Car-engine pearoast
A car near mine in a car park started, then abruptly stopped. The young driver got out and scratched his head.

I strolled over and told him 'One of your battery connections has jumped off the battery. You need to get it back on.'

He looked at me as if I was mad but when he opened the bonnet, there was the connection, waving freely like the erection of an adulterer caught in flagrante making his escape.

I knew that click/dead sound of old from years of owning diesel vans. The engine vibrations shake the battery connections off. My kids used to be sent to the shop to buy a KitKat so I could wrap the foil round the connection to tighten it.

Impressed a boyfriend with this knowledge too. Reader, he married me.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sun 16 Oct 2011, 1:03, 6 replies)

Nicked from elsewhere -
Here's a doozy. I went up to the bottle-shop to get some beers after work 1 night many years ago in my Ford Escort Ghia (auto - & that's important later). Completely straight, sane & sober. Come out of the bottle-o (where I know the guys quite well), jump in the car. Won't start.
Now to be fair this beauty did have some dicky electrics so within about half-an-hour I end up cleaning the battery terminals, checking the alternator, starter-motor & the plugs and points (steadily gathering a crowd of blokes all offering little bits of advice). Eventually Clayton (who worked @ the bottle-o but was a drinking buddy at the local pub) suggested that I might want to put the car in "park" or "neutral" rather than "drive" in future in order to start my car with automatic transmission...
Car in park, starts 1st time & off I go home rather sheepishly to enjoy my beers. The missus just about wet herself laughing.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 16 Oct 2011, 1:13, closed)

I hope I'm wrong but I have a suspicion I replaced a solenoid on an old Daimler because of this very thing.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Sun 16 Oct 2011, 1:22, closed)

Had this with my current landie. But the problem was I'd had issues with the starter motor terminal working loose, so you couldn't start it. Every time this happened, you're filled with a sense of dread of "oh shit, has it given up completely, it's pissing it down outside and I've now got to crawl underneath and wiggle the wire". Luckily a quick check of N/P and it burst back into life...
( Alex Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver!, Wed 19 Oct 2011, 0:10, closed)

Baco foil
Or any aluminium foil works just as well. Been there done that.
(Mackeson_drinker, Sun 16 Oct 2011, 7:59, closed)

KitKats are cheap if you're out and about though,
plus the kids liked them.

I'm told that only the multipacks have foil wrappers now. That'd've pleased the brood.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sun 16 Oct 2011, 22:59, closed)

My old Landie had this happen to it, the Negative had popped off on the way back home. Got home and thought it a tad odd that the radio had turned off without any beeps, and then that the central locking wouldn't work.
Opened the bonnet to find that the negative wasn't attached, god knows how long I'd driven like that!
( Alex Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver!, Wed 19 Oct 2011, 0:06, closed)