Bees under the bonnet cause Haslingden couple's car to fail MOT (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Bees under the bonnet cause Haslingden couple's car to fail MOT

8:00pm Sunday 15th May 2011 in News By Tyrone Marshall, Reporter

A PENSIONER was shocked when he discovered the reason his car had failed its MOT.

Alf James, 81, was told that a colony of bees had decided to make their honeycomb inside two of his car’s cylinder head ports.

When Mr James, of Park Avenue, Haslingden, took his 11-year-old Peugeot 106 into his local Bosch Car Service garage he was told the ports had been completely blocked by the bees nest.

The retired environmental technician said: “I thought the garage was playing a trick on me, I thought it was a joke.

“My garden is a haven for bees, it’s a real hassle for us in the summer months.

“But never in all my years did I think that the bees would make my car their home.”

Neil Wright, the manager of Bosch Car Service garage G & N Auto Co Ltd, said: “In nearly 25 years of working in this business, I have never seen anything like this.

"The car was misfiring and running badly.”

Mr James had been using his car once or twice a week, which had been running a little bit worse each time he used it.

The problem only became apparent when he took his car for an MOT and it failed the emissions test.

Mr Wright said: “Another garage had been unable to diagnose the problem so it was brought to us for our expert opinion.

“When we started to investigate, there were no bees present in the car so we certainly weren’t expecting to find honeycomb.

“It was amazing that the car was still running, as the rock-solid honeycomb was completely blocking two of the four cylinder head inlet ports.

“Upon further investigation it was found that the bees must have flown into the garage, then under the car’s bonnet, through a gap in the air filter housing, along the air inlet pipe, past the throttle valve, into the inlet manifold and then started to build their nest in the cylinder head inlet port.

“It’s quite extraordinary.”