A mechanic was left bemused after a car had broke down in Scotland because the exhaust pipe was full of hundreds of nuts – probably hidden away by a squirrel.

Daniel Pattenden, 22, went to pick up a Mini Cooper S that his boss had bought but it cut out on the way back and had to be towed it back to the J. Aitchisons garage in Duns, in the Scottish Borders.

It started again but soon faced the same problem, before Daniel noticed there were nuts on the floor behind the car. And when he rattled the exhaust he could tell there were more inside. But after nut then fired out of after revving the engine and kicking the exhaust.

Daniel explained: ‘As I was driving it back it cut out, just lost power. It was like the timing chain had snapped – it just conked out.

‘Then these nuts started coming out the end of the exhaust so we thought it must be full of them.’

He said that the vehicle had been in storage for some time before his boss purchased it, and a squirrel must have been hiding its stash in the car.

Daniel, a mechanic himself, continued: ‘I could hear them in there so we took the exhaust off and knocked them out.

‘There were hundreds of them, we made sure it was clear then put it back together again, now it’s running spot on.

‘It had been stood for a while, parked in a garage, so something like a squirrel must have been keeping its nuts in there.

‘They were quite big nuts, the kind a squirrel would eat, too big for a rat or anything like that.’

Source:
courtesy of BLOOMBERG

by Harrison Jones

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