A Reddit user took to the /r/Autos forum with a “sticky” question the other day. The gear selected in their third-gun Honda CR-V is filled with the oil from a can of sardines. They wanted to know if their car will be ruined with the smell forever, or if there’s any way to get the oil out of the mechanical bits. The response: It won’t be easy.

How does that even happen? User ItsPronouncedLeviosa said, “Long story short, my friends decided it was a great idea to eat sardines in my car, and ended up getting oil all down and in my gear selector of my third gen Honda crv.”

The saga of the sardine can dumped into the Honda CR-V gear selector

Yikes! How does that even happen? Were these friends borrowing the car? Or were they cruising around with Leviosa, casually eating a can of sardines in the passenger seat. Then WHOOPS! a spill?

Leviosa, to their credit, seems to have moved right to the solution-seeking phase. “What would be the best course of action to get that smell out or is it just a waiting game?”

The top commenter warned against ignoring the sardine problem. “It’s def not a waiting game, it’s an oil, it’s not going to evaporate and dry out anytime soon.” Translation: “That smell will be with you till you take care of it.” Sorry Leviosa.

But solving this fishy problem will be slippery, to say the least. “Usually if you break a bottle of olive oil or something the next step is to use a powder to soak up the oil like cornstarch for example and then vacuumed up the cornstarch but that’s not gonna work here.”

Why won’t it work? The gearshift lever connects to a series of mechanical bits that connect to the transmission linkages. A pile of cornstarch and sardine juice down in there could keep the lever from moving properly.

The commenter went on to suggest cleaning up as much oil as possible without knocking anything down into the gear selector assembly. “Take off the panels, disconnect the battery and carefully wipe every bit you can find with a paper towel.”

So what next? ” Then try something like iso to break down the oil and make it easier to remove but also be really careful cuz there’s oil in all plastics from that era so getting any on the trim pieces may result in discolouration or delamination.”

Translation: Perhaps a gentler cleaner on some paper towels. But again, probably try it on non-visible plastics first to make certain it won’t turn your interior into a tie-dyed mess.

The commenter had a final piece of advice for Leviosa, “If it were my car I would leave that friend in the woods.”

Agreed, whoever this friend with a taste for sardines is, their CR-V-borrowing privileges are revoked. You can see the original post embedded below:

Sardine Oil dropped into gear selector
byu/ItsPronouncedLeviosa inAutos