It is a fact of life, over times screws loosen and things fall off. It could be poor maintenance, procrastination, unexpected impacts or just plain forgetfulness, but the result is the same; a trail of parts behind you as you drive down the lane.
1. Hubcaps/Center Caps/Trim Rings
If your car has steel wheels, it most likely has hubcaps or wheels covers to make the wheels look more attractive. Trim rings just dress up the edge of the wheel closest to the tire. Both of these are fixed on by clips and, sometimes, sprung wire hoops. Usually, wheel trim stay fixed to the wheel pretty well, but it’s worth checking every few weeks when you check your tire pressure to make sure none have worked loose. On alloy wheels, there is typically just a small center cap, but it can also come loose, and you are less likely to notice when it does.
But these things don’t usually work loose on their own. Often, hitting a pothole or a roadside rock can flex the wheel or give the wheel trims a knock that’s enough to loosen them or knock them off. If any of the car’s wheels do get a whack, check the mirror to make sure you don’t see one of your hubcaps spinning away into the scenery. The same applies if you give the wheel a scrape or a knock when parking – it can loosen the wheel trim, even if it doesn’t knock it off.
After-market hub caps and trim are cheap enough, so it’s not the end of the world if you lose one. But the factory-fitted wheel covers, or center caps are another story because these often cost about three times more to replace than you ever imagined possible
2. Exhaust System/Muffler
If you hear a rattling from underneath the car, the chances are your exhaust is trying to tell you something. Exhaust systems don’t only fail through corrosion and holes – sometimes they fail mechanically while they’ve still got lots of life left in them.
The exhaust follows a complex route along the underside of your car, held in place by an collection of hangers and U-bolts. If a bolt or rubber hanger fails, the exhaust can drop and flex far more than it was ever designed to, leading to further failures.
It’s a lot cheaper to have a loose exhaust secured than it is to replace a broken or lost exhaust (no, really, a LOT cheaper), and tying it up with a bit of string doesn’t count. You definitely don’t want to be faced with a long drive home in a car that sounds like a Russian tank with your exhaust left lying wounded and battered in a roadside ditch. Even worse is running over your own exhaust pipe, or causing an accident behind you with it.
3. Oil Filler Cap
We’ve all done it. You're doing everything properly, right up until the very last minute. You check and top up the oil, top up the water level, refill the washer bottle, and check the brake and power steering fluid.
All OK? Oh wait, you have to throw that empty plastic oil bottle into your recycling bin. OK, you head back to the car, shut the bonnet, check it’s properly latched and head indoors for a nice cappuccino and a cookie.
Only you forgot to screw the oil filler cap back in.
The best-case scenario is that you wonder what’s rattling under the bonnet as you drive off, realize what it is, stop and re-secure the oil filler cap before you smell the telltale sign of oil splashing on hot engine parts. More likely, you’ll drive off and only figure out what you did after the filler cap has dropped out on to the road and been lost forever. This is bad, but not catastrophic. It may smell bad, but very little oil can escape through the filler on a modern car, though you can get water or dirt into it that way. Replacements are as close as your local auto parts store.
4. License Plate
It starts out as one of those minor parking dings where you scrape the front of the car on a rock or even just a grass median. No harm done, except that it’s very easy to loosen or break the license plate mount and not realize it.
If you’re license plate falls off, you can get it replaced without too much difficulty, but it does involve a trip to the DMV. Better still would be to get the old one back on properly. Besides, a missing license plate could get you pulled over by the police, which is embarrassing for a decent law-abiding citizen and positively disastrous if you’re an international super-villain of some sort.
5. Engine Undertray
If you drive a low-slung car over a rough road, or off-road for some reason, you can expect to hear some unpleasant scraping and thumping noises from underneath. Apart from making you wince, this could be having more serious effects. Most cars have a plastic engine splash shield to protect the engine and improve aerodynamics, but this can get loosened, damaged or dislodged.
So if you hear some rattling from under the car, or you see something dragging that shouldn’t be, get it checked. It’s a lot cheaper to get loose parts re-attached than it is to replace them when they’ve fallen off.
6. Bumpers, Fenders and Body panels
That goes for other exterior body panels too. Sometimes these are attached with disappointingly insubstantial clips that can become brittle, break or just spring off following a minor impact.
It’s one of those jobs that it’s easy to put off. Yes, the front/rear fender flair seems a little loose, but it hasn’t fallen off yet and it looks difficult to do, and you’ve got a busy week ahead etc etc.
But this could really come back to bite you. If a body part falls off while you’re driving, it will almost certainly be damaged beyond repair. Body panels for new cars can be ruinously expensive, even before having the paint matched, and for old cars they can be increasingly difficult to get in good condition. You could be facing a huge repair bill or a respray, all for the sake of a quick trip to the repair shop.
7. Side View Mirror
We all know exactly how wide our car is, but that driver coming the other way may not be quite sure and clip your door mirror. When you’ve finished advising them about the state of their eyesight, you should check your mirror. If it’s been loosened on its mounting, the repair shop might still be able to save it, but if you keep driving until it falls off and clatters down the side of your car in a tangle of wires, screws and glass, you could be facing a bill for more than just a new mirror.
8. Groceries
It’s like a disaster movie in slow motion, made all the worse because there is no one to blame but yourself for the catastrophe. (1) You arrive at your car but your hands are full, (2) so you put your grocery bags on the roof of your car while you feel in your pockets for your keys, (3) but someone or something distracts you, after which (4) you open the door and get in, then (5) drive away, probably smiling, while (6) your groceries are scattered across the parking lot like the wreckage in a Transformers movie.
Be warned. This can also happen to your favorite Ray-Bans, your smartphone, your briefcase, your pastrami and caramelized onion sandwich, or your priceless Bob Dylan vinyls. This may be at the bottom on our list, but it could be the one that hurts the most.
