I had to take the dash board skeleton clear out of my 1999 Ford F550 to get to the heater box. The defrost/vent door had come loose of the pivot shaft aand the a/c was blowing all the cold air up onto that hot windsheild. Not the ideal set up.

Only way to buy a new door was to buy the complete heater box at the tune of 200 bucks. I don't think so chump. I McGuyvered the fix for free. \

When I got it all back together I only had one screw left over. I was pretty darn proud of myself. It werked flawlessly.

Needed to replace the heater core in my late mother's 80 Mustang that had A/C back in 1985ish. Called dealer for ballparl cost $200 for the core, $600 for labour..says it's an EIGHT hour job! A non-A/C job is like 20 minutes(2 hoses, 2 screws,yank and dun).Had to remove 1/2 the dash,'free' the Freon,a Real PITA job. Took me 2 1/2 hrs and I had 5 or 6 'extra' screws.sigh.not a big deal.heater worked and no squeaks.

Total cost was $20 for a new Ford/OEM core.got that from my customer.

 Shoot Thad,,,more'n one way to skin a cat besides f*** UMmmm never mind,,,,,,

 Chit I always thought you was susspossed to have some screws left over,,,,just to proove the Mfgrs used too dang many,,,,,

I heard many times and have seen in new vehicles extra screws...one may be damaged or missed on assembly.

Vehicles go down the line pretty fast and when time runs out, extra parts get deposited in vehicle, sometimes not necessarily near where the were meant to be.

I spent many years with coworker who worked on assembly line for big-3, same story.

 

One cold night the wife and kids were coming home after Christmas at my parents.  I was in another car.  By the time we got to our house, and they pulled in the driveway, I could see that the windows were down a couple inches.  Hmmm.....that's odd, it's like 0 outside.

 

Well, the heat was stuck on full.  Not the fan, but the damper.  I   started to look into it.  What fun!  Laying across the door sill, head by the accelerator, just about enough clearance under there for you hand, I tried to take out that motor, you could loosen it but didn't have the clearance to take it all the way out.  Funny thing though, I turned the key on to test it out and see if I could see it moving, and it closed!  With it loose, you could turn the control up and down and the motor worked perfectly.  So I thought maybe something had stuck, and exercising it fixed it if at least temporarily, so I tightened it up.  It worked, until you went full heat, and it would stick again.  I stopped at the dealer and told them what happened.  Naturally they want to interrupt you 25 times and tell you what's wrong.  I finally got done telling them all I had checked and observed, and they said, "That can't happen, blah blah blah...."  Well, I'm here to tell you, it CAN happen, I can make it happen time and time again.  "No sir, you see, it's blah blah blah....."  OK then, what will it cost to have that replaced?  Holy crap, they told me it would be a time and materials job, had to disconnect air bags, disconnect all this crap, remove the dash, then the part was $800, etc....etc....No job in the book so just shop rate per hour.  Mmmkay.....I left.  Went home, loosened the screws so it freed up, tightened them then backed each one out 1 turn (metal screws in plastic, so still held good).  Worked perfectly for the rest of the time I owned the car.  But that can't happen.