Most Manufacturers only provide tools for changing a tire - ie. tiny lug wrench and jack I wouldn't bet my life on.

A couple examples of things mentioned in the thread that are hard/nearly impossible to get to without tools (or breaking the thing you want).

Remove Battery - good luck without a wrench. Top mount terminals are rather fragile and the battery case cracks easily if you over torque them while trying to force off the clamps. Side mount terminals are even worse.

Remove head light - same challenge -getting one out without trashing it will be very difficult on my cars without a decent socket set and screw driver. Not sure I could bust my way through enough stuff to get to it just using the lug wrench and jack (at least without breaking the light or something else that might be useful).

Remove spark plug - without tools? - you must be a whole lot stronger than I am. Lug wrench won't fit or even reach.

Cut up tires - really? It will be tough to get the tire off the wheel with the tools available but probably do able with some brute force and perserverance. Cutting the tire (modern steel belted radial) with "knife" improvised from the mirror?You'll be working on that for a long, long time.

Improvising a knife from some glass? Most of the glass won't make for a good knife - safety glass will tend to crumble and the windshield is a laminate that will be tough to get something out of without hurting yourself. That actually brings up another question - gloves? Not usually included in the basic car kit.

Airbag - remove it intact - forget it, nothing in there worth dying for. Bash or short the trigger switch on the bumper, maybe but how am I going to cut it loose after that - no knife and that bag is tough!!

Removing a fuel line without tools - you might be able to brute force it off but I hope you like bathing in flammables. Not something I would try to beat or lever off using the jack or the lug wrench since a spark would be uhm... unfortunate.

Typical torque to remove major bolts is in the 90 ft/lb range and sparkplugs are in the 7 to 30 ft/lb range. Maximum human pronation (twisting with your arm/hand/fingers) torque is right about 1 ft/lb. You might be able to beat / lever things out but anything that requires removing bolts/nuts is just not in the cards without some simple tools that are not part of the car as it is sold around here.

-Eric

WHY the criteria of no tools? You're asking ETS PEOPLE here!

Like all of us run around without some tools in the car???!!! How stupid is that? And what would be the point? The title of this website is EQUIPPED to Survive, not 'Incapable of Surviving'!

Sue

The scenario specifically includes whatever tools the manufacturer of the car provides with a new vehicle.

The scenario specifies it is not your vehicle.

This is a thought experiment to learn from each other what might be scavenged. Wrecked and abandoned vehicles as a class tend to be common enough, even in some remote areas, to be fair game for this type of consideration.

There have to be some limits in a scenario. As previously posted, the scenario specifies you do have the manufacturer-supplied tools. Also as previously posted, I originally thought the scenario would involve people's EDC, but the thread took a different turn and now we are not exploring the application of EDCs to the scenario.

This is not a what-would-you-scavenge-from-your-car-if-stuck scenario. It is specified you are not dealing with your car. Think of it as you are in a contest to demonstrate all the possible survival items you could scavenge from the car.

The implications for your EDC, BOB, car kit, car tool kit, etcetera, are probably pretty obvious, but the brain trust will also probably post some ideas that will lead you to think of some modifications and additions to those kits.

Taking a lead from the Rule of Threes, what could challenge your ability to breathe and what in the vehicle could help you meet that challenge?

Perhaps a smothering, particulate- or ash-laden, cloud or other airborne breathing threat? Using the engine air filter, heating-air conditioning hoses, and seat coverings and insulation you have a shot at creating a breathing mask system defending your airway and lungs.

Perhaps invading water, or a need to use a waterway to survive, brings drowning into the picture? Air-filled tires and foam seat-filling both float, and ropes of scavenged wire-harness twisted or braided together could lash them together. Some of the smaller fill or overflow tanks, such as those for coolant or windshield washers, might be scavenged and sealed with seat foam plugs to add buoyancy.

The next of the Rule of Threes you might not want to violate is being without shelter for more than three hours.

The intact sedan cabin is a shelter from wind and rain in moderate temperatures, but is less able as shelter from temperature extremes.

For cold, it seems to me you would want to scavenge everything that might as as insulation from the rest of the car and to line the cabin. This would include all noise insulation in the engine compartment, the material insulating the cabin from engine temperatures, there may be hood and trunk lining material, also. You will probably want to set aside some material to wrap around yourself. As the scenario specifies the vehicle has some fuel, selective running of the car heating system will work for a while.

For heat, the sedan cabin could turn into an oven. You could put the insulating material on as a cover, expecially to prevent windows from creating a solar oven. It likely at some point you will want to encourage the evaporative cooling effect of your own sweat, so you will set up for shade and airflow by opening all doors. As the scenario specifies the vehicle has some fuel, selective running of the car cooling system will work for a while.

If you needed to leave the vehicle, then the scavenged material needs to become wearable insulation. Use of scavenged wire, thread, or strips of material from seat covers or belts, can become fasterners, thread, or lacings. Think hooded parka / great coat that you can also sleep in / under. For rain and heat, an improvised umbrella might be handy. Door or insulation panels may be light enough to form the basis for an umbrella, though improvising an umbrella frame may be the main challenge. The various door and window operating rods, and various exterior and interior trim pieces, might be light and bendable to be used for umbrella frame purposes.

Water is next up as the Rule of Threes you do not want to violate.

I am not aware of any drinkable water normally part of the modern sedan. I would love to learn I am just ignorant on this point!

So I think what you can scavenge is limited to things that can act as digging tools, tools for gathering, holding containers, filters, and boiling vessels.

Any sturdy metal thing could be used for digging, such as a hubcap, door handle, etcetera. You will, of course, have to supply the know-how to find a water source.

If there is dew / condensation that gathers on the car, then you need to harvest some form of cloth with which to wipe-up-and-squeese-out that water into a holding container. Edit: Of course, you use the cloth to gather dew / condensation anywhere you can find it in your environment, too.

If there is rain, you will want to use the body of the car, any waterproof fabric, and perhaps air hoses to catch and lead water to holding containers.

Holding containers might include scavanged drink cups, storage compartment liners, map and document pockets, and clean air hoses that are plugged at both ends.

Filters for dirty water might include the engine air filter and any fabric from outside the engine compartment.

With creativity you may be able to fashion a solar still using windows, air hoses, and a holding container.

With similar creativity you may be able to fashion a solar oven to Pasteurize water from, say, a tire, a flat window, and a boiling container.

Boiling vessels might include any holding container that is metal, and of course, fire, which will be addressed later.

To avoid violating the Rule of Threes you need to find food within three weeks.

Food is not standard equipment with any recent model sedan of my acquaintence. But scavenging such a vehicle might help you get some food.

What you are hoping to find or make are hunter-gatherer tools. So, hunting, fishing, and gathering, including digging are in order.

Any substantial metallic bit that is not too heavy for you could be a digging tool. Bar or rod bits can act as digging sticks, pickaxes, drills, etcetera, to penetrate earth, lever up stones, pry open woody plants, etcetera. Hubcaps, flat pieces, slightly curved sheet metal, etcetera, can stand in for shovels, hoes, rakes, etcetera, and when sharpened can be crude saws, pruners, eetcetera. Sharpening can be against substantial vehicle frame members or any handy roadway material, rocks, etcetera.

Digging tools can get you roots, corms, tubers, truffles, rhizomes, and a plethora of insect foods [yum!]. You can also dig pit and bottle traps typically effective to catch anything from rodents and reptiles to larger prey if you dig large enough pits.

Digging tools also get you bait for other traps, snares, fishing, etcetera.

Metal bars, such as the one usually found to prop the hood up, can be a formidable multi-purpose spear when sharpened. whether thrown or thrust, you may be able to subdue reptiles,amphibians, fish and mammals. If you find a metal bar or narrow strip with both strength and flexibility you may have the basis of a bow, when paired with a wire bow "string", and improvised arrows [from light metallic tubes like an antenna or light, straight plastic].

Wire can forms the nooses of snares to seek game of just about any size. You actively hunt reptiles and amphibians with snares on the end of longer pieces of metal [as well as wood and other things that might be available in the environment]. Wire can be twisted into fish hooks and gorges, with other wire used as your "line" if need be [think poke-pole fishing]. Wire can be used as tripwire for deadfall and other traps. Wire can be knotted or woven into nets to actively seine fish or create passive fish traps placed in streams or rivers.

Plastic and thin metal parts can be abraded and sharpened into knives, spear / arrow points, fish-hooks for fishing and snagging, and fish and frog gig heads, sling and sling-shot ammunition, etcetera.

Simply placing floor mats and similar scavenged material in moist areas often draws worms, grubs, and various insects under their cover. The morning harvest could tide you over.

Using you scavenged and crafted metal and plastic knives, if you found wood materials in the environment you could craft many other food finders. Such knives also let you clean and portion whatever food you have obtained.

Some suggest that the final part of the Rule of Threes should recognize a need to experience human contact within three months. I am uncertain about this myself, and will not address this except as part of scavanging other survival categories of stuff such as signalling or communications, navigatioon, etcetera.

Too much of me in this thread, so I will skimg through what might be scavenged in my categories of First Aid, Shelter, Fire, Water, Food, Navigation, Light, Signaling, Self-protection, Hygiene, and Morale.

First aid: relatively straight stiff parts such as window mechanism rods for splints and braces; wires and fabric to secure splints, braces, and dressing;, small sheet metal parts ground sharp to cut or shave whatever must be cut or shaved; light sheet metal bent to use as forceps / tweezers; springs straightened to use as needles / awls and small sections used as clamps for wound-closing and bandage-holding; heat from near but not over fuel-based fire to "sterilize;" "sterilized" sheets of seat foam as dressings / bandages; one or more mirrors to give yourself the once-over - especially in areas not otherwise visually available to the normal person for injuries, bites, tick removal, etcetera; and longer metal pieces padded with seat or other insulation as crutches.

Shelter: , except to note environmental resources like trees suggest heavier sharpened metal be used as an axe or ground against frame members or rocks into crude toothed saws.

Fire: Starters would include the lighter, spark from wires connected to the battery, any traffic flares, and steel parts which may prove to generate sparks from rocks in the environment. Fuel might include: any rubber, such as weather stripping around windows, doors, trunk, and hood; seat and headliner fabrics and padding; and, very carefully, any remaining gasoline or diesel.

Water: Already addressed as a Rule of Threes item.

Food: Already addressed as a Rule of Threes item.

Navigation: There may be a useable standard or electic compass onboard. whether or not there is a working clock onboard, you can use any straight rod-like item to set up a sundial to tell time and another placed in the center of the "dial" to do the halfway-between-the-center-rod-shadow-on-the-time-and-12 noon is north [in the northern hemisphere] trick. You may also be able to use a magnet, say from the vehicles speakers, to magnitize a light needle-like piece of steel or iron, which will align itself north-to-south when you float on the surface tension of a liquid [it can be fiddily to make this work]. Strips of any material can make trail markers, especially if brightly colored or metallic.

Light: The battery powered lights will last for a while. If you can remove the battery and wire up one or more of the smaller 12-volt brake or tail lights the power should last longer and have some portability. Wrapping material around a longish metallic piece and soaking it in fuel can make a crude torch. Filling a metallic container with soil and soaking the soil in fuel may be used in the same way.

Signalling: Obviously, light can be used, smoky fire can be used, metallic fabric and mirrors can be used to "flash," metalic and brightly colored fabric can be fixed to anything tall and bare as signal flags, and large X's, perhaps three in a row, created out of material or scrapped into the ground can create signals highly visible from a distance, including the air. Any traffic flares can be great signal, especially at night. And by all means use Onstar if available and working.

Self-protection: The creation of spears, knives, slings, slingshots, and possible bow-and-arrow have previously been mentioned. Alarm-sounding stone-in-a-metal-container or noisy wind-chime-type arrays can be hung up attached to trupwires wherever you think best. Many smaller vehicle pieces may be used as missiles. Any edged or blunt tools you have created can serve a defensive purpose.

Hygiene: Mirrors can play their customary roles. Water acquisition, etcetera, has been addressed as a Rule of Threes item. Dedicated persons can sharpen metal razor sharp, and abrade crude combs into being from metal or plastic. Coarse fabrics could be used as rough scrub brushes, but not I think toothbrushes. A plastic sliver could be abraded and smoothed to form a toothpick or fingernail cleaner. You could fashion a Roman / Greek style strigil [a small dulled crescent-shaped tool] to remove dirt along with sweat by scraping them off.

Morale: Game pieces for playing chess, checkers, cards, and dice can be fashioned over time from smaller pieces of fabric, plastic, or metal. Loose nuts, screws, and whatever can act as objects for which you are gambling. Crude drums and other noise-makers could be made, and something approaching music might be created. Throwing games using scavanged or crafted items also come to mind.

These are just some off-the-top ideas. I look forward to whatever the brain trust chooses to add.