I got under the hood of a "friends" LTD wagon and rearranged the spark plug wires. I truly felt terrible after that and wished that I didn't do such a thing.

I used to break in to a friends Volvo and move it around. I don't know if it was a prank. It was convinient when you didn't wanted to walk. Pour bastard...he was the guy that always had the parties because we told him so.

FInally we crashed the car into the fence to a Harley Davidson Club...not the nice kind.

I was a mean kid!

I'm not proud of this, but I poured sardine oil down the windshield defrost vent of a brand new for pickup. The truck didn't deserve it but the a-hole owner did. He traded the truck a month later.

for = Ford

I wasn't part of it...but some people I knew duct-taped half of the headlights of my friends ratty '85 Cavalier, so when he went out to drive, the lights were incredibly dim...needless to say my friend was incredibly dim as well and couldn't figure out what was going on...

something with a base coat of honey then a top layer of toliet paper on a chilly winters' evening. forgot what was spelled but it did not come off for quite a while

My only car prank is very weak - my friend and I both had Escorts, and it turned out my key stared his car, so I turned it around while he was out.

Although, a couple years ago, BMW ran a commendable series of adds (the one I remember most was their promise to create a Canadian Autobahn).

I attached a firecracker (the kind with two strings, when you pull them it goes off) to a friend's clutch. When he left we were all outside watching as he completely flipped out. He thought his Jeep was on fire. Funny stuff.

We used to pick up the back end of a friends old yota and move it to the other side of parking lots. He started to think he was losing his mind because he could never remember where he parked.

When I was a kid (I think 10-11), I woke up in the wee hours, stole my dad's car keys, and moved his van down the driveway so you couldn't see it from the house. I then went running into their bedroom and screamed "Dad, someone stole your van!!" He woke up and ran outside in his tighty-whities, all in a huff to see the van gone! He started cursing and ran back inside to call the cops only to find me rotflmao. That man loves his dodge caravans.

Potato in the tailpipe. Oldie but a goodie!

We used to drink in the parking lot of my employer in high school--either after work or on days off (the theory being that if the cops showed up, I could rush inside like I was checking the work schedule)

One night while waiting on a buddy to close up the restaurant, I hopped into his 3-speed '68 Ford pickup (this was 1996) and the rest of the crew pushed the truck through the drive-thru after closing time. I banged on the window and demanded to order. He, of course, was very pissed off when he figured it all out.

We also tried to push-start it in the same parking lot, but the cops showed up before we could get the needed momentum.

A (20 year old) whistling willie on the ignition of my dad's lawyer's '62 Jeep pickup. Due to its advanced age (the firework, not the truck), it didn't go off until he was pulling out of the driveway. It made a very impressive cloud of smoke, but the odor of gunpowder gave it away before we could sell him a new engine.

When I was younger me and my friend found a giant roll of stretch wrap and we completely covered a random car and also wrapped up traffic cones with it.

Also, I used to put those exhaust pipe whistles in neighbors cars as a kid.

The most common one that I still do to this day is whenever I get in a friends car before he/she gets in I change as many things as I can like I move the mirrors, turn on heater, wipers, headlights, radio settings and I always remember to pop the cigarette lighter so that it pops out about 15 seconds after they get in. It's so simple, yet so funny to me.

A few years back, I purchased a flagging Detroit automaker and told the world it was a "marriage of equals."

My buddy and I pissed all over our friends car's door handle's in the middle of winter. Yeah, we're jackasses to each other.

I poured a pack of flour through a friends sunroof... well actually it was his mum's car... this happened late at night.. he had to clean the car all night so his mother wouldn't know about it.. she had to drive to work in the morning in that car... and didn't know here 14 y/o son sometimes borrowed her car for night trips with friends.

@PatFromGundo: hahahahahaha

I set up an entire dinner for one on the hood of a guys crappy Buick GTX complete with lit candleobra, tablecloth, the whole shebang....the joke was NO woman would ever go on a date with him in that chunk....so he was doomed to eat alone.......good times!

Best Prank I ever did was when I worked at a Landscape Company. I had been there so long, I could get away with just about anything.

I drove a Dodge Stake Truck (with a 4 speed) and one day, one of the other employees ticked me off. I don't even remember what it was. Anyways, I saw his car in the parking area and butted my truck up to his car's rear bumper. He couldn't move forward (building) or backwards (my truck). I put the truck in gear and locked it up.

I went in a quickly as I could, grabbed the spare keys as well, signed out and went home. About 30 minutes after I left, my phone rang. It was the owner asking where the keys were to my truck. "In my pocket, I must have forgotten to turn them in, sorry!". "Ok, where are the spare keys?" I paused and said, "Gee, I'm sorry, I have them too. Don't know why. Must have grabbed them by mistake too"

"Ok", the owner answered, "can you come back to the office as quick as possible and move your truck, it's blocking a car". I replied "Sure I'm on my way".

It was normally a 15 minute drive to work via the expressway. Well, it was SUCH A NICE DAY... I took side roads, arriving about 45 minutes later. I fiddled with the keys, got in side, "Fought" with the clutch, and finally moved my truck slowly out of the way. He took off is a blase of gravel and dirt and I parked my truck in his spot.

I turned to see the owner wiggling his finger, telling me to come into his office. I entered and he told me to close the door. "You know, I have no idea what he did to you, but what ever it was, it had better have been something bad". I told him what it was, and we both just laughed. "You know, I am going to have to split you up now, don't you?"

That was my plan all along !!!

We moved people's cars a lot. But we never had the keys to these cars, so we moved them by picking them up. My friend's Tercel ended up in her front yard more than once.

We also moved what we thought was a girl we knew's mid-80s Accord so that it was parallel parked very tightly between her friend's house and the pole for the basketball hoop. Then we used chocolate sauce to draw a big phallus on the hood. Turns out it was her friend's dad's car. And it didn't run. Never did find out how long it sat there...

A guy I know was at a wedding, and the groomsmen pranked the car the couple was going to drive away in. One of the things they did was put glitter in the AC vents and turn the fan to high. When the car was started, the whole thing filled with glitter, covering the bride and groom. Apparently they were still finding glitter in that car and on their faces years after the wedding. I always thought that one was just way too mean.

I was in a Jeep club and we used to steal the soft doors off each other Jeeps. It sucked when you came out and found yourself doorless on a cold/wet/snowy night.

A friend and I lifted the back end of my sister's Festiva, and turned it 90 degrees within (mostly) a parking space while she was in the store.

Would have been funnier, but before she got out of the store, one of the cars beside her had left, so she was able to drive out without any trouble.

In college, a friend of mine and I took a road trip in my Merkur XR4Ti. I was driving, and when my buddy was distracted, I flicked on his seat heater (located on the center dash). Pretty minor, but before he caught on (about 10 minutes), he probably thought he was coming down with some strange disease.

We put blocks under a guys car, just barely raiseing it off the ground, he gets in it guns it and goes nowhere, but we forgot to allow for the tire getting bigger as it spun, it finally graps and shoots across the parking lot. Pretty funny

Had one of my employees run a wire from my headlights (dim side) to my horn and then flip on the brights. On my way home I dim the lights and the horn stays on getting me the ole stink eye while I'm in traffic.
They laughed about that for days.

We filled an employees trunk with those styofoam peanuts. She was pretty pissed when she opened the trunk on a winday day at her church. She stayed pissed for a while on that one.

If you take two cans of cheapo shaving cream and immerse it in liquid nitrogen... and then (using gloves and sharp tools) peel off the can, you will have a solid chunk of frozen foam.

Two of these chunks of frozen shaving cream will fill and slightly pressurize a 1960s VW bug.

(This of course hearsay. I wouldn't know anyone who would do this. I don't hang around that sort of people. p.s. Barbasol workd better than any of the 'gel' type brands)

Me and a couple of very large friends were out on the town one night and came out of an establishment to find a car double parked in front of ours. We were behind some restaurants so we took the small car and pushed it in between the building and dumpster. Sideways. We didn't stick around to see how they got it out.

We covered one guys Trans Am in beer labels one night (peeling them off the bottles while we were drinking them).

My roommate had the old air cooled VW Beetle and one of our neighbors stuck an entire bag of Xmas bows all over it. That was actually pretty cool looking. They stuck for quite a while too.

I PUT FISH GUTS IN THE HUBCAPS OF MY BROTHERS CAR,ALL 4 WHEELS. DEAD CAT IN MY FRIENDS PICK UP. ROTTEN EGG UNDER THE DRIVERS SEAT OF A DELIVERY DRIVER WHO WAS A DICK. PUKED IN A BUDDIES CAR. THE SPUD IN THE TAIL PIPE GAG. LEFT THE WINDOWS DOWN AT NIGHT DURING A SNOW STORM TO A BUDDIES CAR. PUT COW SHIT IN MY R.A'S CAR IN COLLEGE. NOW MY KIDS ARE PAYING ME BACK!

Not intentional, but funny nevertheless.

Back in college I was the only one with a car --a '79 MGB. The starter went out again (I think for the 3rd time since I bought the car -- thanks Lucas) and my two friends with me had to give me a push start if they wanted a ride to the mall. They were pushing and straining for all they were worth in the Florida summer sun but they could not get the car going fast enough to start it. Just before they passed out from heat stroke, I looked down and realized the parking brake was on -- oops. I took it off and said give 'er one more try and they got it going no problem. I though it was pretty funny seeing their straining faces in the mirror. They weren't laughing too much...

Best ever...turn the car off, turn the AC fan on front defrost and high fan speed. dump one bottle of baby powder down the windshield defrost outlets, crank the radio, sit back and wait for the unsuspecting victim. poof...

A kid in my high school got a brand new trans am when he got his driver's license (wealthy family). Some other students, who must have been jealous as they were not his friends, covered the hood with pennies. The kid had to carefully take each one off so he didn't scratch the paint.

This happened to a business compatriot of mine while travelling in Dallas: She (a Colts fan) pulled a prank on her co-worker and it involved his New England Patriots leather jacket.

The next morning her rental car (a white Mustang) is covered with slogans such as "Cowboys suck", etc. She gets to a meeting and commends him on a fine prank and he admits he had trouble finding her exact car.

It turns out he had decorated every white Mustang in the hotel parking lot to make sure he got hers.

Backwards writing on the windshield with a transparency pen. Even if you can't get in the car - they're convinced someone is.

Great for wigging people out.

My dad put a very ripe old mackerel on the exhaust manifold of a friend's Volvo Amazon. Not only did it produce respectable amounts of smoke, but a hard-to-forget olfactory sensation as well.

@DWMILLER: Let me guess, they stole your caps lock as an April Fool's prank?

oh yeah. I just remembered this one after reading a few of yours. I would spread peanut butter under the exterior door handles of cars and then wait and watch as the person trying to get in their car got the PB all over their fingers.

A friend of mine broke into my car (while i was on a first date, mind you) popped the hood, wired a rocket ignitor and a green smoke bomb to my ignition, set it up next to the vent intakes, and turned the fans on high. When I came out after a show with my date and tried to start the car, green smoke started poring out from under the hood. I turned the fans off before anything got into the cab, but the girl was more than a little confused as to why I was laughing my fool head off while my car was evidently combusting in a noxious green cloud.
Amazingly enough, she went out with me again.

2 of them

1) In high school, my friends and I took a geo metro and stood it on end, against a concrete wall. It stood straight up!

2) Brought a bunch of tools with me one day, and during lunch a couple of friends disconnected the rear drive train from a buddies mid 80s suburban. left him a note, saying "you left your drive train at home."

he had to drive home in 4wheel using just the front axle.

it was hilarious.

Back in college we burried a roommates Geo Metro in snow after a big storm & made it look like an igloo.

He didn't drive anywhere for a week.

I have two. The first is a bit boring but funny. I took the holes from a hole punch for weeks and then put them into the windshield defroster vent. When my friend turned his car on it blew them around the car like confetti.

The second was much better. In high school a "friend" upset me. I took my grandfather's 12 gage powered Hilti Gun and a length of boat anchor chain. I wrapped the chain around the axel of the truck and then used the Hilti Gun to bolt the chain into the concrete. Needless to say the fire department needed to come out to cut the chain and release the truck…

Once a sunroof was left cracked open by an unsuspecting victim, so we filled the entire thing with tennis balls that had been collecting for a few months, and then cellophane-wrapped the entire exterior and topped it off with some marshmallow peeps.
Also, around the NCAA football championship time one year we Florida'd an OSU fan's wheels.

We used to move people's cars around with Go-Jacks. You'd be amazed how many back-and-forths it takes to get out of some situations.

At my wedding, the pastor pulled the line to the starter relay. We do the whole "run past all your friends" thing, get in the car, and...nothing.

It was my dad's 68 Mustang, which he'd spent a ton of time and money getting ready b/c we were taking it on our honeymoon (thanks Dad!), and he turned pale white. It's one of my favorite pictures from our wedding.

The pastor (an awesome car guy) pulled the hood, reconnected the wire, and we were off.

When I was in college, our spoiled brat neighbors kept throwing throwing eggs at our house. So someone (probably some sorority girls) smeared peanut butter on their front door. So the next time we had a party, one of the neighbors took a dump in our shower. Someone (probably some sorority girls) then took a dump in their pool. One of our neighbors broke into our house, and put a large amount of feces on each blade of our ceiling fan. Luckily, we could smell it before we turned on the fan. Several months later one of our neighbors got a Land Rover. Immediately thereafter, someone (probably some sorority girls) broke into their house, used their blender to mix 1) part of a dead grouper 2) human feces 3) canine feces and 4)a mix of hot sauce and water. This concoction was smeared onto the HVAC filter of the house and all around the inside of the closet that held the HVAC components. This concoction was also smeared all over inner engine compartment of the land rover. If the sorority girls would have been a little smarter, they would have drilled a hole in the vent system of the Land Rover and poured in the concoction. Although it is possible that girls were unable to access the vent ducts because it is not possible to do so without unlocking the car and that despite ransacking the house looking for the keys, they were unable to find them. Who knows? Sorority girls are crazy.

So when are we going to see the "We are sorry to say Jalopnik has been aquired by PetersonPublishing.net" piece?

*hanging head in shame*

And I thought cable ties around the drive shaft was pushing the limits.

But then I don't want to damage other people's property.

@PatFromGundo: Brilliant prank.

Find an expensive rare car in a parking lot--one that looks very babied. Leave a note on the windshield apologizing for damaging it, saying you are truly sorry and that you love the car, but lamenting that you have no insurance. Since you feel guilty, you wanted to leave the note as required, but you left out your name and contact info. because you have no insurance and can't afford to repair the car.

Of course, there is no damage to the car . . . .

When my younger brother got married, I bought a jar of limburger cheese and spread a bunch of it on the exhaust manifold. The remainder, in the open jar, went under the drivers seat...

The car was his new Sis-in-law's Pinto, (it was quite a long time ago), and they drove from central Ohio to Sandusky to go to Cedar Point. Well the cheese on the engine burned off during the drive, leaving just a bit of lingering smell. But the jar under the seat vented off quite nicely while parked and locked up on the amusement park parking lot during the next days hot, summer sun.

Brother said later that they could almost see the fumes flickering inside the car when they came back and could smell the cheese from yards away. And the smell soaked into the headliner fabric and never did come out!

The owner of the car NEVER forgave me for that stunt!

@InternationalSuperspy: Speaking from my experience as a groom, DO NOT put glitter in a car. It will never dissapear!

@MarkB: Haha. That happened to my buddy once. He was passed out in his car and someone shrink wrapped him inside of it. he had to poke his way out with a tire iron.

This one's more of a delayed action, long lasting prank. I once patted powdered milk into the faded grey seat fabric of my HS buddy's 85 Mustang. After a few good hot summer days his butt sweat started to sour the powdered milk in the seat making his car (and his pants) smell like sour milk. It was so bad he poured a whole bottle of febreeze on his seats and then the car had a whole new kind of stink. Not something I'd ever do again because there really was no way to get that smell out...

@estern: No idea how that one works, seen it, but I am not sure how it does what it does.

One time, someone put dead fish under the windshield wipers of my friend's car, then toilet papered the car.

My friends and I used to put discounted old fish filets all over the windshield of a certain person's car. I thought about doing it the one week where we kept having freezing rain but I thought it was too cruel...

Another time, my friends put dog crap under the door handles of someone's car then sat and watched from a distance as the person went to get in their car. The man just looked at his hand for a long time, then wiped it off in the grass and drove to work.

My stance is anything goes as long as it doesn't do any permanent damage...

Since my first car was an '87 corolla I was the victim of many "pick up the car and move it while he's away" pranks. Although, one of my friends had a late 80's cutlass that could be started without the key, so I could retaliate.

My favorite though was one day in high school, some kids tied a HUGE pink stuffed animal to the back of someone's car, then shoved it underneath so the person wouldn't know it was there until they got on the road. Everyone in the parking lot stopped what they were doing to laugh at the poor bastard. The next day it ended up on someone else's car. It got passed around like that for a couple months until it disintegrated.