Tools? This is not going to be pretty or quick.

You have steel and plastic in various sizes and configuration. You have a heavy frame on which to pound, bend, and abrade materials into shapes of your fancy.

Screwdrivers: standard configurations could be made from the window-moving rods found when you pry open door panels. With more abrasion, Phillips, Torx and hex screwdrivers as at least theoretically possible. Keep your eye out for small metal parts whose thickness allows them to be used as-is for screwdrivers.

Wrenches: thinner metal bent around to pinch a nut or bolt-head can work for smaller, less stubborn parts. Oil dripped from the dip stick and left to soak might act as penetrating oil to add lubrication on more stubborn fasteners. Adding small metallic pieces to the inside the lug-nut socket should allow it to get a grip on fasteners of smaller than lug-nut size. Note that the hollow-tube jack-handle pieces are usually designed to be added to the tire-iron to increase its leverage, use them for more stubborn fasteners. Keep your eye out for straight-sided, slotted metal parts that might serve as wrenches.

Hammers: sturdy, heavy things that can be used to pound should be found as you dismantle the vehicle. The tire-iron can be used for some of this but is probably too valuable except for initial use to get to other hammer-usable stuff.

Prybars: Much like hammers, just look for suitable scavenge and the tire-iron can be used initially.

Saws: Plastic, and with more time, metal teeth can be abraded out of straight plate material.

Cutters: Sharpened metal plates bolted together to "close" closely together should be possible. Pruning-style hooks with sharpened inside edges can be abraided into being.

Knives: staight metal with an edge abraded on one side.

And I am sure the collective has those in it who can think of many more.

Aw dweste you stole my notes. I was getting ready to make those exact same posts ... uh, really. That'll teach me to be quicker on the draw next time. Reading through your survival solutions, I have now modified my post zombie/rapture/killer meteor/whatever apocalypse plans to include going to the local car lot.

Ok, all kidding aside, I am afraid I haven't anything to add. I am still a bit overwhelmed by all the info in your posts. You have obviously thought this through quite a bit. Your thread has been both challenging and, at least for me, very educational.

I am sure there is a goldmine of possibilities still remaining on this topic. Hopefully someone who really knows cars will post. For example, I am not comfortable with using pieces of the vacuum assist / pollution system because I do not know what, if any, substances exist in its various parts that might be toxic to humans.

I am not sure it is deserved, but thanks for your praise. You are most welcome.

the underlying point of the thread is to think about what you might want to add to your survival kits to aid in using the resources found in abandoned or disabled vehicles.

In the movie The Yellow Rolls-Royce, staring a 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II, the main character's cooling system was used to boil water.
The horn is a signaling device.
Headlights are a source of light.
The radio is your source of news.
Inside the car is a good place to be in a lightning storm or anytime the weather is bad (except when there is a tornado).
Even good weather, a car makes good shelter. Just roll down the windows when it's warm.
The jack can move a heavy object several inches.

Jeanette Isabelle

Anybody know of other survival uses for vehicle electronics or fluids?

A friend commented that the various interior and exterior light housings should provide bowl-like containers and perhaps a parabolic reflector or two that might focus enough sunlight to be a fire starter. He also reminded me that oil fires generate a lot of thick black smoke: signal fires.

Might you use one of the metal "containers", filled with oil and with a strip of fabric, make an improvised lantern?

I believe this would create a smudge pot producing mostly greasy smoke, but I am sure our more "technically-inclined" members has run this experiment and can report the results.

Ack! Cough! Maybe not then except perhaps as a signal fire, but I think we've covered that already.

That's exactly my problem, I don't really know cars that well. i am also not very mechanically inclined. That being said, though, assuming I wasn't trying to keep the car mechanically usable, if I needed a part from the vehicle for survival purposes I'd be doing my best to get it. At least some basic tools would make the task much easier I would bet: a basic wrench/ratchet set, hammer, pliers, adjustable wrench, etc. But perhaps that discussion is best left to a new thread eh?