Big Car Club - MPV and SUV Forums

Has anybody else ever found that the Mk2 Galaxy (and Sharan/ Alhambra presumably) has a black hole for swallowing up fasteners and any other small objects you are unfortunate enough to drop into the nearside engine bay when working in the battery tray area? Several times now I've lost screwdriver bits, sockets, screws and bolts into an area around the gearbox mount- some I assume must have dropped into the hollow chassis leg never to be seen again!

I was doing an oil and pollen filter change the other day, I took the wiper linkage out to make this easy and dropped one of the linkage retaining bolts down behind the battery tray- I could see it so no problem I thought, I'll get it out later. Went to put the wiper linkage back and the bolt dropped down further- right into a blind crevice behind the gearbox mount! I could see it but just couldn't reach it, no access from below, I could've got it if I'd have had my telescopic magnet with me but alas that was elsewhere and with the vehicle in bits I had no way to get it! In the end, I ended up having to remove the battery and loosen the battery tray and the ECU bracket from the chassis to open up enough space to get the little sÃ,£!t out, and even then it didn't come quietly, I was absolutely SEETHING  >:( , all in all that one bolt wasted about an hour and a half of my time!

Butterfingers  :)

In my defence  it's not (always!) happened because I've just clumsily dropped stuff, sometime with hard to access nuts & bolts the tool you are using gets snagged when trying to pull it clear and whatever is on the end drops away, though yes, having large hands is a bugbear for working on cars, at least the modern stuff where access is quite often so limited!

I've found them to be a black hole you can pour money into and never be seen again!