Squirrels Broke A Car By Shoving Acorns Into The Gear Linkage

As discoveries go when returning to your car after more than a month abroad, this is nuts.

After spending five weeks overseas on the Asian holiday of a lifetime, Andrew Wilkins got back to his car to find that it wouldn’t change gear easily. The lever was stiff and he was having to force it into gear, but it had only sat outside his girlfriend’s dad’s house all that time, so you can imagine the confusion.

He took the Volkswagen Golf to a local garage, at which point he opened the glove box to tidy it, only to find a stash of hundreds of acorns. They weren’t just there, either. The pesky rodents had ripped apart the soundproofing between the cabin and engine bay, and filled the resulting cavities with acorns, too.

Acorns were behind the dashboard trim, under the bonnet and inside the gear linkage assembly, which explains the stiff shifts.

The winter stash had literally been squirrelled away by at least one poor animal that now has no food for the rest of the cold season. Speaking to the Independent, Wilkins said:

“I opened the glove compartment and it was brim full of acorns.

“I hadn’t opened it since I had been back but I went to put a pair of sunglasses in there and when I opened it, eight acorns fell out. You can imagine my surprise.

“I told one of the mechanics to take a look and he said: ‘What the ——?’

“Within 30 seconds, all ten of the garage’s mechanics were gathered around the car having a laugh.”

There was apparently also a dead rat inside the soundproofing area. Always a nice bonus, that. The garage billed the stunned driver £168 for removal of the acorns and the rat.