Miniature goat and edible underwear among the weirdest things left in cars at MOT time

Pets, false teeth and even a sleeping baby are among the surprising items discovered in cars by mechanics carrying out MOTs and servicing.

Garages across the UK have been revealing the bizarre things left by drivers when they drop their cars off for maintenance as well as some of the random excuses for their vehicles’ poor state of repair.

Among the rabbits, kittens and dogs apparently forgotten about by careless owners perhaps the most surprising pet left in a car was the miniature goat discovered by one garage.

Other unusual finds over the past year included a mannequin, a mankini, edible underwear and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, a sleeping baby whose parents were waiting on-site and hadn’t wanted to wake the child by removing them from the car.

The survey of 9,000 garages by comparison site BookMyGarage.com, also asked mechanics for some of the most eye-opening excuses for cars being presented in a shoddy state.

Top of the list for many was the dreaded phrase “I watched a video on YouTube”, guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of any trained mechanic when you explain how you managed to make a simple problem worse. In a similar vein, Google has a lot to answer for with a troublesome number of customers claiming the instructions they found online made a job look easy.