These Are the Essential Parts That Have Fallen off Your Car While Driving

“Notable partings:

“Rear differential pinion gear* (1)

“Rear differential case/housing* (1)

“Rear differential skid plate (1)

“Transfer case (1)

“Exhaust pipe* (2)

“Assorted belts (4+)

“*At highway speed.

“The transfer case incident was, uh, terrain assisted, as was the skidplate... other incident. Landed dead center on a boulder and it sheared the t-case mounts, leaving it hanging by the drivelines on either end once it was winched out. Ratchet strapped it back together(ish) and limped home.

“Skid plate was a trail rock, peeled the thing right off. Exhaust pipes were regular rust defeating my ingenious coat hanger fastening system, belts were all raptured. Pinion gear was from a leaky seal that suddenly decided to part ways, the bearings fried and let the magic oils out. Shattered the gear and took most of the ring teeth with it. Diff housing was on an AWD car, it just... exploded on a commute. Dealer replaced it under warranty; they were just as confused as I was.

“I break things.”

That’s a lot to unpack... and fit back onto your car.

Suggested by: AKBrian

“The floor of my ‘80 Fiesta.. I hit a large puddle, and then the car was full of water and I was dragging on the pavement.”

You call it a hole in the floor, I (an optimist) call it ventilation. And yes, I know they said it was an ‘80 Fiesta and this one says 1978 on it, but the same model was still on sale in 1980 - and I like the color on this one.

Suggested by: Larry Sirgany (Facebook)

“Entire exhaust from the cat back just a couple of weeks ago. It had gotten progressively louder over the week prior but I just figured it was a small rust hole in the cat that had gotten bigger. In fact it was the weld joining the pipe to the flange just behind the cat. Rolled over a speed bump in a parking lot and it finally let go dropping the pipe right on the leading edge of the speed bump. One broken hanger and the rest peeled off the mounts and dropped to the ground behind my now very loud car.

“Another time I had front brake pad material delaminate from from the backer (rust again) and eject itself out the front of the caliper snapping one of the slide pins on the way out. Kinda hairy as the car basically did an emergency stop followed by having no brake pressure until I pumped it a few times. Luckily I was rounding the corner on my street at the time and had a couple of old brake pads at home that still had a little life left in them to get me through until I could get to the parts store.

“My most expensive and potentially dangerous mishap with something flying off my car wasn’t a part of the car at all. We were on summer vacation driving on a remote but surprisingly well maintained rural highway. Because the road was totally pothole free I got completely caught off guard by a huge dip in the road caused by a sunken culvert and hit it at nearly full speed. This would have been fine other than than I had a trunk mounted bike rack with three bikes on the back of the car. The bounce from the dip made the top straps on the rack go loose and the hooks came off the front lip of the trunk lid, gravity and momentum did the rest of the work in creating a yard sale of bike parts across the highway. I watched all this happen in slow motion in my rearview mirror because I new that would be the result as soon as I hit the dip. Very luckily there were no other cars in sight and no one was hurt. 2 of the 3 bikes were write-offs and the third required two new wheels, a seat, a brake lever, a gear shifter and a substantial amount of paint touchups. The trunk lid of the (then 2 month old) car was completely wrecked, there was I giant dent under the license plate from the rack slamming back down after the bikes became momentarily weightless and a big crease and scratch right on the corner from what I believe was the brake lever and shifter of the third bike. All in all it was probably close to $5,000 to replace/fix the bikes and get a new trunk lid. It was also day one of vacation so we had no bikes to use, I felt especially bad for my six year old daughter as I had just restored a nice Giant bike for her over the winter and it was the first time she was going to get to show it off to her cousins.”

Three pretty awful ordeals for this poster, but we’re highlighting their exhaust issues here as it was hands down the most popular response today. Why can’t carmakers fit exhausts better or more permanently?

Suggested by: Unmiurph

“The engine mounts. And then the engine just fell on the front axle and bent it lmao.”

I guess you could say it was the engine that was the most essential component to fall off this car. But, it sounds like that handy axle stopped it from completely coming out.

Suggested by: @TimothyTheFirst (Twitter)

“I had a Fiero, this could get long. It was basically like Hansel and Gretel and you could trace my movement by a path of random parts that fell off it it.

“The stand out example. I had a rear caliper seize up while out of town and I had to go to a dealer because the caliper was an odd-ball thing on that car. While they did the rear brakes, I had they also rotate the tires.

“On the way out, the steering felt weird. I took it back and sure enough, they hadn’t tightened the wheel lugs on one of the front wheels and two of the lug nuts were missing by the time I limped it back.

“The next day, I’m coming off the highway and as I started to hit the brakes, there is a huge bang from the car and it gets all squirrely. I managed to stop the car and checked it out. Both rear calipers had come loose and were banging around inside the wheels.

“This dealership experience stood out in that it was the only time I remember something falling off the car that wasn’t caused by a design flaw from the factory.”

Brakes. I hear those come in handy when you’re out driving.

Suggested by: yeardley68

“86 Ford Thunderbird, rusted out so bad underneath the place where the gas tank straps bolted to rotted through and I dropped the tank on the way to work hitting a bump.

“I thought I was dragging the exhaust until I looked underneath.”

What is it about ‘80s cars and rust?

Suggested by: Raymond Shaw (Facebook)

“My buddy and I were taking our combined 3 kids to the local air show, blasting down the freeway at 120km/h (75 mph), when the splash shield on the bottom of the engine fell right off our 2010 Tiguan. A rather surprising ‘ba-dum-bum’ as the back wheels drove over it, and it was gone forever behind me in heavy traffic.

“Our third party mechanic confirmed no damage, and we decided together it was not worth replacing as this is primarily moms daycare-and-groceries ride.

“Deepest apologies to all those poor bastards behind me on the freeway. We were even in the middle lane when it happened, for maximum secondary impacts.

“Said Tiguan has been rolling with a permanent check engine light since October due to a slightly faulty intake flap that causes a rough idle when cold and nothing else. God bless you VW.

“(Good news is the endemic water pump and timing chain tensioner issues were caught proactively on our end)”

If you can drive around for years without a splash shield, is it really essential?

Suggested by: GameDevBurnout

“1982 Volvo 240 DL: Driving 40 mph and the transmission dropped straight down…”

This does not sound like an experience all of us need to have.

Suggested by: @JonMartini79 (Twitter)

“In high school I drove a 1990 Jetta GLI that had a rather low front bumper. I parked somewhere one time and scraped the curb with it, apparently wedging it in place so that when I backed out my bumper got torn off. This all happened without me noticing, so about an hour later I got a call from the sheriff saying they had my bumper. Good times.”

Is it a bumper or is it a fender? Either way, it’s not something you want falling off your car at any point.

Suggested by: leftylooseygoosey

“Windshield on a brand new 2002 Dodge Dakota with less than 30 miles! The factory forgot the adhesive! The ownership experience went downhill from there!!!”

*Factory worker staring blankly at a pot of glue* Well, what’s that for?

Suggested by: Bernie Balit (Facebook)

“I haven’t had anything fall off. Unless you count the rear bumper of a Pathfinder that had some ... uh... encouragement to fall off.

“But my wife’s Beetle convertible? That had some things fall. Ohhh things fell.

“Muffler? Check.

“Driver’s door? Check... and even more startling that the prior entry... Driver’s window. Check.

“That last one was a shorts-browning spontaneous explosion that had the window decide it wanted to be on the highway and not in the door.

“In fairness...the door didn’t fall all the way off. The hinge rod held it in place (ish). And it was parked.”

“In fairness...the door didn’t fall all the way off” is one hell of a review for the VW Beetle.

Suggested by: dolsh

“I’ve only ever lost a muffler. While doing a burnout. In reverse. In my high school parking lot.”

Video or it didn’t happen.

Suggested by: @Jason_MF_Miller (Twitter)

“Second-gen Honda Insight, brand new and took it into a carwash for its first bath. The dryers blew the plastic roof trim off the car. I had to get out in a drippy carwash with someone waiting to enter to wedge the plastic back into the groove.

“The dealer fixed it and said it comes from the factory only attached at the front, an oversight because someone in accounting thought nobody would ever drive in reverse fast enough to dislodge it. Yeah, I had that car a whole very long year before I got rid of it.”

Clearly, the accountants at Honda never considered consumers like our last commenter, Jason.

Suggested by: dugdeep

“When I was in high school, I caught a ride home from work with another co worker and his dad. His dad thought something felt weird with his van and was just about to pull into a gas station to check it out, but right before he did, the wheel fell off. The tire sped away and smashed into the front of a 1968 Chevvy Malibu 😬”

Wheels, I hear those come in handy when you’re out driving.

Suggested by: Tom Glendenning (Facebook)

“In the 90s, I owned a 1980 TR7. Besides the door handles pulling completely off, the driveshaft completely snapped and was dragging on the ground. These cars were built so incredibly bad, parts that should last a million miles often broke regularly. They deserved to go out of business. I still own a TR6, and it is a much better car.”

This handy diagram from Triumph shows you all the components that could randomly drop off while you drive your TR7. It’s good to keep in the glovebox.

Suggested by: Kickplate