so good.
You might have to survive on Portillo’s until you can scout another dive.
Or Buona
Something Chicagoans would totally understand.
The ’96 Saab 900 center console cupholder (not the weird dash one but the single one between the front seats) was oddly shallow. Taco Bell XL sodas have a remarkably high center of gravity.
As a result the entire backseat carpet was forever stained by Wild Cherry Pepsi.
Back when I was deep into the craft beer scene (okay, I still am, just less intense), I lined up for the annual Miami Madness drop at J. Wakefield Brewing in (coincidentally) Miami. I got my haul, drove home, and thought I unpacked everything.
Well… Florida heat had other plans. One lonely can, forgotten in my car, decided to self-destruct.
Violently.
Beer went everywhere.
Two back-to-back detailings, a wet vac on every textile surface, more air fresheners than I thought possible… and yet, my car still smelled like the floor of a dive bar.
A dive bar aged in hot leather with notes of regret.
It was actually last weekend, kinda too recent to be amusing to me. Our large dog (Great Pyrenees mix) had a serious bout of diarrhea for several days and I had to get her home from my Mom’s house 2 1/2 hours away. Fortunately I was driving the 2004 Impala cop car with rubber flooring and vinyl backseat so the cleanup afterward wasn’t too bad. Still, she dripped the whole way, the smell was horrible, and windows open on the highway when it’s below freezing was not pleasant.
She’s better now 🙂
Well I was coming home from an evening out with a friend driving my car. I guess he thought I had too much liquid courage. Well when another person is driving I find myself easily prone to car sickness. Well as I am not easily flustered I simply turned my head to the right moved it close to the window and let fly.
Now my Autopian friends who may find themselves in this same predicament learn from me. I can’t stress this enough before doing that final step please make sure your windows are open.
If you think a puddle of vomit on your floor mats are bad try vomit on the window leaking down into the door. Also I find I don’t vomit often but when I do I do a great impression of a fire hose. So think back splash and volume under pressure. I would love to see a video from the other side of the window as I created what can only be called a liquid Jackson Pollock painting.
Your story reminded me of something I saw while I was a TV photographer covering SB 20 in New Orleans. After our last live shot at 1:30 am CST, we tore down our gear and headed out on Bourbon Street back to our hotel. I turned my head just in time to see (and subsequently not be able to unsee) a guy leaning out of one of NOLA’s chartreuse taxis and hurl bright Hawaiian Punch red Hurricane down the side. At least he opened the window. I have a still photo somewhere of the decal inside of a cab (I think it was Baltimore, but…) with a stick figure of someone puking and a $150 price tag attached to any such event.
Gallon of used ATF leaking onto the back seat and floorboard. When it gets hot that shit STILL wicks out of the cushion.
Heading out camping. Soft cooler with the meat leaked the meat juices onto the trunk carpet. We didn’t notice and didn’t need the car for 3 days. That was a windows down drive home.
Thankfully it was a rental.
Unfortunately, the rental place was in the lobby where I worked, I got the look from the guy running the counter for a few days.
I once had to inform a date that in the throes of backseat passion the condom had broken. So, I guess that’s two spills: spilling the condom breakage info to her and, er… the other spillage. Fortunately, the worst consequence was no possibility of a repeat date.
Well, as long as you spilled somewhere that didn’t have 20+ years of consequences, it is a win. Besides, you know what kids do to back seats? I’ll take cleaning up one little stain anyday
My parents kept two empty 1 lb. coffee cans with the snap lid under the front seat of our 69 Ford Ranch Wagon. They’d fit under the seat, sorta.
I managed to kick one of them, pop the lid off and expel my little brother’s puke all up under the front seat. We were on our way home from Death Valley, so it was like a million degrees and we didn’t have AC.
I thought my mom was gonna make me walk home. My dad had to take the seat out of the car to get to the puke so I could clean it out. Because of course they made me clean it up.
Why were they storing vomit? I have used containers for various fluids but they immediately get dumped.
Ever been out near Death Valley? It’s a long way from Furnace Creek to Trona. I was like 10, so dunno why they didn’t stop.
One Friday night, I had to pry a petrified chicken nugget out of the seat track of my Buick Roadmaster. One of my kids had spilled their happy meal in the ol’ girl.
As I was attempting to extract the nugget, I thought to myself “I used to be cool. Girls would call ME and ask ME out on. Friday night.”
Not spilled per se, but my roomie hurled all over the inside of my Peugeot 505 SW8 coming home from a New Year’s party. That was not fun in any way to clean up. Picture the scene from Monty Python and the “wafer thin mint”. She was a big girl who could drink a LOT.
But best story I know off – good friend of mine in high school’s Mom had a Volare station wagon – in Plywood Pleasure Palace trim. One Christmas, they headed over hill and dale to Grandma’s house. Came back with a HUGE kettle of homemade fish chowder in the way-back. Which spilled. GALLONS of fish chowder went down under the floor and every nook and cranny of that thing. A valiant effort was made to clean it up, but come warm weather a distinct aroma, nay *miasma* enveloped the car. Mom got a new car, the Volare was quickly handed down to my friend and his brother. It was henceforth known far and wide as “The Chowder Boat” – seagulls took a particular interest in the car wherever it was parked. MANY high school shenanigans took place in that poor Dodge.
The Chowder Trawler is better
I like it!
“A valiant effort”
I figured it would have been a Volaré effort…
Used gear oil smell probably eventually stinks up the crusher. That smell is forever. Takeout Thai curry smells a lot better while your driving it home blissfully unaware that it’s leaking than it does a week later.
The worst? Took my then toddler kid into a grocery that was having a massive tropical fruit tasting. All of that mixed with whatever dairy was already in her belly ended up in the car seat, front seat, back seat, foot well, seat belts, seatbelt retractor, back of seat pocket, headliner, door panel, door handle, door switches…. If I’m in the tropics and walk past a tree with fruit rotting in it I get triggered. Solvents, q tips, part replacement, me, mechanics, detailers…
This one is easy, half a bottle of ATF… DIRECTLY into a Cole Haan. It stained the shoe a nice dark brown which I was unable to replicate with the other shoe. Also turned a few socks red.
For me, General Tso chicken. In the mustang.
But in another- My friends moms Chevy Tracker. Dropped our 4 or 5 caught fish, and she was peeved for sure! Had me hang them out the window the rest of the drive. Which then left a bunch of fish imprints all over the door. She traded it in like that the next week, with a nice scale pattern.
We had a cooler full of of freshly caught fish. Put some water in there to keep em alive-ish and popped it in the back of my dad’s early aughts Ford Explorer. Well the drain plug on the cooler was loose, and all the water sloshed out. It stank so bad, no amount of carpet cleaning could get it out. Turns out the fish water went through the carpet and into the sound-deadening foam in the subframe.
Chowder Boat Mk II!
Our car club does a chili cook-off almost every October.
It was this event that taught me that the crock pot lid is not chili-tight or on-ramp rated. I’ve since learned to place it in a plastic tote.
#KevinMalonesworldfamous
So you could say you “spilled the beans?” Ha ha
(Unless it was no bean chili)
Dropped a milkshake in our 2007 Odyssey. It bounced on the floor just high enough to spew chocolate shake into the DVD player on the center column. No amount of cleaning/fiddling would make that thing work again. I had to find a new one on ebay and replace it (young kids and road trips).
Seen this story a few times at my old job.
A tip here.
We would remove the DVD or stereo and drop it in a bucket of water for a few days to soak.
No joke.
Then open the unit case, and blow dry with hair dryer and compressed air.
Let sit out in the sun a day or two.
Never lost a single unit by doing this type of repair.